Move yourself happy! How to exercise to boost your mood – whatever your fitness level
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Loading... - Emilia Castillo
- 30 Jun 2022
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Everyone knows the benefits of exercise: stronger muscles, more energy, weight management, better sleep. A mood boost is often tacked on as a bonus. But there is stronger evidence than ever before that movement not only improves your mental health, but also protects it.
Depression is the fourth most serious disease worldwide, yet the psychological benefits of exercise have been overlooked, says Jack Raglin, a professor of kinesiology: “The evidence just keeps on coming.”
In fact, even if you were to exercise for the sake of your mind alone, it would be well worth doing – and the good news is, a little makes a big difference. Here’s how to move yourself happy.
How does movement boost our moods?
It’s widely believed that the psychological benefits of exercise come from the release of endorphins, but that is an oversimplification. “The evidence for that is really weak,” says Raglin.
Instead, when we exercise, we produce a cocktail of hormones, including endocannabinoids – all of which contribute to making us feel good. Endorphins are produced at a certain intensity of activity, but the mood-boosting effects of exercise are felt at a much lower level.
What kind of psychological benefits are we talking about?
Multiple and pronounced benefits. Not only does exercise increase positive “affect” (or emotion), it decreases negative affect, equating to a one-two hit of good feeling.
A single “dose” of exercise can improve your mood for several hours, says Raglin. But not only are the benefits “immediate and perceivable”: with a regular regimen, they can accrue over weeks. “In other words, there is a long-term and continual improvement,” he says.
Exercise has also been shown to be effective in treating clinical anxiety and people admitted to hospital with psychological disorders. But there are also large benefits to be had for those who have above-average levels of anxiety but fall below the standard for clinical diagnosis, says Raglin.
How active do I need to be to feel psychological benefits?
If your primary aim is to improve your mood, the bar for what counts as exercise is far lower than it is for weight loss or fitness gains. “You can see very large psychological benefits with low-intensity exercise,” says Raglin. “It’s not like the longer or harder you exercise, the better you feel.”
This is especially relevant if you are new to exercising. “People have been preprogrammed to think about exercise in terms of physical benefits – they think that if they’re to get something out of it, they have to get sweaty or tire themselves out,” says Raglin. “Thinking: ‘I don’t enjoy that, it’s hard, I’m out of shape, I’m old’ can scare them out of starting. But if they think: ‘I mainly want to do this to feel better’ – that’s all they need.”
Doing 15 to 20 minutes of aerobic exercise three times a week is where you will see the “long-term, more profound” benefits, says Raglin – but any “dose” will have an effect. “Walking for five minutes can be a mood lifter,” he says. “The dosage, the ‘pill’ that you need to produce a psychological benefit is quite small, and very palatable.”
Julia Basso, an assistant professor in the department of human nutrition, foods and exercise, studied the impact of different activities on mood, including high-intensity interval training and moderate to vigorous workouts, and found that even a simple exercise such as walking produced profound effects on mood. “Just getting out there and moving your body through time and space really helps,” she says. Read More...
