Moving for Mental Health

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If you’ve been reading these weekly emails for a while now, you’ll know that physical activity is incredibly important for health and performance. Exercise improves cardiovascular fitness, strengthens muscles and bones, and boosts energy. Physical activity also decreases the risk of numerous diseases including cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancers, type 2 diabetes, and obesity.

But physical activity also improves mental health. Physical activity has been shown to reduce symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression. Studies have shown that people who are physically active tend to be happier people. And even a single bout of physical activity can boost mood! 

We know that for optimal physical health, you should get a mixture of aerobic, strength, and flexibility training. But what kind of physical activity should you do to improve mental health?

While some studies have found that higher intensity exercise and resistance training can improve stress, anxiety, and depression, most of the research suggests that aerobic exercise is the most beneficial for mental health. In fact, several systematic reviews have found that moderate-intensity exercise can decrease depression, even in individuals with major depressive disorder. 

While this could partly be because more research has been done on these types of activities, there are a few reasons as to why aerobic exercise could be the most beneficial mental health. 

1. Aerobic exercise is anti-inflammatory. Inflammation is an important and necessary part of functioning, however too much can cause problems. In fact, many diseases and conditions are associated with chronic inflammation, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. But chronic inflammation is also apparent in people suffering from depression! This could be one reason why aerobic exercise has been shown to decrease symptoms of depression and improve mental health. 

2. Aerobic exercise is meditative. Aerobic exercise can help ease stress, anxiety, and depression because in this type of exercise you can allow your mind to wander. Moving your body in a repetitive motion (e.g. through walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, etc.) puts your mind into a meditative state. This is also known as muscular meditation. Doing long, repetitive exercise at a moderate intensity allows your mind to forget about the stresses in your life and focus on the task at hand.   

This doesn’t mean that other types of exercise aren’t good for your mental health, and if you enjoy lifting weights or doing yoga you should continue to do those things! However, if you’re feeling stressed or anxious, a long walk might be the right exercise to choose that day!

What are we finding in the research?

On Thursday, the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology released the first 24-hour movement guidelines for adults. With Canadians’ physical activity and mental health declining during this pandemic, these guidelines were released at a critical time.

These new guidelines are exactly in line with our mantra, as they integrate physical activity, limiting sedentary time, and sleep, and acknowledge that all of these factors influence the others. For example, if you increase the amount of time that you’re standing, you’re also decreasing the amount of sedentary time. 

Here are the main takeaways from the newly released guidelines: 

1. In addition moderate and vigorous intensity activities, light activities are also important and contribute to a healthy lifestyle. This means small day-to-day movement such as standing, walking around the house while you talk on the phone, chores, etc. can improve health and should be incorporated into your day.   

2. Limit your sedentary time to 8 hours per day or less, with no more than 3 hours dedicated to screen time. It’s also recommended to split up long bouts of sitting with movement. 

3. Prioritize both quantity and quality of sleep. This means having a screen-free bedtime routine that you follow at the same time every night.  

Most importantly, they acknowledge that while hitting all of the targets is optimal, reaching any of the targets improves both physical and mental health. Instead of finding more time, it’s all about optimizing the time you do have. Basically - some is better than none.

Learn more about these guidelines and find more resources at https://csepguidelines.ca/!