How Does Exercise Improve Our Mental Health?

We’ve all heard that exercise is good for keeping a good mood and maintaining our mental health. Have you ever wondered why that is? What is it about exercise that is good for our mental health? The body of research on this subject is growing steadily.

Deslandes et al. conducted a rather comprehensive review in the journal of neuropsychobiology titled Exercise and Mental Health: Many Reasons to Move. In this article, we will break down and simplify the findings of this paper, as well as some of my own opinions on why we are all fundamentally happier when we exercise consistently. If you’d like to read the paper for yourself, you can find a link to it here.

If you need a quicker answer and want the bottom line then it’s this: exercise serves as a potent treatment and prevention tool for depression, anxiety, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease primarily by making your brain and vascular system more resilient to stress. Of course, none of this is medical advice and if you want to inquire about your own mental health please refer to your primary care doctor or a psychiatrist.

Exercise and Major Depressive Disorder

The first relationship this review looked to study was how exercise and depression are linked. This as well as the other disorders to be mentioned were studied in an elderly population. They found that around ~22% of people of an elderly age dealt with depression to some degree.

The studies they included looked at how exercise serves to prevent depression as well as treat it once someone has it. They found that both anaerobic and aerobic exercise had an inverse relationship with symptoms of depression in both aspects of treatment and prevention. Anaerobic exercise refers to something like weigh training and aerobic exercise refers to something like a long jog.

Across all studies looking at people who used exercise as a treatment for depression, they found that 45% of people had a total resolution of symptoms. However, they found another interesting data point. The number of people who had a placebo treatment and saw resolution of symptoms was higher than expected. This led to the author’s concluding that simply taking some step towards healing can be the best thing you do for yourself, no matter what those steps are.

Exercise and Alzheimer’s Disease

Again, the author’s looked at this relationship in the context of treatment as well as prevention. In terms of prevention they found that a significantly lower percentage of people who consistently exercised developed or were at risk of developing Alzheimer’s. The authors stated that exercise served as the best lifestyle factor for preventing this disease.

In terms of treatment, they also found exercise to be very beneficial. Of course, it might be a stretch to think exercising will cure someone of Alzheimer’s Disease. However, they found that 30 minutes of exercise per day was enough to significantly reduce hospitalizations and symptoms of depression in Alzheimer’s patients.

Exercise and Anxiety

Exercise’s effect on anxiety is a newer and lesser studied area than the other three disorders mentioned in this article. It was not examined in the review referenced above, however, Stonerock et al. conducted a systematic review that looked specifically at how exercise influences anxiety disorder, which you can find here. They looked at twelve different studies that included people suffering from anxiety disorder who were at least 18 years old. Their conclusion was that exercise showed a significant benefit as compared to a placebo. Further, many of the subjects looked at were also taking a medication. However, those who were on medication and exercised improved more so than those who took medication without any exercise.

Exercise and Parkinson’s Disease

This is the last disease that the author’s looked at. Again, they found that Parkinson’s disease was experienced at a significantly lower percentage by those who exercised consistently than by those who did not.

In terms of treatment for those who had Parkinson’s, the studies reviewed showed that exercise improved their gait, motor coordination, walking skills, and decreased the amount of falls they experienced. These can all be powerful factors to increase the quality of life of someone suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

How exercise affects all these diseases

To truly understand the science behind how this happens requires a rather deep understanding of brain biochemistry. For the purpose of this article, I will leave you with the spark notes of how it happens. Essentially, our bodies become better at handling the compounds and molecules that promote these diseases, such as free radicals and reactive oxygen species (ROS). At the same time, exercise promotes the production of compounds that protect us from these diseases, such as IGF-1, serotonin, dopamine, etc.

My personal opinion on why exercise makes us happier

Everything we have discussed thus far has been outcome data as well as some hypothetical thinking regarding the brain chemistry as to why exercise helps. There’s another though that I have on exercise in general which is why I think all people can be made happier by it.

As individuals, there are different thing that bring us joy. However, I think there is one fundamental concept that makes us all happy. That concept is progress. In terms of life, that could mean graduating from school, getting your dream job, growing your investments, seeing a new country you haven’t been to yet, etc. In terms of fitness, you could make progress in your performance, your looks, your health, and more.

Essentially, I see exercising as another outlet where we can consistently progress and improve in. Even if nothing else is going our way, we can still be improving in fitness and there can be some comfort in that. This is also why if everyone stuck with some exercise regimen for long enough, you will begin to love it and look forward to it- even if you think you hate it.