It has been said time and time before that exercise is beneficial to one’s mental health. You’ve heard it from doctors, therapists, counselors, family members, friends, and the internet. Exercise is often seen as a form of treatment for mental health problems. “Oh, you’re depressed? Why don’t you join an athletic sports team? Oh, you’re anxious? Why don’t you go for a jog around the block?” It is true that exercise releases endorphins, which can have a positive effect on your mood. Exercise also has multiple health benefits, for example its cancer-preventive aspects, effect on cardiovascular fitness, immune system boosting properties, and overall body wellness. So, yes exercise is good for you (water is wet), but exactly how much exercise is needed to positively impact your mental health?
Correlating exercise level with mental health might lead some people to think that marathon runners and football stars must have the most sound mental health of all. Let’s take a look into our brain to see if high levels of exercise actually lead to a better mental health. When you exercise moderately, it increases one’s neuroplasticity (which relates to endorphin intake). This is why moderate exercises such as walking, yoga, jogging, and bike riding are recommended for people with mental illnesses to take part in weekly. Yet, when exercise levels are raised to the caliber of a Olympic soccer player or a professional cyclist, exercise starts having a negative effect on mental health. This is due to the intense stress high impact exercise has on your sleep schedule, life, body, and mental capacity for such stress factors (also don’t forget about the presence of overtraining and sports related injuries).
There’s lots of research backing up these facts, but it involves words like “hypothalamic pituitary axis” so let’s leave the high tech science talk to the actual scientists. An article published in the journal of Preventative Medicine said that the best amount of exercise for one’s mental health is between 2.5 and 7.5 hours per week. Carol Garber, professor at Teachers College of Columbia University, said that if you exercise more or less than a recommended amount, you will exhibit more symptoms of depression, anxiety, and poor mental health. Therefore, moderate exercise has a great effect on your mental health, but remember to steer clear of too much and too little amounts of exercise. Spread this throughout the mental health community to clear up some misconceptions surrounding the relationship between mental health and exercise.
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