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Breif Synopsis of Studies Related to Exercise and Mental Health
Improved mental health and exercise appear to be related. There are several studies that demonstrate this relationship. Mental health is defined by cognitive, behavioral and emotional wellbeing. The state of someone's mental health can be leveraged by mood, memory, motivation, sexual interest, and symptoms pertaining to mental illnesses.

The first study that I would like to address is Hearing’s critical review of the effects that physical exercise has on mood disorders. Hearing conducted a literature review on the effects of exercise on mental health and abstracted that “…exercise impacts both the physical health parameters of mood disorders as well as mental health outcomes.” There appears to be an alleviation of symptoms that are common with mood disorders due to exercise. Hearing et al. goes to state the physiological phenomena that appear to be related to the antidepressant effects of exercise. These physiological mechanisms of exercise on the brain are Brain-derived neurotrophic factor and Oxidative stress, both of which deal with brain chemistry alterations. Hearing summarizes the review with a call to action that states further research needs to be done. Hearing’s critical review entails a general conjecture that essentially shows the promising effects of exercise on mood disorders.

Now that the cause and effect relationship of exercise and improved mental health appear to exist, we can look deeper and see if we can extract more evidence to back our claim. A study by Anne Bowker from a Psychological Canadian Journal essentially revolves around the question: Does sports participation increase self-esteem in pre-teens? The short answer is yes, but there are several implications that can be drawn from this study. One of which is that exercise is important for young people’s mental health. This can also signal a need to pay more attention to sports and recreational activity for the youth. Bowker writes in the conclusion “The challenge for researchers and physical health advocates will be to convince educators of the merits of physical activity, starting in early childhood and ultimately developing into a life-long habit of healthy living” Bowker believes that sports participation increases physical self-esteem which transcends into an increase in overall self-esteem. This can imply that sports and recreational activity are integral for emotional and social development in pre-teens.

There is a journal entry in Prim Care Companion J Clin Psychiatry Ashima Sharma that looks at the physical aspects of exercising and how those aspects affect mental health. For example, chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes are linked to anxiety and depression. Having a mostly sedentary lifestyle increases your chances of getting such chronic diseases. Sharmaet al. investigates the physicological phenomena, as did Hearing, of exercise effects on the brain. Sharma goes on to write “These improvements in mood are proposed to be caused by an exercise-induced increase in blood circulation to the brain and by an influence on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and, thus, on the physiologic reactivity to stress. This physiologic influence… plays an important part in memory formation as well as in mood and motivation.” Sharma is essentially saying the body has a mechanism that reduces stress via exercise. Sharma also addresses other theories of why exercise positively impacts mental health. Sharma writes “While structured group programs can be effective for individuals with serious mental illness, lifestyle changes that focus on the accumulation and increase of moderate-intensity activity throughout the day may be the most appropriate for most patients.1Interestingly, adherence to physical activity interventions in psychiatric patients appears to be comparable to that in the general population.” The last sentence is very important because it implies exercise can positively effect someone’s mental health regardless of them suffering from a mental illness. Exercise can be a supplemental treatment for the mentally ill but there also seems to be promising evidence that shows a positive effect on mentally healthy people. Sharma addresses the general benefits of regular exercise as “Improved sleep, Increased interest in sex, Better endurance, Stress relief, Improvement in mood, Increased energy and stamina, Reduced tiredness that can increase mental alertness, Weight reduction and Reduced cholesterol and improved cardiovascular fitness.” These benefits can be applied to the general population regardless for their state of mental health. Sharma closes the article with “Further studies should be done to understand the impact of combining such interventions with traditional mental health treatment including psychopharmacology and psychotherapy.” Exercise can be implemented in many ways and in many treatment plants. However, there needs to be more research done to figure out the right treatment plans and their effectiveness.

Coming off the words of Sharma, the next study that I am looking also addresses the physiological mechanisms that are induced by exercise which in turn positively influences mental health. The article I am referring to is Biological mechanisms underlying the role of physical fitness in health and resilience by Silverman and Duester. The two authors go into detail about how exercise reduces stress which in turn reduces the chance of getting several chronic diseases. Essentially exercise halts and or slows down the disease process of several chronic illnesses. The authors go on to write “Physical fitness appears to buffer against stress-related disease owing to its blunting/optimizing effects on hormonal stress responsive systems, such as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the sympathetic nervous system. This blunting appears to contribute to reduced emotional, physiological and metabolic reactivity as well as increased positive mood and well-being.” That is the critical idea of this article. The body as several responses to exercise and some of which appear to increase mood and well-being. The authors end the article with “In summary, the mechanisms whereby physical fitness promotes increased resilience and well-being and positive psychological and physical health are diverse and complex.” The authors are signaling that there needs to be more research on the topic as the biological mechanisms are very intricate and understanding them can be vital for treatment plans.

The next study I look at is particularly addressing the elderly population. Nicola T Lautenschlager et al. states there are several areas of focus in this study ranging from cognition, mood, aging, et cetera. The authors conclude that exercise can be a treatment for cognitive impairment and depression. The authors go on to write “It can be seen that physical activity, like a number of other lifestyle interventions, holds the promise of better mental health outcomes for older adults. Such an intervention has the advantage of being safe and inexpensive and produces a wide range of health benefits.” Exercise can be seen as a preventative measure to chronic diseases later in life but, there seems to be evidence to abstract that it's helpful for the mental health of the elderly. Once again the authors say further research needs to be done to investigate further these claims.

The next case that I look at is a World Psychiatry entry by Stuart Biddle et al. . Biddle is pushing the narrative that the associations between exercise and improved mental health are clear. A reoccurring theme of most of the pieces that I looked at, is a need for more research to be done to cement the association. The association than can be used to create treatment plans and advisories for patients and the general public. Biddle states a astonishing statistic that “…Dishman et al5 reported 20‐33% lower odds of depression for active groups in prospective cohort studies.” Cohort studies are longitudinal and look at the processes before a diagnosis of a certain disease. The study Effect of Aerobic Exercise on Improving Symptoms of Individuals With Schizophrenia: A Single Blinded Randomized Control Studyby Wang et al. entails the effect of aerobic exercise on schizophrenia patients that are on antipsychotic medications. The results point towards a positive impact of aerobic exercise on the symptoms of schizophrenia. Wang et al. concluded "The results of this study indicate that AE can improve negative symptoms and general psychopathology in antipsychotic-treated patients with schizophrenia, and this improvement in symptoms can be maintained. There also appears to be a greater aleviation of symptoms for severe cases of schizophrenia when the patient performs aerobic exercise. The authors go through all the sampling measures and organizes the data coherently. The implications of this study can be that even in extreme cases of mental health there appears to be benefits to exercising.