Can exercise help improve depression, anxiety and distress?
Mar 24, 2023
The British Journal of Sports Medicine has published a study titled “Effectiveness of physical activity interventions for improving depression, anxiety and distress: An overview of systematic reviews.” This review of reviews looked at ninety-seven reviews, which covered 1039 trials that included 128,119 adult participants. The authors found that physical activity had medium level effects on depression, anxiety and psychological distress with the strongest benefits seen in people with depression, HIV, kidney disease and in pregnant or post-partum women. Higher intensity physical activity was associated with greater improvements in symptoms.