Exercise and Mental Health

Mental Health

• Exercise improves
  • Mental Health
  • Emotion
  • Mood
• The National Institute of Mental Health
  • Recognizes exercise as a valid treatment for anxiety and depression.
• Exercise is self-empowering
  • Bring responsibility toward self
• Positive addiction
  • May replace negative addictions
• We don't know (Landers)
  • Optimal intensity or duration
  • Optimal mode
  • Dose/response curve
  • Time course (acute)
• Law of initial values
  • Relative values - ceiling effect
  • Lower initial value - greater potential for improvement
  • Unfit, anxious, depressed - greater improvements
• Exercises' effect on emotion
  • Fit vs unfit - lower anxiety for fit
  • Chronically trained / adaptation - lower anxiety
  • Acute bout of activity - lower anxiety

Exercise and Mental Health Theories

• Hatfield 1991, Dienstbier 1989, McCubbin 1992, Crews 1987, deVries 1968, deVries 1972, Horne 1984
• Time out
• Master environment
• Body image
  • Dramatic effects in weight training studies
• Biochemical
  • Norepinephrine, Epinephrine
    • Prolonged stimulation -> ACTH -> Cortisol
  • Dopamine, Serotonin, ß-Endorphine, Enkephalins
• Thermogenic (Body Temperature)
  • Synchronized Cortical Activity (EEG)
  • Decrease muscle spindle activity
  • Stimulates Serotonin
  • Increase in slow wave sleep (Deep sleep)
    • High intense exercise
    • Passive heating
• Toughening
  • Exercise conditions us to better cope with stressors
  • psychologically and biochemically

Exercise May Improve Mental Functioning

• Learning & Catecholamines (Dienstbier 1989)
  • Many studies demonstrate that better students have higher levels of Catecholamines (Norepinephrine, Epinephrine)
  • Animal & human catecholamines studies (McGaugh 1983)
    • When peripheral catecholamines are depleted through drug manipulations, retention of learning is adversely affected
• Acute mental benefits of exercise (Tomporowski 1986, McGlynn 1979)
  • Exercise performed before the mental task
    • May improve performance
    • Mixed Findings
  • Facilitation of mental performance
    • Moderate intensity
    • During or immediately following exercise
    • Greater effect for fitter subjects