Exercise is good for your body, which is why doctors have been telling us to get more of it for decades. Now that a growing body of evidence suggests it's also good for our brains, a team of psychiatric researchers is arguing medical professionals need to go a step further. Instead of merely recommending exercise as lifestyle advice, the team says they should prescribe it.
According to the team’s new viewpoint paper published in Genomic Press, which draws on randomized trials, meta-analyses, and cohort studies, the neurological benefits of exercise are a result of the muscle-brain axis. When we contract our muscles, they release myokines (signalling proteins that act like hormones). These myokines influence our brains through metabolic, inflammatory, neuroendocrine, and neurotrophic pathways, affecting both our cognition and psychological state.
Read more: “Gentle Exercise May be More Effective Than Medications at Managing Chronic Pain” According to the team, our mood gets the bulk of the benefits from physical activity. Exercise interventions can relieve depressive symptoms, calm anxiety, alleviate psychological distress, and even reduce suicide. And it doesn’t take a lot of movement to start seeing these benefits.
While the World Health Organization recommends getting 150–300 minutes of moderate activity per week, dose-response analyses show that 75 minutes per week is enough to boost psychological wellbeing. It has to be possible,” study author Nicholas Fabiano of the University of Ottawa explained in a statement. Pharmaceutical treatments for schizophrenia carry plenty of side-effects, but meta-analyses show that aerobic exercise can improve cognition, and potentially improve working memory and attention.
In the future, instead of sending you to the pharmacy for a mood elevator, your psychiatrist might just assign you to a local kickball league. Subscribe to our free newsletter.
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