People who do resistance exercises like weight lifting may
experience less anxiety than people who don’t workout, a research review
suggests
Researchers analyzed data from 16 previously published
studies with a total of 922 participants who were randomly assigned to do
resistance training or be inactive.
Resistance workouts were associated with a reduction in
anxiety symptoms regardless of whether or not participants had a mental health
disorder, though the effect was more pronounced in healthy people who didn’t
report any physical or psychological problems.
“The positive effects of exercise training on mental health
are well established; however, the majority of this knowledge is based on
studies involving aerobic based training,” said lead study author Brett Gordon,
a physical education and sports researcher at the University of Limerick in
Ireland.
“RET (resistance exercise training) significantly reduced
anxiety in both healthy participants and those with a physical or mental
illness, and the effect size of these reductions is comparable to that of
frontline treatments such as medication and psychotherapy,” Gordon said by
email. “RET is a low-cost behavior with minimal risk, and can be an effective
tool to reduce anxiety for healthy and ill alike.”
Because the analysis only focused on resistance training,
the results can’t show whether this type of activity might be better or worse
than aerobic or other types of exercise for easing anxiety symptoms.
While the effects of resistance exercise on the brain are not
as well understood as the impact of aerobic workouts, emerging research has
also linked resistance training to less shrinkage of white matter in the brain,
said Dianna Purvis Jaffin of the Brain Performance Institute at the University
of Texas at Dallas.
White matter is composed of nerve fibers that connect
neurons in different parts of the brain. Changes in white matter can occur with
age, and are thought to be involved in cognitive and behavioral problems.
It’s possible that exercise might help ease anxiety simply
by distracting people from how they’re feeling and giving them something else
to focus on, Jaffin, who wasn’t involved in the current study, said by email.
“Exercise generally requires some level of concentration on
the activity and may serve as a distraction, and at least acutely (meaning -
during that bout of exercise and a bit after) interrupt rumination and
obsessive worrying,” Jaffin said.
“Finally, since people with anxiety tend to have uncertainty
about their future, they may obsessively worry and lack confidence,” Jaffin
added. “Exercise can improve self-efficacy, the belief that one can succeed in
particular situations, which may make someone feel more empowered.”
While the amount of exercise may influence the impact of
workouts on mental health, there isn’t enough evidence available yet to
prescribe a specific amount of activity, said Steven Petruzzello, a body
mechanics researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who wasn’t
involved in the study.
Absent this sort of prescription, choosing an enjoyable
workout makes sense, Petruzzello said by email.
In the current analysis, people did resistance exercises on
two to five days per week for an average of 11 weeks.
“The best advice at the present time is to ‘just do it’ - it
being whatever the person finds enjoyable or at least tolerable,” Petruzzello
said. “For some that might mean going for a walk, for others it might entail
more vigorous forms of activity.”
