The Impressive Psychological Benefits of Engaging in Physical Exercise
We all bring our own unique personal experiences to this exploration of the psychological benefits of exercise. It’s important to acknowledge that women who engage in physical exercise do it for a variety of different reasons. For some it’s the physical health benefits while for others it might be to improve their appearance. Some women enjoy exercise for the opportunities to make social connections. And of course, there are those who are already aware of mental health benefits of exercising like for stress relief or mood enhancing effects like the runner’s high that has been common knowledge for some time now.
If you don’t regularly exercise, then you’re not alone in that. You also wouldn’t be alone if you had a negative reaction to the topic of physical exercise. That’s because so many women have had emotionally painful histories with physical exercise. Do any of these situations sound familiar?
o Maybe you were bad at sports and associate physical exercise with feeling embarrassed.
o Maybe you feel like you’ve been chastised when you go to the doctor and are told you are overweight – maybe even told you have a BMI that qualifies as obese – and that you need to exercise.
o Or maybe you had a highly critical family member or significant other who at some point in time put a lot of pressure on you to exercise to maintain an expected physical appearance.
No matter what your background with exercise, I encourage you to consider if it might be something to dial up in your life given the long list of overall health benefits that physical exercise provides. I am so impressed with the psychological benefits of exercise. They are just too good not to share.
Overall Health Benefits of Physical Exercise
Let’s start with a broad view of the overall health benefits of regular exercise before we do our deep dive into the research findings on the psychological benefits of exercise. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans put out by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lists the following physical health benefits for adults:
• Lower risk of all-cause mortality (that is, death by any cause)
• Lower risk of cardiovascular disease mortality
• Lower risk of cardiovascular disease (including heart disease and stroke)
• Lower risk of hypertension
• Lower risk of type 2 diabetes
• Lower risk of adverse blood lipid profile
• Lower risk of cancers of the bladder, breast, colon, endometrium, esophagus, kidney, lung, and stomach
• Slowed or reduced weight gain
• Weight loss, particularly when combined with reduced calorie intake
• Prevention of weight regain following initial weight loss
• Improved bone health
• Improved physical function
• Lower risk of falls for older adults
• And, lower risk of fall-related injuries, also for older adults
The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans also provides us with a good jumping off point for the psychological benefits of physical exercise. They list:
• Improved cognition (this is in the area of brain health)
• Reduced risk of dementia (including Alzheimer’s disease)
• Improved quality of life
• Reduced anxiety
• Reduced risk of depression
• Improved sleep
Although not listed in the guidelines, there is considerable research supporting the stress relief benefits of physical exercise, so I want to make sure that this is highlighted at this broad overview point.
Depression and Physical Exercise
Physical exercise has received a lot of attention for how it can help reduce symptoms of depression to a level competitive with antidepressant medications. So, let’s start by looking at a classic psychological study to better understand exactly how these findings were made.
Back in 2007 at Duke University Dr. James Blumenthal, PhD, a clinical psychologist conducted a randomized control trial study with adult participants who were considered sedentary and who also had a diagnosis of major depressive disorder. They were then randomly assigned to one of four following groups of the experiment: a group that engaged in supervised exercise, a group that did home-based exercise, a group that was receiving antidepressant medication and, last, a control group who were given a placebo pill (that is a benign pill that would have no discernible impact on the participants). The study lasted for 4 months with findings that participants in the 2 exercise groups and antidepressant group had higher rates of remission of depression than the control group (that group just taking a placebo pill).
The above described psychological research is one of the classic studies that has enhanced our understanding of exercise as an intervention that can bring the same level of effectiveness as antidepressant medication for people diagnosed with major depressive disorder. This finding can be a game changer for people who may find the natural intervention of exercise as a far more preferable option to taking medication. This decision is one that should be made with medical advice from one’s own healthcare provider though.
Anxiety and Physical Exercise
Next, I want to share some findings from research conducted by psychologists Dr. Smits and Dr. Otto that I consider to be classic research when it comes to the impact that physical exercise can have on reducing and even preventing anxiety.
First, it’s important to give the framework through which anxiety was understood in these studies. What we experience in our bodies as anxiety occurs when we perceive a potential threat (sometimes accurately, but sometimes not) and shifts into fight or flight mode. The fight or flight response includes numerous automatic physical responses such as increased perspiration, muscle tension, an upset stomach, heightened breathing and heart rates, as well as dizziness.
Given that physical exercise brings on many of the same physical responses as the fight or flight response (like sweating and increased breathing and heart rates), Drs. Smits and Otto hypothesized that physical exercise may reduce sensitivity to anxiety in those prone to feeling anxious. To test out their hypothesis, they ran a study with half of the participants engaging in a 2-week exercise program with the other half serving as a control group who did not engage in an exercise program during those same 2 weeks. They found that the treatment group (those who were exercising) displayed improvement with their anxiety. They described exercise as a form of exposure to symptoms of anxiety in that the participants no longer viewed these physiological sensations with fear.
Mental Health Benefits of Physical Exercise
Let’s shift gears a bit, moving away from the classic studies and turning our attention to a more recent study from 2020 at Ulm University in Germany where Herbert and her team investigated the relationship of regular physical activity to mental health and well-being as well as the association between short-term aerobic exercise to mental health and well-being. And by short term, they meant 2 weeks and 6 weeks.
Let’s start by breaking down how mental health and well-being were measured in this study. The researchers used standardized self-report assessments or questionnaires of depression, anxiety, positive and negative affect (and for our purposes, affect is a way to describe how mood is expressed), perceived stress and coping strategies, body dissatisfaction, and quality of life.
As is often the case with psychological research, the participants were college students. At the beginning of the study 36.6% of the participants reported depressive symptoms and 41.83% reported high levels of state anxiety. This next statistic from the beginning of the study is quite interesting. All of the participants reported experiencing stress due to uncertainty about finances, work, or social relationships. They found that those who engaged in regular physical activity reported lower levels of depression, anxiety, and perceived stress along with higher levels of quality of life and positive mood.
When they introduced the 6-week aerobic exercise intervention, they saw significant improvement with depression and perceived stress. These findings led the researchers to conclude that short-term aerobic exercise of low to moderate intensity can act as a buffer against depression and stress in college students. It is important to note, however, that these findings may not generalize to other population groups outside of college students.
Enhancing the Psychological Benefits of Physical Exercise
Shifting a bit here, I want to introduce a type of research study in psychology called meta-analysis. This type of study is relevant when you have voluminous amounts of research studies to review as is the case with the mental health benefits of physical exercise. It’s beyond the scope of this blog to get too detailed here, but it is helpful to point out that essentially what is investigated in a meta-analytic review, through advanced statistical tests, is how powerful (or strong) the different studies are.
Meta analytic reviews have found strong support for physical exercise decreasing symptoms of anxiety in healthy adults, reducing depressive symptoms in people diagnosed with a mental illness, and with improving sleep. This is not an exhaustive list of the meta-analytic reviews, but some of the key highlights.
I do, however, want to share the results of what I consider to be a rather interesting meta-analytic review: a recent study, published just in 2022, that investigated if the location where physical exercise took place would have an impact on psychological benefits. Since the literature already had strong support for the psychological benefits of outdoor over indoor physical exercise, Wicks and her research team compared green outdoor spaces to urban outdoor spaces. They found strong support of exercise in green spaces over urban outdoor spaces in terms of impact on anxiety, fatigue, positive affect and vigor, along with some support for depression.
How to Experience the Psychological Benefits of Physical Exercise
Shifting our focus from the data, let’s briefly touch upon how we can apply these research findings on the psychological benefits of exercise in our own lives. Before we do that though, I must give that disclaimer about getting physician approval before engaging in any form of physical exercise.
While the results are clear that exercise can help with stress, anxiety, and depressed mood, it can also be true that when someone is experiencing depression – whether clinical or situational or even just feeling down for a spell – or when we’re feeling overwhelmed with stress or anxiety, working out may be the last thing we want to do. It can be hard to get motivated for exercise at times like these.
I have some good news for you though. We don’t have to start from scratch when it comes to getting motivated to increase exercise. An earlier article right here on this blog provided 14 tips for making progress on resolutions or personal goals. This article includes tips like social support, accountability, pairing a behavior you’re trying to increase with a more enjoyable activity like listening to your favorite podcast or musical artist, and celebrating the small wins along the way—all of which are also relevant to increasing physical exercise.
I want to highlight one of the tips and connect it back to psychological research on the mental health benefits of physical exercise, and that is the importance of being realistic with our goals for change. We want to set attainable goals – and not overdo it with too many or too lofty of goals because that can result in giving up on our goals all together. We see this pattern play out a lot in the realm of physical exercise. Maybe you’ve been there, too. Doing too intense of a workout when starting a new exercise routine. We may have the best intentions, but when we push ourselves too hard, our muscles end up being sore or, worse, we injure ourselves and say forget this and abandon the whole workout plan.
There’s another key connection here to the mental health benefits of physical exercise. Studies have found that when we overexert ourselves with physical exercise, it can delay the emotional benefits of that exercise by up to a half hour. This delay may be too long for us to attribute the mood benefits to the exercise. This is another great reason to take a slow and steady approach to physical exercise. Not only are we helping to make exercise a more sustainable practice in our lives, but we’re also giving ourselves more opportunity to get the most out of the psychological benefits of exercise.
As we wind down, I hope this exploration of the psychological benefits of exercise has given you a new perspective on the value of physical activity. Perhaps you’re feeling inspired to get a new exercise routine going or even just find more opportunities to be physically active. As the research shows, it all counts!
Dr. Jennifer McManus is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Florida. She takes a holistic approach and specializes in online psychotherapy for women who want help with stress, anxiety, professional burnout, and breakups. You can learn more about her practice at www.drjennifermcmanus.com, by emailing, or by calling the office at 866-706-3665.
