Experiencing a global pandemic for the past year and a half has affected our collective mental health.
A study earlier this year showed that 1 in 5 adults said they experienced high levels of psychological distress, including anxiety, depression, insomnia, loneliness, and symptoms of physical distress. And throughout the pandemic, approximately 4 out of 10 adults have shown symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders.
When someone has mental health issues, people will suggest that they move their body. Exercise releases endorphins into your brain, which can help you feel better.
Read more: “Can We Overcome This”: Struggling with Your Mental Health During the Pandemic? Try these tips and resources
But what if exercise could prevent mental health problems in the first place? A new study by researchers in Sweden points to this possibility.
The study, published Friday in Frontiers in Psychiatry, found that physical activity can prevent anxiety disorders. The researchers conducted an observational study that followed nearly 400,000 people who participated in the world’s largest long-distance cross-country ski race between 1989 and 2010. The study found that people who participated in the race had a “significantly lower risk” of anxiety compared to non-skiers during the same period.
“We found that the group with the most physically active lifestyle had an almost 60% lower risk of developing anxiety disorders over a follow-up period of up to 21 years,” said authors Martine Svensson and Tomas Deierborg.
“This association between a physically active lifestyle and a lower risk of anxiety was seen in both men and women,” they continued.
Although the study did not examine the exact reasons why exercise appears to prevent anxiety, the researchers said physical activity could previously occupy the mind and distract it from anxious thoughts. They also believe that the natural environment where the skiers dodged was beneficial.
But you can have too many good things: the researchers found that women who had higher physical performance (measured by finishing the race faster) were increased risk of anxiety compared to your slower ski equipment. The ability of a male skier did not affect the risk of developing an anxiety disorder, but the higher-performing group of women had almost twice the risk of developing an anxiety disorder than the lower-performing group of women. .
The study’s findings “suggest that the relationship between anxiety symptoms and exercise behavior may not be linear,” Svensson said.
However, the researchers found that “the overall risk of anxiety among high-performing women was even lower compared to the more physically inactive women in the general population.”
It is generally estimated that anxiety disorders affect up to 10% of the world’s population and are twice as common among women.
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States, according to the American Anxiety and Depression Association (ADAA), which affects 40 million adults.
People with anxiety are three to five times more likely to go to the doctor, the ADAA says, and are six times more likely to be admitted for psychiatric disorders than those who do not have an anxiety disorder.
Related: The hidden cost of our mental health crisis: $ 1 trillion in lost productivity
“Because of the high prevalence, early onset, and frequency of treatment resistance among people with anxiety disorders, their contribution to years of disability and the economic burden on society is substantial,” the study authors.
Overall, mental health problems generate $ 1 trillion in annual success in the global economy due to lost productivity, according to a recent World Health Organization study.