How Does Physical Activity Impact Mental Health?

Mind a UK charity for mental health, has a self-help booklet on how to improve physical activity and sport that show the advantages of regular exercise on our mental health and wellbeing. Listing that regular exercise will help reduce our anxiety, stress, and decrease the risk of depression, while helping us increase our self-esteem, think clearly and have a greater sense of calm. (Mind UK, 2018, p. 8)

Exercise can be a lonely, socially awkward, stressful experience and the thought of going it alone could be enough to make your blood run cold or lose all interest in doing any exercise at all.

 No one has ever said exercising is going to be easy but why should we face an assortment of stresses, anxieties, and negative feelings before we even begin. Exercise is supposed to increase our overall mental health and well-being. Can group activity really give us a boost?

Groups exercise versus solo workouts

Exercising in groups or within sport clubs could not only reduce our social anxieties but could improve our social interactions, create well-balanced competitive thoughts and emotions, whilst improving our overall health and well-being.

A study published in the November 2017 issue of the journal of American osteopathic association, found that people increase their overall quality of life along with decreasing their stress whilst doing group exercises, opposed to those doing solitary or little to no exercise. (Yorks, Frothingham, & Schuenke, 2017)

The study looked at how group exercise could help a group of medical student’s overall well-being whilst decreasing stress levels with the use of regular workouts.

The study followed 69 medical students for a 3-month period, the students were divided into 3 research groups, group one did a weekly 30-minute core group exercise, another group were solo exercises, and the final group also known as the control group did not engage in any form of regular exercise other than usual walking or biking for their daily commute. 

The study investigated the students overall stress levels and their quality of life – mental, physical and emotional – by way of surveys both perceived stress and visual analogy.

After the 3-month period, group exercisers were found to have improvements in all three quality of life measurements, and a decrease in their perceived stress. By comparison, the solo exercisers only showed improvement in the mental quality of life measurement, even though they exercised roughly one hour more each week. Those in the control group showed little to no improvements in either stress levels or quality of life by the end of the study period.

Whilst the research shows that social exercise has a positive impact on overall well-being, the results should be viewed with discretion. Not, only are the subject group medical students but also limited on numbers. The groups were decided amongst themselves meaning results could be also be affected by many factors.

A more recent study published on October 2018, has found that those suffering from a range of mental health problems taking part in community football program has not only reduced stress and anxiety levels, but an overall reduction in symptoms, but not only that it has also gone on to increase a participants self-esteem, self-confidence, and tackled feelings of social isolation. (Friedrich & Mason, 2018)

Because of research and studies of mental health and exercise. Mental health services around the country employ an array of staff both in inpatient services and community settings to work with people suffering enduring mental health problems, Staff range from activity coordinators to sports and exercise therapists, their main job role is to engage service users into exercise and group activities. Local GP services now prescribe exercise classes and gym membership to those suffering anxiety and depression.

Other research into group exercise health benefits found that a single session of community-based aerobics and bodyweight resistance reduced post exercise hypertension in young adult women. (Mendes, Sousa, Garrido, Cavaco, & Quaresma, 2014). While oncology research in the united states found that cancer survivors that participated in weekly group exercise reduced the risk of recurrent disease, along with an overall sense of well-being, an improved quality of life. (Mustanti & Murley, 2016)

Personality type and sports clubs 

Could our personality type influence our choices when it comes to exercise, is being more extroverted than introverted likely to have an impact on how we exercise or style of exercising choice, does personality influence your wellbeing when it comes to exercise. 

Research on personality and exercise has been investigated and studied, Research results lead towards extroverts being mor