HPC-UK Bitesize (Health): Exercise; Buffers the Blahs

Stress is a serious risk factor for health that’s rooted not only in our minds, but also in our bodies, brains and cells. Although stress is unavoidable, we can improve stress resilience through many means such as social connection, cultivating mindfulness and positive psychological states, and also developing awareness of arousal and learning to control it.

A commonly held belief is that exercise is a stress modulator; if you’re too wired up, it calms you down, and if you’re down, it picks you up. But exercise also has profound effects on stress resilience outside of the exercise session itself.

A recent study looked at this influence of exercise. 303 women (out of 372 who began) completed a study which was looking at the link between exercise, life events e.g. job losses, bereavements etc. and the incidents of perceived stress and depressive episodes.

Remember perceived stress is a key distinction, as a situation that stresses one person out might not bother another at all, but perceived stress is all that is needed for us to produce a kind of “stress soup” in our cells that can negatively impact both our physical and psychological well-being. You can read more about perceived stress here http://humanperformanceconsulting-uk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/what-is-real.html

The researchers found that life events, not surprisingly, were strongly correlated with both perceived stress and depressive episodes. They also found that exercise was also linked to a higher perception of stress, but a lower depressive response. The control group (no exercise intervention) had no such elevation in perceived stress, but had a higher incidence of depressive episodes following a life event.

So it seems that exercise increases the perception of stress attached to an event, this is possibly because you are more actively able to engage in the situation, as opposed to someone who is not as ‘fit’. But even in this heightened state of perceived stress the exercise helps to buffer the effects of the stress so that it doesn’t overwhelm the body and mind and thus result in depression.

Reference:

O'Dougherty M et al. Life events, perceived stress and depressive symptoms in a physical activity intervention with young adult women. Ment Health Phys Act. 2012 Dec 1;5(2):148-154. Epub 2012 May 30.