Exercise is good for your body, which is why doctors have been telling us to get more of it for decades. Now that a growing body of evidence suggests it’s also good for our brains, a team of psychiatric researchers is arguing medical professionals need to go a step further. Instead of merely recommending exercise as lifestyle advice, the team says they should prescribe it.
According to the team’s new viewpoint paper published in Genomic Press, which draws on randomized trials, meta-analyses, and cohort studies, the neurological benefits of exercise are a result of the muscle-brain axis. When we contract our muscles, they release myokines (signalling proteins that act like hormones). These myokines influence our brains through metabolic, inflammatory, neuroendocrine, and neurotrophic pathways, affecting both our cognition and psychological state.
Read more: “Gentle Exercise May be More Effective Than Medications at Managing Chronic Pain”
According to the team, our mood gets the bulk of the benefits from physical activity. Exercise interventions can relieve depressive symptoms, calm anxiety, alleviate psychological distress, and even reduce suicide.
And it doesn’t take a lot of movement to start seeing these benefits. While the World Health Organization recommends getting 150–300 minutes of moderate activity per week, dose-response analyses show that 75 minutes per week is enough to boost psychological wellbeing. “The starting point does not have to be impressive. It has to be possible,” study author Nicholas Fabiano of the University of Ottawa explained in a statement. “Small, repeated successes build self-efficacy and habit, and that is what creates the conditions for sustained activity.”
Prescribing exercise could have profound benefits for those suffering from severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia, who often lead sedentary lives. Pharmaceutical treatments for schizophrenia carry plenty of side-effects, but meta-analyses show that aerobic exercise can improve cognition, and potentially improve working memory and attention. “In schizophrenia, exercise can work on psychiatric symptoms, cognition, and physical health at the same time, in a population with substantial unmet needs in all three,” study author Stanley Wong of the University of Toronto said.
“We still tend to treat exercise as general lifestyle advice,” study author Carl Zhou of the University of Ottawa said. “The evidence we reviewed supports something more deliberate: a prescription that names the type of activity, the frequency, the intensity, the duration, the safety considerations, and a plan for follow-up, just as we would for a medication.”
Of course, any prescription needs to take into account the health of the patient, as well as their ability to access the “medication.” The authors envision public investments in exercise infrastructure, transportation, and community-based programs to help.
In the future, instead of sending you to the pharmacy for a mood elevator, your psychiatrist might just assign you to a local kickball league.
Enjoying Nautilus? Subscribe to our free newsletter.
Lead Image: Vector Mall / Shutterstock
