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Lecture Notes

On this slide we'll very briefly cover the relationship between physical activity and mental health, and more specifically physical activity and anxiety and depression. And for more detail—this is just a summary of conclusions from an article that you can see listed here at the bottom of the slide—that article's been provided in your list of readings for this week, so this is just a brief overview of that. We know that physical activity may play a role in reducing the symptoms of both anxiety and depression, and interestingly, it might be more important to focus on being physically active rather than focusing on improving someone's cardiovascular functioning or fitness, and so there might be something about just being active, just get out there and walking or biking or swimming; there might be something about doing those activities, regardless of changes in fitness, that is good for mental health, and specifically anxiety and depression. And finally, research has shown that physical activity seems to be as effective as medicine for treating mild to moderate depression. And so these are, again, just a few things that we already know from previous research, and for a full summary, or more complete summary, read the article that's listed in this week's readings.