Exercise is related to a number of health benefits and when exercise is eliminated health starts to slowly decline. Lack of exercise may also be related to mental health and anxiety. Exercise is an important aspect for a healthy lifestyle. Recent studies have shown that there may be a relationship between anxiety and exercise but what is this relationship? How do these variables affect one another?
It is believed that when endorphins are released in the brain through exercise they act as your body’s natural painkiller and help to reduce anxiety. Although there has not been much research on this there are a few studies that provide evidence that exercise reduces anxiety.
People who exercise on a regular basis seem to have lower levels of stress and anxiety. Research by Johansson, Hassèn, and Jouper (2008) investigated the effects of Qigong exercise on mood and anxiety. Qigong (pronounced chee gong) is an ancient Chinese healing practice and is a mixture of slow movements, deep breathing, and mental focusing. The hypothesis was that the participants who did Qigong would have reduced anxiety and better mood while the control group would not. The participants were mostly women and some men with a mean age of 50.8. Twenty-eight of the participants were in the Qigong group and they did Jichu Gono, which is a type of Qigong, for 30 minutes and the remaining 31 participants were in the control group where they listened to a 30 minute lecture. Fan Xiulan, who is a Qigong master, gave the lecture about traditional Chinese medicine. The participants were asked to take a Profile of Mood States (POMS), which is how their mood was measured, and a State and Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), which measures their anxiety. The hypothesis was partially supported. The results showed that anxiety, depression, anger, and fatigue were all significantly lowered after the 30 minutes of Qigong exercise. These same effects were found in other studies as well. One of the reasons Qigong could have had an effect on the participants is that they are experienced Qigong exercisers and have been practicing Qigong for an average of 4 years. These same results may not have resulted in people who do not have much experience with Qigong exercise.
The effect exercise has on stress has been studied many times and it has been found that exercise leads to lower levels of stress. Schwartz and Kaloupek (1987) wanted to know can exercise have an effect on speech anxiety? They decided to investigate the effects of exercise combined with imaginal exposure on public speaking anxiety. The authors hypothesized that groups exposed to feared imaginal, either combined with exercise or not, would show greater reduction in speech anxiety than groups receiving neutral imaginal exposure. There have been other studies done that show exposure-based procedures are successful in treating anxiety, they wanted to see if they combined this with exercise how it would effect anxiety. They also hypothesized that the group who received exercise and the feared image would show greater improvement then the subjects who only received the feared image. Fifty-two participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 groups, exercise/exposure, exercise, exposure, or placebo-control. The participants were asked to take a Personal Report of Confidence as a Speaker questionnaire (PRCS) to assess their public speaking abilities. Their heart rate was recorded as well as their skin conductance, which measures physiological arousal. The participants were asked to self report their anxiety by answering several questionnaires. In the exercise/exposure group, participants cycled for 15 minutes while listening to the exposure tape. The exposure tape described a public speaking situation. The exposure group differed from the exercise/exposure group because it only heard the exposure tape but the participants still sat on the bike. The exercise group cycled for 15 minutes but instead listened to a description of a light exercise and the placebo group sat on the bike and heard the same neutral exposure that the exercise group heard. What they found is that the groups who received imaginal exposure compared to those who received a neutral exposure showed significantly greater improvement in self-reported anxiety and those who received exercise and exposure showed significantly higher improvement in self-reported anxiety even compared to the ones who received imaginal exposure, which supports their hypothesis.
While both of these studies show the positive affects of exercise on anxiety, they are only examining the acute affects of exercise. The recommended amount of exercise is at least 30 minutes a day, about 5 to 7 times a week. The important thing we want to know is what are the affects of regular exercise (regular exercise can be described as 30 minutes a day, 5 to 7 times a week) on anxiety? If we can examine people’s anxiety levels before and after a week of regular exercise we can gain some insight on how exercise and anxiety are related. I hypothesize that regular exercise will reduce anxiety.