The benefits of regular exercise on mental health and general wellbeing are well documented by research scientists, mental health professionals, medical doctors, and exercise enthusiasts everywhere. The CDC recently released a new set of guidelines that describe in simple terms how much exercise adults should get each week to experience the benefits of exercise.
Most adults who read the guidelines will realize they need to step up their exercise game to meet these recommendations. In a nutshell, the CDC says adults should exercise about an hour a day, give or take. They should mix it up with a good combination of moderate and vigorous activities, with about five hours of moderate activity and about 2 hours of vigorous activity per week.
At the same time, the CDC goes well out of their way to make this next idea perfectly clear:
No matter who you are or what your limits are – age, disability, chronic health conditions – you need to start somewhere, try something – literally anything – and gradually increase your level of activity until you meet the CDC guidelines.
For some people, these two pieces of advice, side-by-side, may seem like the CDC presents mixed messages. Exercise [X] amount for health and wellness benefits, but if you can’t, then any amount will help.
So which is it?
Do we need to do five to seven hours a week or not? And if we don’t really need to do five to seven hours a week, then how does whatever we can make a difference?
A new study out of Germany may give us an important clue.
Activity Stimulates the Brain
Disclaimer here: the study focuses on the mental health and wellbeing aspects of exercise, as opposed to the physical benefits of exercise. We know that in most cases, people who’ve been sedentary for years will be unable to meet the exercise guidelines. We also know that with physical fitness, you have to start where you are. Walk ten minutes a day, gradually ramp it up over time, and after six months you may be walking an hour a day.
That logic is easy to follow: the benefits of exercise are cumulative.
But what about the mental health benefits of exercise?
If we need seven hours of physical exercise a week, but just an hour a week can get us started on experiencing the physical benefits of exercise, is the same true for the emotional and mental health benefits of exercise?
This question is important because the another point the CDC make in their new set of guidelines is that recent research demonstrates that exercise and activity lead to significant improvements in cognitive function, improved sleep, and quality of life.
What we want to know – and maybe you do, too – is this: will starting activity in small increments help mental health and wellbeing, in the same way starting exercise in small increments will help our physical health?
The answer is yes. The simplest physical activities can improve general wellbeing – and the researchers in Germany have data to support this claim.
About the Study: Daily Activities and the Brain
Let’s clarify one thing. When the authors of this study talk about activity, they’re not talking about exercise. They’re talking about the most basic physical activities, such as walking up a flight of stairs, gardening, or walking to the bus stop.
The title of the study reflects this: “A Neural Mechanism For Affective Well-Being: Subgenual Cingulate Cortex Mediates Real-Life Effects Of Non-exercise Activity On Energy.”
Researchers designed the study in two parts.
The first part involved 67 participants who agreed to use hip accelerometers for a week – a fancy Fitbit-type gadget worn on the hip – and answer questions about their immediate state of wellbeing after the accelerometer indicated they’d completed a physically challenging, non-exercise activity, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator up to their office at work. The geolocation feature on the accelerometer helped distinguish between activities: it was easy for researchers to tell whether test subjects were hiking up a mountain or walking up a flight of stairs.
The second part of the study involved 87 participants completing the same protocol, but this time, after they measured the volume of gray matter – meaning brain tissue – in brain areas known to be involved in wellbeing, emotional regulation, and regulation the symptoms of mood disorders.
Now let’s get to those results.
Simple Activity Improves Energy and Mood
After filtering and analyzing the data from the two-phase study involving more than 150 participants, the study authors realized they’d discovered some basic facts about everyday activity that were previously undocumented.
Here’s what they found:
- Non-exercise activities immediately improved subjective feelings of energy in all participants
- Participants who engaged in more non-exercise activity showed higher volumes of gray matter in the target areas than those who engaged in less non-exercise activity.
- Participants with lower baseline levels of gray matter in the target areas reported greater increases in subjective feelings of energy after non-exercise activities.
- The participants who reported higher levels of increased energy after non-exercise activities also reported improved wellbeing and scored higher on positive mental health metrics, as compared to those who reported lower levels of increased energy after non-exercise activities.
The item that jumps out to us is the third one: those with lower levels of gray matter in target areas reported greater increases in subjective levels of energy. Combined with the fact that increased subjective levels correlate strongly with positive mental health metrics, this means that it’s reasonable to conclude that everyday activity can improve mood. When we combine that with two more facts – lower levels of gray matter in the target brain areas rare correlated with mood and emotional disorders, and non-exercise activity can increase gray matter in those areas – it’s reasonable to reach another conclusion: increasing non-exercise activity may be a valid therapeutic approach to the treatment of emotion and mood disorders.
How This Can Help People in Recovery
This information is relevant to people in recovery from an alcohol or substance use disorder in the same way the information that a little exercise can form the foundation of improvements that lead to increased physical health and wellness: a little non-exercise activity can boost energy levels and, indirectly, improve mood.
That’s important, because one thing that intimidates people who’ve been sedentary for a long time is getting started. They often feel like the amount of exercise they can accomplish isn’t enough to help their bodies get stronger. The CDC responds to this by indicating that any exercise helps, is better than no exercise at all, and will lead to physical benefits over time.
A similar thing happens with people who’ve been sedentary for a long time when they hear exercise improves mood and wellbeing: they worry the exercise they can accomplish won’t be enough to improve their energy levels or wellbeing. This study from Germany responds to this by indicating that even small amounts of non-exercise activity can, indeed, improve both energy levels and wellbeing.
This teaches people in recovery that if traditional exercise is temporarily out of reach, they can start with basic things like walking upstairs instead of using the elevator, raking the leaves rather than hiring a lawn maintenance company to do it, or walking to and from the bus stop to get to work rather than driving. All these things can improve energy, mood, and start a virtuous, self-reinforcing cycle that, over time, can lead to increased activity levels, and ultimately, a stronger, healthier body and mind.