Us, Penn State Students love to exercise, that’s mainly what you see when on campus, are many people walking around, jogging or in workout clothes. Many work out for different reasons, to stay fit, to relieve stress, to loose weight but whatever the reason may be, have you ever thought about how you felt before working out in relation to after? Does exercising have an effect on your mood?
There is scientific literature suggesting regular exercise can actually improve one’s mood and fight anxiety. To prove this statement, German researchers placed running wheels in the cages of laboratory mice and let them exercise at their own pace. The mice spent hours averaging a total of about 7 miles per mouse per day (The New York Times). Scientists placed these mice in unfamiliar situations, and noticed the mice froze and quickly fled to dark corners, also considered anxiety. The researchers conducted contradicted the earlier experiments by different researchers. Researchers found that too much running makes an animal nervous. This experiment may even suffer from the Texas Sharp Shooter issue, since many things are being measures yet only the positive hits could be reported. This time around, specifically these German researchers were trying to determine whether the formation of new brain cells, also known as neurogenesis, was making lab animals nervous (The New York Times). They found that high volumes of running and the large amounts of neurogenesis in the hippocampus can produce anxiety. In this study, the researchers radiated the mice’s brainds to prevent neurogenesis and then let them exercise (The New York Times).
In this case, there were third party variables such as the behavior they deemed as anxiety in the mice, could be a different experience in comparison to humans. In addition, the exercise schedule mice were on, did not compare to a regular human fitness training schedule, since mice workout every hour of the day almost (The Help Guide). Another study was done by Princeton researchers who concluded “running may reduce anxiety-like behavior” because the areas of the brain that normally shoot stimulating messages to the hippocampus during and after stress were much quieter in exercised mice (The New York Times). However, it is still being tested, and more studies are emerging. Therefore, the scientists are assuming exercise does affect the mood of a person, but there are many other factors involved and meta-analyses being conducted, so they are unable to reach a verdict.
Citations:
http://www.helpguide.org/articles/exercise-fitness/emotional-benefits-of-exercise.htm
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/10/24/exercise-natures-mood-enhancer/
I agree with you, that I could have furthered my research once, realizing the mice experiment and trials were not an effective measurement of human exercise and capability. However, through more research, I could have improved my blog with actual evidence of a study done with humans. In many articles they continue to talk about the impact exercise has on depression, but overall improvement in mood can be linked to exercise.
Hi Amy, I know what you mean about not exercising. I was like that at first, but I believe I can tesify feeling better now that I have a workout routine and am being consistent with it. The mice was an interesting study but not one easily comparable to humans. That would be interesting to look at, whether people are better off after exercise, or if its actually harmful for the mood if they don’t exercise.
Thank you, I agree with your statement, there is a strong linkage between exercising and mood. The evidence comes from experimental studies according to the link you provided me with. Blumenthal has explored the mood-exercise connection through a series of randomized controlled trials.
In one study, he and his colleagues assigned sedentary adults with major depressive disorder to one of four groups: supervised exercise, home-based exercise, antidepressant therapy or a placebo pill. After four months of treatment, Blumenthal found, patients in the exercise and antidepressant groups had higher rates of remission than did the patients on the placebo. Exercise, he concluded, was generally comparable to antidepressants for patients with major depressive disorder (Psychosomatic Medicine, 2007).
Blumenthal followed up with the patients one year later. The type of treatment they received during the four-month trial didn’t predict remission a year later, he found. However, subjects who reported regular exercise at the one-year follow-up had lower depression scores than did their less active counterparts (Psychosomatic Medicine, 2010). “Exercise seems not only important for treating depression, but also in preventing relapse,” he says (The evidence comes from experimental studies as well. Blumenthal has explored the mood-exercise connection through a series of randomized controlled trials. In one such study, he and his colleagues assigned sedentary adults with major depressive disorder to one of four groups: supervised exercise, home-based exercise, antidepressant therapy or a placebo pill. After four months of treatment, Blumenthal found, patients in the exercise and antidepressant groups had higher rates of remission than did the patients on the placebo. Exercise, he concluded, was generally comparable to antidepressants for patients with major depressive disorder (Psychosomatic Medicine, 2007).
If I looked more into the study, something like this would be very helpful for my argument
This topic was really interesting, as well as the study. However, I think it would have been even more interesting to develop the topic a little more. After reading this, I’m unsure of whether I should exercise more or not. I did some research myself and found out that many other sources view exercise as a positive psychological activity. According to the American Psychological Association, exercise actually shows to help people overcome depression and enhances mood overall.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/12/exercise.aspx
I’ve heard this topic being discusses before, but I was never expose to studies regarding it. I’ve heard many people say that exercise is good for your mood and well-being. Unfortunately I am one of those people that hate exercise but should probably begin doing it anyway. In your post you provide and interesting study on the mice, but I also like you you question the study and add your own thoughts on how it was conducted. This post had we wondering what are the opposite effects regarding one’s mood when they don’t exercise. Are they bound to have a much worse mood or are they just less likely to be in as good of a mood as those who do exercise?
Interesting topic. I thought this blog was a good start to approaching this subject. However, I wanted to do some more research and see whether any studies of this nature have been conducted on humans. I found an experiment that tested the effects of an aerobic exercise program on anxious adults against an attention-placebo control. Researchers concluded that completion of the exercise program “was associated with significantly greater reductions in tension-anxiety, depression and other moods than the attention-placebo condition, together with increases in perceived ability to cope with stress.” This evidence is consistent with the alternative hypothesis that exercise can improve mood in anxious and/or depressed people. Further studies will have to be done in order to find a biological mechanism to explain this association. For now, however, we can conclude that it may be helpful to exercise when experiencing stress or anxiety, and that in either case, exercise certainly can’t hurt to try!
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022399989900615
As one of the enthusiast of the exercise, I have a personal feeling that working out or playing basketball can really improve my mood. And, that’s probably the beauty of the sports. In here, I found the research about the relations between exercise and mood, which is probably helps to develop deeper on your topic. http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/12/exercise.aspx