Regular Exercise Can Help Reduce Anxiety and Make You More Resilient

on PinterestA recent study suggests that higher fitness levels may help reduce anxiety and build resilience to stress.

on PinterestA recent study suggests that higher fitness levels may help reduce anxiety and build resilience to stress. Image Credit: Oleg Breslavtsev/Getty Images

Recent research has shown that people who have higher levels of physical activity may be more resilient during stressful situations.
The research also found that physical activity may lead to lower anxiety levels.
The study noted that higher cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with lower anger levels and greater emotional resilience.

Physical activity has long been associated with managing various mental health conditions, including anxiety disorders.

Lesser known is whether individuals with higher levels of physical fitness experience fewer anxiety symptoms and stressful emotions.

A recent study published in Acta Psychologica investigated whether higher cardiorespiratory fitness may be associated with lower levels of anxiety and anger. The researchers examined whether people with different fitness levels exhibit distinct emotional responses to unpleasant visual stimuli.

The findings indicate that people with higher levels of physical activity experienced less anxiety and greater emotional resilience in response to stressful situations.

“These findings make a lot of sense to me. I consistently recommend regular exercise to my patients and believe that regular physical activity is an important piece of strong emotional health,” Nissa Keyashian, MD, board certified psychiatrist and author of “Practicing Stillness,” who was not involved in the study, told Healthline.

Physical activity reduces stress, builds emotional resilience

The study involved 40 healthy individuals between the ages of 18 and 40. The participants were divided into two groups: above-average (AA) and below-average (BA) fitness levels.

Each participant self-reported their exercise habits in order to predict their cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF). They completed two sessions on separate days. In these sessions, the participants’ anger and anxiety levels were assessed before and after exposure to a 69-picture set of unpleasant or neutral images for 30 minutes.

The study found clear differences in how the two groups coped with stress.

Both groups felt more tense after looking at the upsetting images. However, the AA group started with overall lower levels of anger and anxiety in their daily lives, and stayed calmer. The BA group showed a 775% greater risk of seeing their anxiety levels increase from moderate to high.

“Our findings indicate that individuals with higher CRF tend to exhibit lower trait anxiety and greater resilience when exposed to emotionally stressful stimuli, reinforcing the growing evidence that physical activity plays an important role in emotional health,” the researchers wrote.

“I think it’s a good study showing that consistent physical exercise helps people who do not have mental health problems deal with dysregulating and stressful events better than if they did not engage in such activities,” said Karyne Wilner, PsyD, a licensed clinical psychologist and author of “Releasing Toxic Anger for Women,” who was not involved in the study.

“It would be interesting to do the same study with people who have been diagnosed as depressed, anxious, or [with schizophrenia],” she told Healthline.