Sport protects mental health - but too much harm!

Why does physical activity protect mental health?

Researchers have now found that regular exercise training between three and five times a week can help improve mental health. However, too much training can also be harmful.

Researchers from the internationally acclaimed Yale University found in their current research that regular exercise training can improve mental health. The physicians published the results of their study in the English-language journal "The Lancet Psychiatry".

What are the best mental health exercises??

When study participants regularly exercised, they experienced fewer negative days per month, reports the researchers. Training sessions of 45 minutes three to five times a week are most effective in maintaining mental health. Team sports, cycling, aerobics and visiting gyms proved to be the best ways to improve mental health. But also activities such as housework or lawn mowing can be an advantage, explain the experts. However, the scientists also found that too much exercise for mental health could be even worse than no movement at all.

Movement protects against mental stress

Depression is one of the most common mental illnesses in the world, and there is an urgent need to find ways to improve the mental health of the population, study author Dr. Adam Chekroud of Yale University. Exercise is associated with a lower psychological burden, which is independent of age, race, gender, household income and educational level. The results of the study will now be used to personalize training recommendations and to bring people in line with a particular training regimen that improves their mental health.

What brings the sport training?

Researchers analyzed the data from 1.2 million US adults who participated in surveys on their physical and mental health. On average, people who did not do any physical activity, 3.4 days a month, did not rate their mental health as good. When people were training, those bad days were reduced to two a month, say the doctors. In participants who had previously been diagnosed with depression, regular exercise and physical activity resulted in 3.75 fewer days of perceived poor mental health. The researchers cautioned that more than three hours of physical activity per day could be worse than no movement at all.

Too much sport hurts the psyche

It used to be thought that the more physical activity a person performs, the better their mental health. But the results of the new study show that this is not really the case, says dr. Chekroud. Exercising more than 23 times a month or exercising more than 90 minutes at a time is associated with poorer mental health, the expert continued. The current study is the largest of its kind to date, yet it can not clearly confirm that exercise is the cause of improved mental health. Especially since previous studies on the effects of physical activity on mental health had yielded contradictory results. For example, some studies have suggested that inactivity can lead to poor mental health, others suggest lack of exercise as a symptom or consequence of mental health problems, explain the physicians. (As)