Lifting your spirits: strength training and mental health

Take-aways

I only have one take-away from this research: strength training and exercise benefit your mind, by and large. Take the exercise pill! Even just a workout or two a week - or just a few walks a week - can go a long way in improving your mental health.

Today we’re taking a break from the usual “how to OPTIMIZE your GAINZ (SCIENCE Explained - 17 NEW Studies)” content.

Instead, let’s turn our attention to mental health. Many people report that “the iron saved them” - but does the evidence really support this?

Yes. Yes, it does. Read on to see just how favourable lifting seems to be both in acutely improving mood, reducing symptoms from existing mental health conditions, and reducing the likelihood of even developing a condition in the first place.

First, a review paper on the effects of acute exercise on mood and cognition found that exercise resulted in an improvement in mood lasting up to 24 hours. This finding is very consistent across the literature. Importantly, more intense forms of exercise may have your mood worsen slightly during the activity but rebound afterwards (no one’s smiling during a heavy set of squats). Conversely, very light activity, such as leisurely walking, generally improves mood as the activity goes on - it’s not super-exhausting, and many people inherently enjoy it.

Importantly, exercise (and just physical activity in general - it doesn’t need to be a “workout” per se) has been shown to be beneficial for a variety of conditions, including depression, anxiety disorders, preventing schizophrenia/Alzheimer’s disease/dementia, and helping with symptoms of chronic insomnia. Importantly, these benefits also seemed to extend to populations not suffering from clinical anxiety disorders or major depressive disorder.

Physical activity reduces risk of major depressive disorder.

What about lifting, specifically? Well, while we have much less research (aerobic exercise is much more commonly studied), the available evidence broadly suggests it’s just as effective as aerobic exercise for a variety of conditions.

There’s some evidence of its benefits for anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia. Importantly, these benefits appear to extend to both adolescent and elderly populations. So, it’s never too early/late to get the mental benefits of lifting (or exercising in general!).

Interestingly, resistance training seems to have slightly greater benefits for depression, for example, than SSRIs. As such, the effects of lifting alone are quite substantial.

Visual abstract from a meta-analysis comparing different treatments/exercise modalities for depression.