[Science Alert] There's no longer any doubt that exercise can be a serious mood booster for people with major depressive disorder. Even an hour of physical activity a week can be enough to reduce the risk of future episodes.Surprisingly, little is known about the more immediate effects of exercise on specific characteristics of both mood and mind among people with depression, both during an exercise session and straight after.
"A lot of previous research on the effects of exercise on mental health, in general, have used very broad measures of wellbeing," says Iowa State University kinesiologist Jacob Meyer.
"What we were interested in, specifically, is: how does acute exercise — that is, one session of exercise in a day — influence the primary symptoms of depression."
Chronic forms of depression consist of a variety of mental changes that make it more than just a feeling of glumness. For many, there's the sheer loss of enjoyment and pleasure that comes with depressive episodes — a symptom referred to as anhedonia.
Then there's the disorder's relationship with impaired cognitive functions, including memory loss and processing speed, which may also benefit from exercise.
To add detail to our knowledge of how a workout influences changes in both mood and mental skills, Meyer and colleagues analyzed various test scores of 30 volunteers before, during, and after either a moderately intense half-hour cycling session, or a session of quiet rest.