People also are more likely to report feelings of excitement and enthusiasm on days when they are more physically active than usual.
You don't have to be the fittest person who is exercising every day to receive the feel-good benefits of exercise, say the experts, adding that it is a matter of taking it one day at a time, of trying to get your activity in, and then there's this feel-good reward afterwards. They added that it often is hard for people to commit to an exercise program because they tend to set long-term rather than short-term goals.
When people set New Year's resolutions, they set them up to include the entire upcoming year, but that can be really overwhelming; taking it one day at a time and savoring that feel-good effect at the end of the day might be one step to break it down and get those daily rewards for activity. Doing this could help people be a little more encouraged to stay active and keep up the program they started.
The team separated the participants' feeling states into four categories: pleasant-activated feelings exemplified by excitement and enthusiasm, pleasant-deactivated feelings exemplified by satisfaction and relaxation, unpleasant-activated feelings exemplified by anxiety and anger, and unpleasant-deactivated feelings exemplified by depression and sadness.
It was found that people who are more physically active have more pleasant-activated feelings than people who are less active, and we also found that people have more pleasant-activated feelings on days when they are more physically active than usual. The team was able to rule out alternative explanations for the pleasant-activated feelings, such as quality of sleep.
The results suggest that not only are there chronic benefits of physical activity, but there are discrete benefits as well. Doing more exercise than you typically do can give you a burst of pleasant-activated feelings. So today, if you want a boost, go do some moderate-to-vigorous intensity exercise.
Knowing that moderate and vigorous physical activity generates a pleasant-activated feeling, rather than just a pleasant feeling, might help to explain why physical activity is so much more effective for treating depression rather than anxiety. People dealing with anxious symptoms don't need an increase in activation. If anything, they might want to bring it down some.
In the future, the team plans to look more closely at the effects of physical activity on mental health symptoms."
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