Approved Research

The effectiveness of exercise interventions for mental health problems

Lay summary

Lay summary

According to the World Mental Health Report 2022, approximately 1 billion people worldwide had mental health problems in 2019; in 2020, the year of the outbreak, the number of people worldwide suffering from depression and anxiety disorders increased by 25 per cent. The report also shows that people with severe mental health problems die 10 to 20 years earlier than the general population. The World Health Organization reports that even before COVID-19, only a small proportion of people in need worldwide had access to effective, affordable and quality mental health care, 71% of people with mental illness "Can not access or afford" treatment. Most psychotherapeutic drugs have side effects. Exercise is beneficial to the recovery from mental illness, especially emotional problems. Many studies have shown that regular exercise, such as jogging and swimming, for more than half an hour two to three times a week, can help rebalance some of the neurotransmitters in the brain that regulate mood and help improve anxiety and depression. Because of its unique advantages, convenience and low cost, sports play an important role in human health. Therefore, it is of great significance to establish a scientific and efficient sports mode and reshape psychiatric and mental health (e.g., anxiety, depression, cognitive, autism, dementia, stress and suicidal ideation).

We will also focus on exploring the role of novel exercise interventions in relation to mental health which will be created from the available data.  For example, we will develop our own exercise intervention in our depression model and afterwards will make these available to other UK Biobank researchers.

As we will first investigate individual exercise and will later investigate how these interact, the project is expected to last 3 years.  We have a multidisciplinary team who have expertise in psychology, nutrition/exercise/physical health, biology/pharmacy, biomedical engineering and data science. Together we are well placed to investigate the exercise of mental health -related problems and interactions between these.

Through our research on predictors of mental health problems (e.g., anxiety, depression, cognitive, autism, dementia, stress and suicidal ideation). Members of the public will have a better understanding of the key contributors to these mental health problems and as a result should be able to identify which exercise factors apply to them, and which may be modified.