The Surprising Benefits of Exercise for Mental Health

When we’re struggling with our mental health, it can often be frustrating to read the many articles that suggest exercise to help. We all know exercise is good for us, but how can it stop spiraling anxiety or depression? How is going for a walk the answer when you’re in crisis or when life just feels overwhelming?

The truth may surprise you. Exercise is not just a generic piece of advice thrown into every article on feeling better. The mental benefits of exercise are so profound that working out can almost be seen as a type of therapy in its own right. Naturally, it reduces stress and improves mood, but it goes far beyond that. So, let’s break down how exactly exercise improves mental health.

Can Exercise Improve Mental Health?

The short answer is yes. Exercise improves mental health more than we might realize. Most of us already know that working out releases endorphins (chemicals in the brain that create feelings of happiness and euphoria).

But it does so much more than give our mood a boost. It also helps us cope with symptoms of depression and anxiety and can even be a first-line course of treatment ^[1].

In fact, exercise can be just as effective as antidepressants in certain cases, something we will discuss further in the next section.

Don’t forget that it improves sleep quality, which we need to be able to regulate our emotions. It also reduces levels of stress hormones like cortisol while pushing the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. These chemical changes help the body and brain manage stress more effectively ^[2][3].

Exercise further enhances neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to form new neural connections). Neuroplasticity improves learning, memory, and stress resilience and protects our brains as we age from cognitive issues like Alzheimer’s ^[4].

But these are far from the only benefits. This list gives a small overview of the many ways that exercise helps our mental and emotional well-being:

• It improves our mental resilience, helping us cope with stress.
• It helps build social connections when we exercise with other people, combating the issue of isolation and loneliness.
• It improves our self-esteem and self-efficacy (it actually improves how we see ourselves and how well we can handle problems).
• Exercise can help those with substance abuse problems by reducing cravings and making them more sensitive to pleasure (so they don’t need to rely so much on a substance to feel happy).
• Working out regularly normalizes our stress responses (the HPA axis functioning) and trains overactive nervous systems to stop flooding the body with stress hormones.

When we take all of that into account, we can see why exercise is not just good for us but actually a kind of therapy in itself. Two areas where it is particularly effective are depression and anxiety.

Exercise as a Treatment for Depression and Anxiety

The ways in which working out helps depression and anxiety are extremely multifaceted. Naturally, it starts with the endorphin boost. This creates a sort of natural “high” while also decreasing the levels of cortisol (the stress hormone) in our bodies.

Let’s not forget that it boosts serotonin and dopamine, the ‘reward system chemicals that keep us happy and motivated. These chemicals are the same ones targeted by many antidepressant medications to treat depression and anxiety. Exercise just helps our bodies regulate them better naturally.

This is why some studies suggest that regular exercise can be just as effective as medication for mild to moderate depression and anxiety, without the side effects ^[5][6][7].

Another way exercise works is by influencing the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which controls the body’s response to stress.

When we exercise, the initial burst of cortisol helps the body adapt to physical demands. But, over time, regular physical activity trains the HPA axis to respond more calmly to stress. This means that our baseline cortisol levels start to drop, undoing the harmful effects of chronic stress on the mind and body ^[8][9].

One new area of research focuses on the role of lactate or lactic acid. We used to think lactic acid caused soreness after exercising, but this isn’t true. We are now learning that lactate has a dramatic effect on the brain. It helps us deal with stress by restoring normal levels and class I histone deacetylases (HDACs) activity.

These affect genes that regulate stress responses and actually make lactic acid a kind of natural antidepressant ^[10]. Lactic acid also affects our GABA system, which calms us down and directly reduces anxiety ^[11].

Let’s not forget the other ways it helps us fight these issues. Low self-esteem causes feelings of worthlessness, which is a massive factor in mood disorders. A lack of self-efficacy means that we don’t believe in ourselves and our ability to solve problems. Since exercise helps self-esteem and self-efficacy, it also helps anxiety and depression ^[12]

Another common side effect of a mood disorder is self-medicating. This can lead to substance abuse. Exercise helps us feel pleasure again (without a substance), reduces withdrawal symptoms and cravings, and helps maintain long-term sobriety ^{[13] [14]}. This means it helps us deal with one of the most common comorbidities of depression and anxiety: addiction.

This only scratches the surface of the many complex ways that exercise naturally helps depression and anxiety. But let’s look at how it helps the brain in general.

Cognitive Benefits of Regular Exercise

Exercise doesn’t just improve mood and stabilize our mental health; it also sharpens the mind and protects it from aging. When we engage in activities like running, cycling, or swimming, we increase blood flow to the brain and elevate levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).

This is a protein essential for learning and memory. It helps our concentration, problem-solving, and cognitive clarity ^[4]. This comes down to neural plasticity, or the brain’s ability to build new neural pathways. Neural plasticity declines as we get older, so exercise literally keeps the brain young.

In older adults, regular exercise slows cognitive decline and protects against neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. For instance, studies have found that regular aerobic exercise helps preserve the brain regions associated with memory, especially in those with early signs of cognitive impairment ^[15][16].

Being physically active also boosts the size of the hippocampus, a brain region critical for memory, promoting neurogenesis (growth of new neurons) and protecting brain health as one grows older ^[16].

In short, staying physically active and healthy keeps the brain active and healthy. So, what kinds of exercise should we be doing?

Types of Exercises That Benefit Mental Health

Before we get into what type of exercise you should be doing or how much, remember that working out is a lifestyle. If you aren’t already working out, are in the process of healing your relationship with exercise, or have physical limitations, it’s fine to start with something simple, like going for a walk.

The key is to be consistent and build up gradually. You don’t need to become an athlete overnight to start reaping the benefits. With that said, these are the types of exercise you can do and how they will help, according to science ^[17][18][19]^[20].

Type of Exercise	Benefits	Recommended Duration and Frequency	How It Works
Aerobic Exercise	Activities like running, walking, cycling, and swimming help lift mood and ease symptoms of anxiety and depression. Regular aerobic exercise can cut the risk of major depression by 26%.	Aim for 150 minutes per week, which breaks down to about 30 minutes a day on most days. Running for just 15 minutes or walking for an hour a day is also effective.	Aerobic exercise triggers the release of endorphins, supports better heart health and sleep, and builds BDNF, a protein important for brain health.
Weight Lifting (Resistance Training)	Resistance training, such as weightlifting, helps ease symptoms of anxiety and depression while building self-esteem and a positive body image.	Do resistance training 2-3 times per week, with sessions lasting 30-60 minutes. Programs longer than 10 weeks show the greatest results.	Weight lifting helps the body release endorphins and other mood-related chemicals. It also provides a sense of achievement and control over physical fitness.
Mind-Body Exercises (Yoga, Tai Chi)	Practices like yoga and Tai Chi calm the mind, ease stress, and help with depressive symptoms while encouraging mindfulness and balance.	Practice yoga or Tai Chi 2-3 times a week for 30-60 minutes. More frequent practice leads to even greater benefits.	These exercises use deep breathing and meditation techniques to lower cortisol levels (the stress hormone), helping the body stay calm and emotionally steady.

Creating a Sustainable Exercise Routine

Now, you may already know that starting a regular exercise routine can be easier said than done. Major lifestyle changes take time to become part of your daily routine. So, let’s look at some strategies to help build up your routine sustainably.

1. Start Small

You don’t need a gym membership. You don’t need to commit to an hour a day of high-intensity workouts or running. In fact, it’s better you don’t try and do too much at once. Every five or ten minute walk counts. You can build up intensity over time.

This also means that you don’t go out and spend unnecessary money buying tons of new equipment, like a mountain bike or treadmill. Working out at home, following a YouTube video, is fine. Only start buying equipment once you know what you enjoy and it has become a part of your life.

2. Find What You Enjoy

Maybe you hate running. Maybe you hate lifting weights. That’s okay. Try out a lot of different activities. Pilates. Swimming. Dance classes. Horse-back riding. When you do something you enjoy, it’ll go from feeling like a chore to something you look forward to.

3. Schedule Exercise

Here’s a life hack for workouts. At the beginning of the week, write down the workouts you want to do that week. These are non-negotiable and something you “owe’ to yourself to complete. If you create a list and schedule, workouts become an appointment you have with yourself.

Remember, this includes rest days, which are important to any long-term exercise routine. Rest is also an essential factor when it comes to maintaining positive mental health.

Consistency solidifies the idea in your brain that physical movement is something you do daily, just like brushing your teeth.

4. Track Progress

When you track your progress with an app on your phone or smartwatch, or even just write it down daily, you get to record your effort. This could help you celebrate every win and milestone and keep a record of your effort, which may be beneficial to some individuals. Being able to see your progress may build your belief in yourself.

5. Mix It Up

Ideally, you want to mix up all three types of exercise into your life: aerobic exercise, strength training, and mind-body movement like yoga. Doing the same thing every day gets boring and repetitive, and it’s best to try to reap the benefits of all of them.

But remember, in each category, there are hundreds of activities to choose from. So, if you don’t like running for aerobic exercise, try biking or swimming.

Conclusion

The benefits of exercise for mental health are pretty extensive and, in some cases, just as good as medication. If you really want to combat problems like depression and anxiety, or protect your brain from the aging process, then it’s time to invest in movement.