Exercise Isn't Just Good for Your Body, It's Good for Your Mind

How much time do you spend exercising in a typical week? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fewer than one in four Americans get the recommended amount of exercise. As a result, these individuals are more likely to develop chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease than their counterparts who do get the recommended amount of exercise. But staying physically active affects more than just your body; it also affects your mind.

According to a new study, exercise -- when performed in moderation -- reduces the risk of mental illness. For the study, researchers analyzed data involving more than 1.2 million men and women in the United States, all of whom participated in a mental health survey. Researchers say that, on average, participants experienced between three and four days of poor mental health each month. However, participants who exercised the most experienced fewer days of self-reported poor mental health.

After crunching the data, researchers discovered that participants who exercised the most had 43% fewer days of poor mental health than their counterparts who rarely exercised. So, what is poor mental health exactly? Researchers say that poor mental health, when used in the context of this study, refers to self-reported mental conditions like extreme physiological stress, anxiety and depression.

While the physical benefits of exercise are well known, the mental benefits are not. The focus of this study, as explained by the study's authors, was to examine the correlation between exercise and mental health.

"We aimed to examine the association between exercise and mental health burden in a large sample, and to better understand the influence of exercise type, frequency, duration, and intensity," wrote the study's authors.

So, how much should you exercise in a typical week to protect against mental illness? Current guidelines recommend 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise or 75 minutes of high-intensity aerobic exercise per week. While exercising for this length of time may sound difficult, there are ways to easily increase your physical activity. Taking the stairs to your office instead of the elevator, for instance, counts as aerobic exercise. Another idea is to walk during your lunch breaks at work. With a little work, you can meet these exercise guidelines and reap the benefits of better physical and mental health.

This study was published in the medical journal The Lancet Psychiatry.