Exercise: Abundant research has shown benefits of exercise in preventing heart disease and cancer, as well as cognitive decline with age and even viral and bacterial infections. It has also been shown to be beneficial in recovering from heart attacks and in treating heart failure.
Research Spotlight
The databases often return hundreds of medical studies for a single wellness approach. This section summarizes a sampling of five studies – providing just a taste of the available research. These Spotlights were not selected because they are the most favorable or the most recent, but to provide you an introduction to the more extensive research you’ll uncover searching the four databases found in the “Research” section of this site.
- Exercise Has Startling Impact on Mental Health
A large 2020 study (152,978 participants) from University College London provides powerful evidence as to how important exercise is to mental health. People with low aerobic and muscular fitness were roughly twice as likely to experience depression, and 60% more likely to suffer anxiety, seven years after the fitness tests.
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Exercise Linked to Creativity and Innovation
A 2021 study from the University of Graz (Austria) found a direct link between everyday physical activity (simple walking or moderate exercise) and greater creativity and inventiveness. Active people came up with significantly more—and more innovative—ideas during tests (whether conceiving of new usages for an umbrella or finishing partial drawings) than sedentary people.
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Exercise as Effective as Mindfulness at Reducing Stress
Exercise is just as effective as mindfulness at reducing people’s anxiety, a 2021 Cambridge University study found. The scientists reviewed 136 randomized control trials with 11,000 adult participants from 29 countries. In most cases mindfulness did positively impact anxiety, stress and depression, but there was no evidence it works better than exercise.
Access this study on exercise - 11 Minutes of Exercise a Day Counters Effects of Sitting; 35 Minutes Is the Sweet Spot
An 2020 study from global researchers, relying on movement tracking data from tens of thousands of people worldwide, found that people that were the most sedentary were significantly more likely to die young. The good news: It doesn’t take a whole lot of movement to counteract that threat. Just 11 minutes of brisk walking or other mild exercise each day (even for the group that sat the most) led to significant reductions in early death. The sweet spot: 35 minutes of moderate activity, which led to the most longevity gains–no matter how long people sat.
Access this study on exercise - Weight Training May Reduce Anxiety
A 2020 study from the University of Limerick-Ireland found that a basic, twice-weekly resistance/weight training program of lunges, lifts, squats and crunches (sometimes using equipment like dumbbells) led to 20% better scores on tests for anxiety. The researchers noted that the effect was larger than expected.
Access this study on exercise - An “Awe Walk” Boosts Mental Wellbeing
A 2020 study from the University of California, San Francisco found that people that were consciously aware of the vistas and objects around them on a walk– what the researchers call “awe walks”–reported being more hopeful and upbeat than walkers who did not. Study participants were older men and women; one group was instructed on how to cultivate awe (i.e., to look at the world with fresh, childlike eyes) on their stroll. The researchers concluded that being mindful during exercise seems to increase the mental health benefits.
Access this study on exercise - Exercise Boosts Immune Response from Vaccinations
A 2020 study from Saarland University (Germany) compared elite, competitive athletes’ (both men and women) to normal, healthy young people’s immune response to a vaccine. They found that after a flu vaccine, the athlete group had significantly more immune cells and antibodies post-vaccination than the non-athlete group. The researchers concluded that being in great shape is associated with a much more pronounced immune response and is likely to increase our protection from vaccinations.
Access this study on exercise - Sitting All Day Linked to Dramatically Higher Rates of Cancer
A 2020 study in JAMA Oncology suggests that very sedentary people are roughly 80 percent more likely to die of cancer than those who sit the least. The study, using epidemiological data and activity trackers on 7,000 middle-aged men and women, found that people that spent the most time during their day sitting were 82 percent more likely to have died from cancer during the study’s follow-up period than those that had sat the least (even if they were otherwise healthy). Bright spot: For every 30 minutes of average daily movement (even slow walking, housework, etc.), the risk of dying from cancer fell by 31 percent.
Access this study on exercise - People Exercising during COVID-19 Are Less Depressed, More Mentally Resilient
A 2020 study published at Cambridge Open Engage (allowing research to be disseminated before it’s peer-reviewed and officially published) studied people who were meeting, or not, the recommended 150 minutes/week of moderate exercise during the pandemic and their reported emotional state. Those physically active during lockdown were significantly less depressed and more mentally resilient than those whose activity levels had declined.
Access this study on exercise - Hourly 4-s Sprints Prevent Impairment of Postprandial Fat Metabolism from Inactivity
A small 2020 study from the University of Texas found that just 4 seconds of intense exercise (in this case, sprinting on a stationary bike) throughout the day (for a total of 2 minutes and 40 seconds across 8 hours) has a powerful impact on metabolic health: lowering triglycerides 30 percent and burning significant fat. The researchers concluded that frequent, extremely tiny bursts of exercise seem to “undo” the damaging effects of a sedentary life.
Access this study on exercise - Exercise Proven to Boost Immunity & Reduce Risk of Illness
A 2019 meta-review shows exercise has a plethora of immune-boosting benefits. Exercise has an anti-inflammatory influence mediated through multiple pathways. There is a clear inverse relationship between regular exercise and illness risk. And exercise improves immune defense activity and regulation and metabolic health.
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Dance: A Proven Depression Fighter
Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) has not been used in clinical guidelines for interventions in depression because of the perceived lack of evidence. To remedy this, Edge Hill University, UK, undertook a systematic review of high-quality studies in 2019 and found that DMT was found to be an effective therapy for the treatment of adults with depression.
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Any Daily Activity – Just Strolling or Cleaning the Kitchen – Lowers Mortality Risk
A large new study shows that people that move around during the day, no matter how modestly, are less likely to die prematurely. It’s a meaningful study because it looked at what people were actually doing via fitness trackers (and not just what they self-reported), and it found that the biggest life expectancy gains came from people that shifted from being almost totally sedentary to getting up and even just walking slowly about for an hour a day.
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Exercise During Pregnancy May Build Babies’ Aptitude for Movement
A small 2019 study from East Carolina State University indicated that women who exercise while pregnant may bring lasting benefits to their babies. The babies of mothers who exercised while pregnant performed better on a host of motor skills (how they react and move). And the gains were most significant among baby girls.
Access this study on exercise - Even 20-40 Minutes of Physical Activity Eliminates Most Health Risks from Sitting
A large 2019 study found that people who spend their day sitting may have to move less than was originally thought to eliminate the health risks. Earlier studies suggested that one hour a day of physical activity was needed, but this new study found that even 20-40 minutes seemed to erase most of the health risks from a sedentary life.
Access this study on exercise - With Exercise, Midlife Is Not Too Late to Begin
A large 2019 study from the National Cancer Institute, analyzing data (on $315K+ people) from the N.I.H.-AARP Diet and Health Study, indicates that with exercise it’s never too late to begin. People who started exercising in midlife had the same protection against mortality as people that had always worked out. The bad news? The reverse is true: if you stop exercising in midlife, all the longevity benefits you accrued evaporate.
Access this study on exercise - Lifelong Exercisers Have Bodies “Thirty Years Younger”
A 2018 study from Ball State University, testing the cardiovascular health and muscles of people in their 70s that exercised steadily for decades, found that the muscles of these men and women were indistinguishable in many ways from those of healthy 25-year-olds. And these active septuagenarians essentially had the cardiovascular health of people 30 years younger.
Access this study on exercise - Just a Ten-Minute Walk Significantly Boosts the Brain
A small 2018 study from Univ. of California, Irvine and Univ. of Tsukuba-Japan found that just ten minutes of very mild exercise – like walking – can immediately alter how parts of the brain communicate with each another and boost memory function. The researchers noted that very short and easy exercise can change people’s brains right away and that the exertion required for this significant benefit is so minimal that almost anyone can do it.
Access this study on exercise - A Sedentary Life More Deadly than Being A Smoker, Hypertensive or Diabetic
A large 2018 study (122,000 patients) led by the Cleveland Clinic found that a sedentary life is a massive risk factor for death and worse than being a smoker or having diabetes or heart disease. The researchers, who tracked fitness levels of individuals and subsequent mortality rates, reported, “We’ve never seen something as pronounced and as objective as this.” They insisted that a sedentary lifestyle should be seen as a disease, with the obvious treatment being exercise.
Access this study on exercise - Best Sports for a Long Life? Social like Tennis, not Solitary like Jogging
A large 2018 study from Danish researchers suggests that people that played social or team sports, like tennis or soccer, live longer than those that who do solitary fitness like jogging, swimming or cycling. The study found that all exercise increased longevity, but while cycling added 3.7 years, and running 3.2, to a person’s life – tennis added 9.7, badminton added 6.2, and soccer added roughly 5 years. The social interaction component in exercise seems to have unique physical and mental benefits.
Access this study on exercise - Fitness in Midlife a Weapon Against Depression & Cardiovascular Disease Later
A study from the Cooper Institute and Univ. of Texas, etc., analyzing roughly 18,000 people, found that men and women who are more physically fit at midlife have a much lower risk of depression and death from cardiovascular disease later in life. Compared with those in the lowest fitness category, people in the highest were 16% less likely to have depression, 61% less likely to have cardiovascular illness without depression, and 56% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease.
Access this study on exercise - Dancing Is Powerful Exercise for Slowing the Aging Process
A 2017 study from neuroscientists at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases compared the impact of two types of exercise on older people: a traditional endurance training program (cycling, Nordic walking, etc.) vs. a mix of dance classes (jazz, line dancing, etc.). While both forms of exercise increased the areas of the brain that decline with age – only dancing lead to significant behavioral changes ( like improved balance, etc.)
Access this study on exercise - Group Exercise Improves Quality of Life and Stress More Than Individual Exercise
A small study (University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, 2017) compared group exercise to individual exercise, finding that while the solitary exercisers studied worked out twice as long, those doing a group exercise class experienced significant improvements in all quality of life measures: mental (12.6%), physical (24.8%), and emotional (26%) – with a 26% reduction in stress levels.
Access this study on exercise - Walking in Nature Beat the Treadmill
A small study from Austria’s University of Innsbruck (2017) suggested that walking in nature has key benefits over comparable exercise on the gym treadmill. People that hiked for three hours on a mountain trail (even though it was actually more strenuous) reported that it was less strenuous than the same time spent walking on a treadmill. And people’s mood scores were much higher after the outdoor hike.
Access this study on exercise - Cost of Sedentary Children is Staggering
A new, first-ever study from Johns Hopkins University (2017) revealed the incredible healthcare costs that societies would save if the children who are currently inactive (a skyrocketing number) exercised just an hour a day. Using very complex computer simulations, the researchers found that the U.S. alone would save $120 billion annually. This is a mounting global problem, as research shows that in Europe and the U.S. physical activity tends to peak at age 7, and plummets throughout adolescence.
Access this study on exercise - Dancing Is Better for Brain than Brisk Walking or Stretching
A 2017 University of Illinois-Urbana study suggested that there might be something uniquely beneficial to the brain about social dancing. Scientists analyzed the impact of country dance (with intricate moves from partner to partner) on older people’s brain function, compared with brisk walking and stretching/balance training. After six months, only the “social dance” group showed improvement in integrity of the fornix (i.e, processing speed). Researchers concluded movement mixed with socializing might be a force for slowing brain changes that come with aging.
Access this study on exercise - Shorter, Weekend-Only Workouts as Effective as Those Spread Out Over the Week
A large 2016 study from Longborough University, UK (63,591 people tracked over 15 years) found that the “weekend warrior” exerciser (jamming their weekly exercise into a couple of workouts) lessened the risk of early death as much as those doing frequent workouts throughout the week. People that exercised in any amount were 29 percent less likely to die prematurely. This advantage remained the same whether people worked out three or more times during the week or compressed their exercise into a session or two.
Access this study on exercise - Studies Indicate Exercise Prevents People from Developing Depression
A global meta-analysis of large-scale past studies (aggregating data on more than 1.1 million people) found that the link between fitness/regular exercise and mental health is strong. Those identified as in the lowest third for aerobic fitness levels were 75% more likely to have received a diagnosis of depression than those in the top third, while those in the middle third were almost 25% more likely to develop depression than those most fit.
Access this study on exercise - Learn Something, Wait a Few Hours, then Exercise to Build Memory
A study from Radboud University-Netherlands and the University of Edinburgh (2016) indicated that delaying exercise for a few hours after learning something led to greater memory recall than exercising immediately after studying. Participants were given a standard visual and spatial learning test, and then two-thirds did follow-up exercise: half did interval training 35 minutes after the test and half did it four hours later. Those who exercised four hours after recreated the picture locations most accurately, and MRIs showed their brain activity had a more consistent pattern of neural activity.
Access this research on exercise - 1 Minute of Intense Exercise Equals 45 Minutes of Moderate
A small, but high quality study from McMaster University (2016) found that 60 seconds of intense exertion proved as successful at improving health/fitness as three-quarters of an hour of moderate exercise. Testing out-of-shape men on stationary bicycles, one group did 45 minutes of cycling at a moderate pace (multiple sessions over three weeks), while the other group sprinted all-out in three, 20-second bursts. The surprising finding: both groups saw identical gains. Endurance improved 20%, and insulin resistance, and the number and function of certain microscopic structures in the muscles related to energy production and oxygen consumption, all jumped the same amount.
Access this research on exercise - Walking, Swimming, Dancing, Even Gardening — Are Alzheimer’s Fighters
A study from the University of California, Los Angeles (2016), which looked at ten years of data from 900+ people over 65, found that brain scans of participants that walked, swum, cycled, ballroom danced, or even gardened (even a few times a week) showed substantially more gray matter (the parts of the brain related to memory and high-level thinking) than their peers. And those study participants also had 50% less risk five years later of having memory decline or of developing Alzheimer’s.
Access this study on exercise - Running Created More New Brain Cells in Rats than Weight Training or High-Intensity Interval Training
A 2016 study from the University of Jyvaskyla (Finland), performed on rats, found that running drove the production of the most new brain neurons (neurogenesis). For the first time, scientists compared the effect on the brain of running, weight training (rats climbed walls with weights attached to their tails) and high-intensity interval training (sprinting on treadmills/slowing/repeating). A substance was injected in the rats’ brains to track the creation of new brain cells and the runners showed by far the most neurogenesis: their hippocampus teemed with new neurons, while the high-intensity interval training showed far fewer neurons created, and the weight training showed no neurogenesis.
Access this study on exercise - Exercise Is Best Prevention for Lower Back Pain
A 2016 meta-review of the universe of high-quality studies by George Institute for Global Health, University of Sydney, found that education on its own, and orthotics/shoe insoles and back belts, provided no prevention against lower back pain – but exercise’s protective effect was significant. No matter what kind of exercise program, it nearly halved the likelihood of another back pain episode within the next year.
Access this study on exercise - Large Study Finds Women Who Spend 6+ Hours/Day Sitting 10% More Likely to Get Cancer
Few studies have analyzed time spent sitting as it relates to total mortality. But a large (123,216 individuals) 2015 study from the American Cancer Society found that women who sit for more than six hours/day were (over the 13-year study period) 10% more likely to get cancer and 37% more likely to die than those who sat less than three hours/day. Notable was the significantly increased risk of bone marrow, breast and ovarian cancers. Surprisingly, the “sitting risk” was lower for men: six-plus-hour-a-day male sitters were 18% more likely to die, but the cancer risk was not considerably higher. The researchers concluded that public health guidelines should be refined to include reducing time spent sitting in addition to promoting physical activity.
Access this study on exercise - Harvard/NCI Study Reveals Optimum Levels of Exercise in Avoiding Premature Death
Results of a National Cancer Institute/Harvard University study of 661,000 adults (mostly middle-aged) revealed at least some of the recommended exercise (150 minutes/week) produced the most dramatic longevity gains (20% less likely to die prematurely), with gradual upticks to around 450 minutes/week (39% less likely to die prematurely). Extreme athletics produced more modest gains.
Access this research on exercise - Early Fitness Leads to Greater Mental Acuity Later in Life
A 2014 University of Minnesota study (2,747 participants, recruited at ages 18-30 in 1985/86) indicated that individuals fit in their 20s are significantly more likely to be mentally sharp in middle age. Those that had initially done better on a treadmill test exhibited better verbal memory and faster psychomotor speed at ages 43 -55. And if they had kept their fitness up in middle age, they did even better.
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