Mental Health and Physical Exercise

One of the aids to mental health is regular physical exercise (see blog ‘Mental Health and Critical Thinking’ 7/1/10). I have monitored the effects of various forms of physical exercise on my own mental state over about 20 years. Also, I have compared these effects with the effectiveness or benefits of other common aids to mental health or forms of treatment. Here are some of my (albeit subjective) findings.

1.Strenuous physical exercise gives a more significant psychological boost or uplift than non-strenuous exercise. By ‘strenuous’ I mean pushing the lungs and heart to near maximum, the point where conversation is not possible. Thus, strenuous exercise is different from jogging, swimming, cycling, playing tennis, soccer, etc., well within oneself.

2. Strenuous bursts of exercise lasting 30 seconds or less are not so psychologically boosting or uplifting as ones lasting 2-6 minutes or more.

3. 1½ hours of (mainly) 4 or 5 minute intervals may give as much psychological boost as 45 minutes all-out effort. The 1½ hours of intervals may include some short 30 seconds intervals.

4. The psychological boost of strenuous physical exercise does not increase significantly above 2½ hours exercise session.

5. The psychological boost of strenuous exercise includes the following: calm; greater optimism; self-confidence; resilience – feeling more able to cope with inevitable, unexpected setbacks and present known challenges; getting things in perspective – some mistakes, problems, deficiencies, injustices, setbacks seem less catastrophic; greater acceptance of life’s imperfections and misfortunes; joy in simple things – clouds, trees, having hot and cold running water, clean safe accommodation, friends, health.
The psychological boost attained by strenuous physical exercise is qualitatively similar to the uplift given by tranquilisers and anti-depressants (when these are working well, i.e. no flat affect, no disruptions of concentration, unpleasant side effects).

6. The psychological boost given by strenuous exercise lasts the rest of the day but is not significantly felt the next day. In order to maintain psychological boost through strenuous physical exercise 3 workouts per week are necessary. These strenuous workouts should be a minimum of 30 minutes all-out or 1 hour interval sessions.

7. It is difficult to separate the psychological boost given by a particular form of strenuous exercise from other psychological benefits associated with that activity, e.g. certain kinds of cycle interval training and success in cycle road racing.

8. Some fortunate individuals can maintain reasonable psychological well-being without strenuous exercise. For those who are prone to mental health problems a physical exercise program may be necessary, working up to strenuous physical exercise. It may be that strenuous physical exercise is more necessary for males than for females for physiological reasons.

9. Psychological well-being - buoyancy, resilience, feelings of adequacy, competence, joy in life, enjoyment of life – cannot be maintained solely or mainly by strenuous physical exercise. Inner self-satisfaction is probably a more important component of psychological well-being/mental health. You have to regularly engage in, commit yourself to, an activity which on analysis, criticism, and reflection it is reasonable to hold as worthwhile, as being of intrinsic value. Such intrinsically worthwhile activities might include community service, learning another language, scientific investigation, practicing art, writing, learning the piano. To many, some activities, though reasonably pleasant and satisfying (and more worthy than, say, watching tv, playing bingo, or going to shopping malls or garage sales) might not seem ultimately very worthwhile/of intrinsic value, e.g. collecting country and western (or jazz, classical, or rock) records, gardening, fishing, going on a cruise, hiking, mountain climbing, foreign travel, playing soccer or golf, establishing provincial age running records.

In questions of value it is difficult to separate out bias, mere personal taste, and snobbery. For instance, is being an expert ballet dancer of more intrinsic value than being a good model aeroplane builder?