Acute Bouts of Exercising Improved Mood, Rumination and Social Interaction in Inpatients With Mental Disorders

Abstract

Background: Studies at the macro level (such as longer-term interventions) showed that physical activity impacts positively on cognitive-emotional processes of patients with mental disorders. However, research focusing on the immediate impact of acute bouts of exercise (micro level) are missing. The aim of the present study was therefore to investigate whether and to what extent single bouts of moderately intense exercise can influence dimensions of psychological functioning in inpatients with mental disorders.Method: 129 inpatients (mean age: 38.16 years; 50.4% females) took part and completed a questionnaire both immediately before and immediately after exercising. Thirty inpatients completed the questionnaires a second time in the same week. The questionnaire covered socio-demographic and illness-related information. Further, the questionnaire asked about current psychological states such as mood, rumination, social interactions, and attention, tiredness, and physical strengths as a proxy of physiological states.Results: Psychological states improved from pre- to post-session. Improvements were observed for mood, social interactions, attention, and physical strengths. Likewise, rumination and tiredness decreased. Mood, rumination, and tiredness further improved, when patients completed the questionnaires the second time in the same week.Conclusion: At micro level, single bouts of exercise impacted positively on cognitive-emotional processes such as mood, rumination, attention and social interactions, and physiological states of tiredness and physical strengths among inpatients with mental disorders. In addition, further improvements were observed, if patients participated in physical activities a second time.

Social media and smartphone app use predicts maintenance of physical activity during Covid-19 enforced isolation in psychiatric outpatients

“…Possible mechanisms for this effect include stress-reducing effects of information-sharing or co-rumination (talking through problems together with others) [ 43 , 44 ], positive mood contagion [ 45 , 46 ], and general mood-boosting effects of social interaction [ 47 , 48 ]. Although we found no strong evidence of a pathway between social media use, physical activity, and self-reported emotional valence in our emotion-reporting subsample, simulation evidence suggested we lacked power to determine absence of effects in this analysis, and a positive predictive association between physical activity and mood has been well-established in previous work [ 47 , 49 ]. Importantly, increased physical activity may activate a positive feedback loop, whereby greater activity improves mood and therefore further enhances motivation to continue exercising.…”

In Patients With Multiple Sclerosis, Both Objective and Subjective Sleep, Depression, Fatigue, and Paresthesia Improved After 3 Weeks of Regular Exercise

“…Second, following Siengsukon et al (56), we anticipated that 3 weeks of regular exercise would improve their subjective sleep. Third, following others (10, 24, 57, 58, 67, 68), we hypothesized that 3 weeks of regular exercise would have a positive impact on depression, fatigue, and paresthesia among such patients. Fourth, in line with previous research (69–71), we expected that a 3-week program of regular exercise would improve the cognitive performance of MS patients.…”

Psychiatric In-Patients Are More Likely to Meet Recommended Levels of Health-Enhancing Physical Activity If They Engage in Exercise and Sport Therapy Programs

“…While prior investigations have suggested that one single exercise episode can have positive effects on patients' well-being ( 26 , 27 ), studies also show that repeated participation in exercise therapy has a clinically relevant impact on psychiatric patients' cardiorespiratory fitness levels ( 28 ). The latter is important because cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with lower risk for cardiovascular diseases and cardiovascular disease-related mortality ( 29 , 30 ), conditions to which patients with psychiatric disorders are particularly susceptible ( 31 , 32 ).…”