Effects of Exercise on Physical and Mental Health, and Cognitive and Brain Functions in Schizophrenia: Clinical and Experimental Evidence

Abstract

Exercise promotes several health benefits, such as cardiovascular, musculoskeletal and cardiorespiratory improvements. It is believed that the practice of exercise in individuals with psychiatric disorders, e.g. schizophrenia, can cause significant changes. Schizophrenic patients have problematic lifestyle habits compared with general population; this may cause a high mortality rate, mainly caused by cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate changes in physical and mental health, cognitive and brain functioning due to the practice of exercise in patients with schizophrenia. Although still little is known about the benefits of exercise on mental health, cognitive and brain functioning of schizophrenic patients, exercise training has been shown to be a beneficial intervention in the control and reduction of disease severity. Type of training, form of execution, duration and intensity need to be better studied as the effects on physical and mental health, cognition and brain activity depend exclusively of interconnected factors, such as the combination of exercise and medication. However, one should understand that exercise is not only an effective nondrug alternative, but also acts as a supporting linking up interventions to promote improvements in process performance optimization. In general, the positive effects on mental health, cognition and brain activity as a result of an exercise program are quite evident. Few studies have been published correlating effects of exercise in patients with schizophrenia, but there is increasing evidence that positive and negative symptoms can be improved. Therefore, it is important that further studies be undertaken to expand the knowledge of physical exercise on mental health in people with schizophrenia, as well as its dose-response and the most effective type of exercise.

Beneficial Effects of Exercise on Depression and Anxiety During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Narrative Review

“…The effect of exercise in treating or preventing anxiety and depression has been demonstrated in numerous studies ( 25 – 27 ), and widely accepted as an affordable, non-invasive, and easily accessible measures for individual with mental disorders ( 28 , 29 ). Recently, a study reported that, as people were rarely able to get access to exercise facilities during the Covid-19 pandemic, exergames based on the combination of exercise with appealing digital games was a potential method to cope with anxiety ( 30 ).…”

Aerobic Exercise as a Tool to Improve Hippocampal Plasticity and Function in Humans: Practical Implications for Mental Health Treatment

“…Most of the existing human literature investigating the use of AE in the treatment of MDD or schizophrenia has only measured its impact on individual psychopathologies, such as depressive symptoms or positive and negative symptoms ( Knöchel et al, 2012 ). In both cases, AE has been demonstrated to be effective in reducing both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia ( Vancampfort et al, 2012 ; Firth et al, 2015 ; Rimes et al, 2015 ) and affective symptoms in MDD ( Cooney et al, 2012 ), in some cases just as effectively as antidepressants ( Blumenthal et al, 1999 , 2007 ; Brosse et al, 2002 ), or in terms of neurogenesis, exceeding it ( Marlatt et al, 2010 ). The efficacy of AE in reducing a range of psychiatric symptoms suggests that AE interventions could have a number of benefits to the treatment of disorders like MDD or schizophrenia.…”

Why Do People With Schizophrenia Exercise? A Mixed Methods Analysis Among Community Dwelling Regular Exercisers

“…Exercise also has the potential to prevent or delay the onset of several mental health disorders ( 3 , 4 ). More recent studies have shown that exercise can have therapeutic effects for patients with psychiatric disorders and can specifically help to control and reduce the symptoms of schizophrenia ( 4 , 5 ). Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have identified that exercise significantly improves negative symptoms (such as social withdrawal, anergia, or apathy) but few studies have shown an improvement in positive symptoms (most notably delusions or hallucinations) of schizophrenia ( 6 – 8 ).…”