Does exercise make you more happy?
As well as reducing unhappiness
Image: the ever-smiling Eliud Kipchoge, in FastRunning.com
Talking with a friend over a drink, he pointed out that the people he saw jogging didn’t look like they were having fun. Just the reverse – a grimace not a grin, desperation rather than ecstasy.
In her recent book Move, Caroline Williams proposes that movement helps wellbeing and cognitive function. For Williams, the human inclination to keep moving explains our ancestors ranging all over the world – eventually arriving in Aotearoa some 750 years ago.
Williams quotes some fascinating research – including Dick Green’s study of how brisk walking induces a pressure wave in our bloodstream, optimising brain function. Green’s results suggest an optimum walking pace of 120 steps/minute. That would mean you’ve achieved your 10,000 steps in just one hour and 13 minutes.
So – 2 steps a second – how fast is that? It translates to ‘very brisk walking’. Jogging is from 140 steps per minute.
That aside – 120 steps per minute, speculates Dick Green, is not only good for you but feels good.
Most of the research into how exercise promotes wellbeing looks into how exercise reduces bad feelings.
A great review by Shaojuan Hu and her colleagues summarised 19 studies indicating that exercise helps reduce negative emotions. These studies report ‘effect sizes’ that are large enough to get you out of your seat – these are serious indications of the large effect exercise has on wellbeing. These authors go on to identify some (research-based) ways to encourage the exercise habit. Their suggestions:
· Build small quantities into leisure time
· Make it fun – so it is more likely to become an unconscious habit
· Use Apps
· Improve access (eg, a treadmill in front of the TV), and socialise the habit with friends and family – a walking league table for example
And – the research indicates – the more of these approaches you include in the mix – the more you build an exercise habit and improve your wellbeing.
Back to the question of my friend – will exercise make you feel great?
Harder to find the evidence for this. Thabo J. Van Woudenberg and colleagues persuaded 1,484 adolescents to wear a wrist accelerometer and also to rate happiness (on a sliding line and in terms of smiley faces) over several days. Higher happiness ratings were predicted by steps accumulated in the previous hour. There was a reciprocal effect – happiness predicted the number of steps accumulated in the next hour. There was no carry-over to the next day – happiness or steps on a day did not predict respectively steps or happiness the next day.
It would be great to see more research into how exercise lifts positivity – but it looks like exercise is a good way to reduce negative feelings, and does boost positive emotions.
Check out Shaojuan Hu’s suggestions for getting moving!