When your anxiety levels are out of control, the last thing you want to do is exercise.
However, new research from Queen’s University in Canada says that exercise could be the key to controlling bad anxiety levels–for good.
“If you’re anxious, you’re paying attention to more anxiety-inducing things, whether that’s external or internal,” says Adam Heenan, a Queen’s University Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology. “Exercising and doing relaxation techniques are already known to be good for anxiety, but this shows there is another potential benefit, because if you’re perceiving the world as less threatening, that’s less stuff you have to deal with.”
Recruiting 66 students undergraduate and graduate students, Heenan first had them take a questionnaire to determine their current anxiety levels, called the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Their social anxiety was also assessed using the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale. Then, after evaluating who had the highest anxiety levels, Heenan assigned to them to a treadmill. There, each student was randomly assigned to stand, walk at a pace of 4 km/h, or jog at a pace of 8 km/h for a total of 10 minutes.
After the 10 minutes had elapsed, Heenan showed them an animation of a stick figure that was walking. Due to the design of the animation, those with anxiety often process that the animation is walking towards them, but those without anxiety perceive the animation as walking away.
And certainly, that was the case for the students with anxiety who stood on the treadmill. But something strange happened for those who had walked or ran–they saw that the animation was walking away from them.
“Our hypothesis that exercise would reduce the facing-the-viewer bias was based on the premise that anxiety and the facing-the-viewer bias are positively correlated,” write researchers in the online version of PLoS One. “This finding suggests that the observed effect of exercise on the facing-the-viewer bias may have indeed been mediated by the anxiolytic properties of physical exercise as we proposed, and replicates the previous finding of a positive correlation between anxiety and the facing-the-viewer bias.”
Researchers say further studies are needed to investigate the specific effects of exercise on anxiety, however.
What This Means For You
Chances are if you have anxiety, the last thing you want to do is exercise–but according to Heenan’s findings, it could seriously help. While Heenan is hesitant to make any recommendations, other health experts say adding a 30 minute bout of exercise to your daily routine could be helpful for calming down out-of-control anxiety, especially if you suffer from social anxiety.
“Immediately afterwards, not only will people feel better,” says Heenan. “Because of the physiological effects of these tasks, as well as the improved self-esteem, but they potentially could also be getting a protective benefit of not directing as much attention to processing worrying or anxiety-inducing things.”
Readers: Do you find that exercise helps calm down stress or anxiety?
Sources:
Study: Exercise May Reduce Social Anxiety By Making People Less Fearful – PloSOne.org
Exercise Can Change How Anxious People See the World – FoxNews.com
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