🧠 Let’s talk about exercise and therapy

By Sarah Sloat

Sunday Scaries

Hello! My name is Sarah Sloat and welcome to Sunday Scaries #145. Thanks for reading this chill newsletter for not-chill people.

This week we’re talking about new research supporting a step you might want to take before therapy. What should we discuss next week? Let me know what mental health topics you’d like to learn more about with an email sent to sundayscaries@inverse.com.

This week’s chill icon

This week’s chill icon is Whitney Hay, winner of the Pancake Day Race.

Have you encountered a chill icon IRL or during your internet browsing? If so, I want to hear from you. Send an email over to sundayscaries@inverse.com and you might see them in next week’s newsletter.

Let’s talk about exercise and therapy

We know that exercise benefits mental health. It is also understood that many people don’t like to exercise — a conundrum for scientists looking to use exercise to treat mental health issues.

Jacob Meyer, an assistant professor at Iowa State, and his team are among those who want to discover more “useful and practical ways to use exercise,” he tells me.

They went on to discover a curious connection: Exercise may augment the power of therapy.

This theory is that exercise can create a window of time in which a person with depression may have an easier time doing something psychologically or cognitively demanding. An initial study published in March 2022 supports this claim, while an unpublished pilot study shows it in action: In a small group of 10 participants, exercising for 30 minutes before an hour of virtual cognitive behavioral therapy experienced a reduction in depression symptoms.

“We really want to figure out ‘how’ or ‘why’ this is happening – what is happening in the body that is leading to how people feel differently afterward?” Meyers says.

“Determining what types of activities post-exercise could be helped the most is certainly high on the list to address, particularly in adults with depression or other mental illnesses.”

In the first study, Meyer and colleagues worked with 30 people who experience major depressive episodes. They were divided into a group that either sat or cycled for 30 minutes. They were surveyed before, during, and immediately after the activity and then surveyed again 25, 50, and 75 minutes later. The research team evaluated their mood, cognitive function, and levels of anhedonia — the inability to feel pleasure from things that typically cause happiness.

The results suggest only the cycling group experienced an improvement in mood and anhedonia during the half-hour session, which lasted up to at least 75 minutes after the workout ended.

This suggested to Meyer that exercise could lead to a more effective therapy session. They evaluated the idea further in a study in which 5 out of 10 participants exercised for 30 minutes before undergoing an hour of therapy. They exercised however they wanted at moderate intensity.

After eight weeks, all 10 participants found the therapy beneficial, but the exercise group had more pronounced reductions in depression symptoms. This group also felt closer to their therapist.

Why exactly this happened requires further study, but for now, the pilot study suggests these benefits are “doable and are worth pursuing in a larger study,” Meyer says.

Despite the wide range of studies which endorse exercise as means to better mental health, most people receiving mental health care aren’t technically prescribed exercise. It’s possible that increasingly clear-cut understandings of this link could result in more precise help. In the meantime, the foundational knowledge is certain: Moving your body is good for your brain.

Now look at this oddly satisfying thing

I took this on my recent trip to Joshua Tree National Park!

Have you noticed any beautiful patterns in nature? An extremely good deep-cleaning video? Just something visually nice but you can’t explain why? Then send your best examples to sundayscaries@inverse.com for consideration.

What I’m reading this week

Distract yourself from the scaries with these reads:

Watching snail sex could help scientists see evolution in real time. What the most “misidentified creature in the world” reveals about the concept of “sexual conflict.”

Beyond longevity: The DIY quest to cheat death and stop aging. How extreme civilian experiments are colliding with scientific endeavors.

One everyday action could help combat climate change, UN report reveals. Collective changes to behavior and lifestyle could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 70 percent.

And if it’s midnight and you’re still feeling the scaries . . .

Watch these cute little “sea bats.”

Thank you so much for reading! Do the cheesy thing and be kind to yourself and others. We’ll catch up more next week.

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🧠 Let’s talk about exercise and therapy

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