Physical Activity Is Good for Anxiety Too!

Physical activity (PA) benefits mood, sleep, and cognition. Several studies have shown that PA protects against the development of anxiety and is useful as an anxiety treatment. These authors have conducted the first-ever meta-analysis on PA's protective effects.

The 13 included studies (14 cohorts), with a total sample size of almost 76,000, involved ≥1 year of follow-up, examined incident anxiety in people with high versus low PA, and defined anxiety with established cutoffs on anxiety screening instruments or diagnosis of an anxiety disorder using DSM or International Classification of Disease criteria. High PA was significantly associated with risk reduction of incident anxiety compared with low PA in analyses adjusting for sex, body-mas…