Exercise as it relates to Disease/Exercise and the mind: the psychological benefits of exercise

The critique of the research article: Edwards S. Physical Exercise and Psychological Well-being. This critique was undertaken as part of an assignment unit Health, Disease, and Exercise (8340) at the University of Canberra, during Semester 2 of 2021.

What is the background to this research?
The world health organisation (WHO) determines health to be in a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. A mental illness can be defined as ‘a clinically diagnosable disorder that significantly interferes with a person’s cognitive, emotional or social abilities’ (COAG Health Council 2017). The term itself covers a range of illnesses including anxiety disorders, affective disorders, psychotic disorders and substance use disorders. In 2007, nearly 1 in 2 (46%) Australians aged 16–85 had experienced a mental disorder during their lifetime and 1 in 5 (20%) people who had experienced a mental disorder in their lifetime had symptoms in the 12 months before the survey interview. Physical exercise may be defined as a subset of physical activities that are planned and purposeful attempts to improve health and well-being.

In the past the relationship between exercise and physical well-being has been well researched and its only recently that more research has been done around relating exercise to mental well-being. This research paper compares the psychological well-being of health club members compared to university students.

Where is this research from?
This research was performed at the Zululand University, South Africa by Stephen Edwards. The exercise group were members of a local South African health club. Stephen Edwards was the head of the psychology department at the Zululand University from 1982-2007. He was involved in many research papers that have been presented at world conferences. Stephen now has a Professor Emeritus status, which is given to those retired who have made significant contributions in their specific field.

What kind of research was this?
This study was a longitudinal cohort study. Longitudinal studies are studies that are done with the same group of people for an extended period of time and cohort means that they are grouped based on a particular characteristic. The advantages of longitudinal studies are that they allow observers to see changes over time. The disadvantages of longitudinal studies are that they can be expensive and that participants are likely to drop-out.

What did this research involve?
This research involved comparing the psychological well-being of University students and 26 health club members. A well-being profile was developed for each of the participants using various well-being components including mood, lifestyle, satisfaction with life, sense of coherence, fortitude, stress management, coping and total well-being score. These components were defined as


 * Mood: Respondents were required to evaluate their current feelings on a five-point scale with regard to six positive and six negative mood states. Negative moods included feeling anxious, depressed, confused, angry, fatigued and stressed. Positive moods included feeling energetic, confident, happy, healthy, being in control and strong.
 * Lifestyle: Respondents were required to affirm or deny seven habits associated with health (Noakes & Granger 1995). These included regular exercise, regular eating, eating breakfast, sleeping, smoking, drinking and being over- or underweight.
 * Satisfaction with life: The scale required respondents to make cognitive judgements, rather than affective responses, as to their global satisfaction with their quality of life.
 * Fortitude: The Fortitude scale was developed and standardised in South Africa by Pretorius (1998) and consists of 20 items, reflecting three subscales labelled self-appraisals, family appraisals and support appraisals.
 * Stress/ Stress management: The Holmes and Rahe (1967) social readjustment scale requires respondents to indicate their current experience of stress in terms of commonly occurring life events.
 * Coping with stress: This component consisted of 15 items reflecting typical reactions to stress which respondents were required to confirm or deny.

Some limitations from this research are:


 * The sample size of 26 is a small group. This may not be a true reflection of the broader population.
 * The exercise was only performed in a health club setting. This means it hard to determine if exercise outside of that setting would be as effective or effective at all in improving mental well-being. Not everyone can afford a gym membership either limits the application of these results.
 * The participants from the health club were generally determined to have better psychological well-being prior to the research so the results indicate that regular exercise is great at preventing mental illness but cant determine that it will have the same effects in treating individuals that already have a mental illness or a psychological unwell.

What were the basic results?
The components of well-being were all positive and low to moderate, ranging between 0.09 and 0.5, indicating that the seven components, though related, were sufficiently independent. Analysis of variance of well-being components of health club members and university students indicated that health club members were significantly more psychologically well than students, especially due to their healthier lifestyle, decreased stress and improved coping.

The table below shows the pre vs post and t-test statistic.

A t-test is used to to determine if there is similarities between the means of two groups. A p-score >0.05 indicates there is a significant difference between the two. As seen in the table above mood, sense of coherence, fortitude, stress and coping with stress all saw massive differences. Stress saw the biggest drop which is great as this is a major determinant of psychological illness.

What conclusions can be made from this research?
We can conclude that health club members are have a higher psychological well-being then university students. However this result may have been influenced by the fact that the health club members regularly participated in physical activity prior to the test. The results from this research suggest that physical activity may be correlated with preventing mental illness but not necessarily as a treatment option.

Practical advice
Further research needs to be done to determine if regular physical activity can be used as a treatment option for individuals that are already suffering from a mental illness. Also determining if different forms of physical exercise are also as effective as health club memberships are not affordable for all, especially those with low SES which is also linked to higher levels of stress.

Further resources

 * 1) Further research
 * 2) Exercise for mental health
 * 3) Beyond Blue