New York, March 6 : Exercise has for long been recommended as a cognitive-behavioural therapy for patients of depression, yet new evidence suggests that the Covid-19 pandemic changed the nature of the relationship between physical activity and mental health.
The study of college students, conducted before and during the pandemic, revealed the average steps of subjects declined from 10,000 to 4,600 steps per day and rates of depression increased from 32 per cent to 61 per cent.
The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also revealed short-term restoration of exercise does not meaningfully improve mental well-being.
“This raises many possible explanations, including that the impact of physical activity may require a longer-term intervention,” said co-author Sally Sadoff from the University of California – San Diego.
“At the same time, our results clearly show that those who maintained physical exercise throughout the pandemic were the most resilient and least likely to suffer from depression,” Sadoff added.
For the study, the team used a longitudinal dataset linking biometric and survey data from several cohorts of nearly 700 young adults before and during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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