Exercise May Prevent Stress, Study Suggests

It’s no secret that one of the perks to a good, sweaty workout is a better mood.

In fact, I would bet that most of the people I see regularly at the gym work out not for weight loss, but to get rid of whatever stress they have.

And now we have more reason to keep that heart rate pumping.

Moderate exercise appears to have a lasting effect on our emotional health, according to researchers from the University of Maryland.

“While it is well-known that exercise improves mood, among other benefits, not as much is known about the potency of exercise’s impact on emotional state and whether these positive effects endure when we’re faced with everyday stressors once we leave the gym,” said University of Maryland researcher J. Carson Smith, in a news release.

“We found that exercise helps to buffer the effects of emotional exposure,” he said. “If you exercise, you’ll not only reduce your anxiety, but you’ll be better able to maintain that reduced anxiety when confronted with emotional events.”

In today’s stressful world, that’s a powerful argument to make exercise a regular part of your routine.

The weight loss benefits are nice, too.

The study appears in the Aug. 14 edition of the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.

Alice Warchol is a freelance health blog writer and fitness instructor.

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