A Great Fat Burning Workout Can Boost Mental Health Therapy Effectiveness

According to new research released by a team at Iowa State University, a fat burning workout that is a half hour long could help to shrink depression symptoms for at least 75 minutes following the exercise. Moreover, that same physical activity can also boost the benefits that a patient receives from therapy.

A Fat Burning Workout Provides Broad Benefits

The research team published their findings in the Frontiers in Psychiatry journal.  While the lead author of the study, Jacob D. Meyer, kinesiology professor at Iowa State University, did point out that there has already been considerable research linking mental health with exercise such as a fat burning workout, what this new study has determined is that there are broader wellbeing measures. They examined not only how regular exercise offers benefits, but how a single session can make a difference. Even one exercise session can impact primary depression symptoms.

The findings involved fat burning workouts. The participants, each of whom were experiencing major depressive episodes, filled out electronic surveys right before, midway through, and 25-, 50-, and 75-minutes after their exercise session. They were then asked to return a week later and fill out the surveys during a 30-minute sitting session.

After One Exercise Session, Depression Symptoms Reduced

The researchers found that even after a single fat burning workout session, major symptoms of depression were reduced for at least 75 minutes after the exercise.  The surveys each involved standard scales and questions for the measurement of depression symptoms as well as a number of cognitive tasks.  These included the Stroop test, in which participants gave their response to a font’s color instead of to the word written (for instance, if the word “red” was written in blue font, the answer would be “blue”).

The data was used to determine if there were changes in the three main major depressive disorder characteristics, which are:

• Depressed mood state
• Anhedonia
• Decreased cognitive function

The researchers found that after a fat burning workout, participants experienced an improvement in their depressed mood state throughout the exercise itself and consistently up to the maximum measure beyond the end of the exercise, 75 minutes.  The anhedonia benefits started to reduce again at about the 75-minute mark but was still better than where it was before they exercised or on the day when they returned and did not exercise.

When it came to cognitive function improvements from the fat burning exercise, participants had their best results mid-exercise, but had slowed down again post exercise by the 25-minute and 50-minute marks. In fact, they were slower after their workout than they were during the survey at rest a week later.

Certainly, more research is required. That said it is fascinating and helps to explain why the feeling from PHENBLUE before and after a workout can be a better mood – it’s all in the fat burning workout!