The Effect of Aerobic Exercise on Different Symptoms of Depression: An Investigation of Psychological Mechanisms of Stress and Coping

Abstract

Objectives: Considering the growing need for encouraging greater use of a variety of non-pharmacological methods in treating depression, the aim of this quasi experimental study was to examine the effect of aerobic exercise on triple categories of affective, cognitive and somatic symptoms of depression and to investigate its psychological mediators of perceived stress and coping strategies. Methods: Forty five female outpatients with major depressive disorder were divided into three groups including exercise + usual pharmacotherapy (n = 15), psychotherapy + usual pharmacotherapy (n = 14) and a control group receiving only usual pharmacotherapy (n = 16). The exercise used was included 36 one hour session (three sessions per week) with a low to medium intensity of 50% to 70% of the maximal heart rate. The psychotherapy used in this study was the behavioral activation treatment for depression revised. The Persian version of Beck Depression Inventory-II, Perceived Stress Scale and Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations were applied to assess the pre-and post-intervention depression, perceived stress, and coping strategies. Results: The findings indicated a significant decrease in the post-intervention scores of all three categories of affective, cognitive and somatic symptoms of depression and the perceived stress level in the adjunctive exercise and psychotherapy conditions compared with the control condition (p = 0.001), but there was no significant difference between the exercise and psychotherapy groups. In addition, no significant improvement was observed regarding the problem-centered, emotion-centered and avoidant-centered stress coping methods in the post-intervention scores of the exercise group compared with the control group. Conclusion: An adjunctive aerobic exercise program can be as effective as adding the psychotherapy to usual pharmacotherapy in further imHow to cite this paper: Askari, J., Saberi-Kakhki, A., Taheri 87provement in all three categories of depression symptoms especially mediated by reducing the amount of perceived stress, but not through any significant change in cognitive-behavioral coping strategies.

Effect of aerobic training on depression and thyroid function in treated hypothyroid women

“…A determinação do tamanho amostral necessário para os grupos de estudo em relação ao desfecho primário da presente investigação, ou seja, o escore do Inventário de Depressão de Beck (BDIS), foi realizada usando a ferramenta estatística G*POWER (versão 3.1). Essa determinação foi baseada em um estudo anterior 19 , que indicou uma diminuição significativa nos escores pós-intervenção do BDIS na condição de exercício adjuvante em comparação com a condição de controle e teve como objetivo garantir poder estatístico adequado para a presente investigação. A presente investigação foi conduzida com um nível de poder predeterminado de 0,95 e um nível de significância definido em um valor p de 0,05, resultando em um tamanho de amostra de 14 indivíduos para cada grupo.…”

Adaptation of Cardiorespiratory Endurance in Obese People by Aerobic Exercise

“…A cardiopulmonary endurance model for obese people under different exercise optimization with supervised feature selection is proposed. 2 The above model firstly counts the current obesity status and physical fitness differences of obese people, gives the obese people's adjustable cardiopulmonary risk factors, and calculates the correlation between cardiopulmonary endurance, physical activity, and obesity. Integrating with the supervised feature selection theory, exercise is divided into different stages, given that different exercise stages can improve the cardiopulmonary endurance characteristics of obese people, obtain possible mechanisms for exercise to improve cardiopulmonary endurance, calculate the cardiopulmonary endurance response characteristics of obese people at different stages of exercise, and establish a cardiopulmonary endurance model for obese people under different exercise optimization.…”