Going For A Short Walk Around The Shops Is More Effective Than a Jog To Boost Your Mood

Feeling low? Going for a short walk around the shops is more effective than a jog to boost your mood and lift feelings of depression

• Light physical exercise such as walking is enough to lift your spirits, study finds
• Adults who go for a brisk walk every day are more likely to report feeling happy
• Going for a short walk is more likely to boost your mood than rigorous exercise

You don't have to spend hours at the gym or work up a dripping sweat to improve your mood and feel better about yourself, a new study reveals.

Getting out of the house for a brisk walk around the shops is enough to boost your mood and ease feelings of depression, according to the research.

Scientists have revealed that light physical exercise, the equivalent of taking a leisurely walk around a shopping centre, is enough to lift your spirits.

They found people who take part in light-intensity activity such as walking every day are more likely to report high levels of psychological well-being.

And going for a short walk is more likely to boost your mood than taking part in rigorous exercise, such as jogging, according to the research.



Getting out of the house for a brisk walk around the shops is enough to boost your mood

COULD AN 'EXERCISE PILL' REPLACE YOUR WORKOUT?

We are one step closer to an 'exercise pill', scientists have claimed.

Research released in April reveals how we could one day build muscle mass simply by altering a protein in the body.

The study, conducted in mice, showed that suppressing production of the protein myostatin enhances muscles - and boosts heart and kidney health.

The pill could also be used to help obese people to lose weight.

The researchers zeroed in on myostatin because it is known as a powerful inhibitor of skeletal muscle growth.

It means that people with more myostatin have less muscle mass, and people with less myostatin have more muscle mass.

Study leader Dr Joshua Butcher, a postdoctoral fellow at the Vascular Biology Center at Augusta University in Georgia, said: 'Given that exercise is one of the most effective interventions for obesity, this creates a cycle by which a person becomes trapped in obesity.'

'We hope this research helps people realise the important public health message that simply going from doing no physical activity to performing some physical activity can improve their subjective well-being,' said Gregory Panza, a graduate student at the University of Connecticut.

'What is even more promising for the physically inactive person is that they do not need to exercise vigorously to see these improvements.

'Instead, our results indicate you will get the best "bang for your buck" with light or moderate intensity physical activity.'

The study looked at 419 healthy adults who wore accelerometers on their hips to track physical activity over four days.

Participants also completed a series of questionnaires asking them to describe their daily exercise habits, psychological well-being, depression level, pain severity, and extent to which pain interfered with their daily activities.

People who reported higher levels of sedentary behavior also reported lower levels of subjective well-being, meaning those who sat around a lot were the least happiest.



Subjective well-being is defined as the positive and negative evaluations that people make of their own lives

In general, physical activity improved people's sense of well-being.

Yet, different intensities of physical activity were more beneficial to some people than others.

For instance, people who participated in light-intensity physical activity reported higher levels of psychological well-being and lower levels of depression.




Going for a short walk boosts your mood than taking part in rigorous exercise such as jogging

People who participated in moderate-intensity physical activity reported higher levels of psychological well-being and lower pain severity levels.

'Recent studies had suggested a slightly unsettling link between vigorous activity and subjective well-being,' said Professor Beth Taylor from the University of Connecticut.

'We did not find this in the current study, which is reassuring to individuals who enjoy vigorous activity and may be worried about negative effects.'

People who led sedentary lives and engaged in light or moderate physical activity showed the greatest improvement in overall sense of well-being.

'The "more is better" mindset may not be true when it comes to physical activity intensity and subjective well-being,' said Mr Panza.

'In fact, an "anything is better" attitude may be more appropriate if your goal is a higher level of subjective well-being.'

The study was published in the Journal of Health Psychology.

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