Fitness and Mental Health in Adults

Hormones will start to have a sharp decline for adults in later years. For ageing men, it was found that the decrease in testosterone levels has been associated to an increase in depressive symptoms (Yeap, 2014). To improve testosterone levels, read this article titled The best exercises to increase testosterone.

Osteoporosis is most common in women over the age of 50 and is attributed to the decrease in estrogen around menopause. Osteoporosis in general makes individuals more prone to fractures. It has been found that a majority of individuals with fractures have reported mild depressive symptoms after their injury (Singaram & Naidoo, 2020). Resistance training and physical activity before menopause however has been associated with increasing bone density, making it less likely for active individuals to develop osteoporosis!

Some adults will experience pregnancy. With pregnancy, cortisol (AKA the stress hormone) levels tend to increase within the third trimester. Prenatal yoga has been found to be effective in decreasing both depression and anxiety in pregnant women (Sheffield & Woods-Giscombé, 2015). Not only does prenatal yoga decrease adverse mental health, but it also decreases stress, pain, and anger (Sheffield & Woods-Giscombé, 2015) in pregnant women.