Fitness and Mental Health in Young Adults

Studies have shown that exercising can be beneficial to one's cognition and mental health

In an article titled Aerobic Endurance Exercise Benefits Memory and Affect in Young Adults, they study how exercise affects the mental health of young adults

28 Students from the University of Ulm aged 17-29 were assessed in this experiment

Participants would go through their daily lives as normal but were required to exercise for 30 minutes for a period up to six weeks.

Participants were tested on their cognition and Affect in a classroom all together before and after the training process

• Affect: Mood or emotion

Results: Results of this experiment showed that there was a positive increase in emotion or affect in the people who exercised before and after the workout. But for the control group of people who did not exercise, there were no signs of a positive increase in emotion. There were also no negative effects of exercise on emotion shown from the participants. This study also showed that the same participants had better cognitive functions such as visuospatial memory after this training period (Stroth 2009).