SITTING LESS CAN IMPROVE YOUR MOOD

Adhering to stay-at-home orders in place during the pandemic may have meant more of us stayed physically safe and well, but what was the effect on our collective mental health?

Becoming more sedentary is linked to increased feelings of depression and anxiety, recent research reveals. During the initial COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, a lot of people suddenly became more sedentary as they adhered to stay-at-home orders. Recently published research found people who continued to spend a higher amount of time sitting in the weeks and months following were likely to have higher symptoms of depression. “Sitting is a sneaky behaviour,” said Assistant Professor Jacob Meyer at Iowa State University and lead researcher. “It’s something we do all the time without thinking about it.” For the research Meyer and his team looked at how physical activity and sedentary behaviours are related to mental health, and how changes to those influence the way people think, feel and perceive the world. “We know when people’s physical activity and screen time changes, that’s related to their mental health in general, but we haven’t really seen large population data like this in response to an abrupt change before,” Meyer said. Their research showed that for people who adjusted to life in the pandemic their mental health improved, but for people whose sitting times stayed high, their mental health did not improve in the same way. Meyer emphasised that finding an “association” between sitting and mental health is not the same as saying more sitting causes depression. He said it’s possible people who were more depressed sat more or that people who sat more became more depressed. “I think being aware of some of the subtle changes we’ve made during the pandemic and how they might be beneficial or detrimental is really important as we look to the other side of pandemic life,” says Meyer. Both starting and stopping a habit is very difficult, he said, even when someone wants to change their behaviour. But he hopes more people will recognise that even a little bit of movement can improve their mood and mental health, and try to find ways to build it into their day.