Picking up Heavy Objects Helps Young Adults to Battle the Blues

Research Brief

Consider the following “Would you rather?” style question.

Would you rather give up weight-lifting exercises or eating a high-quality diet for the next six months of your life?

I would not have to think very hard about this question. I would suffer the consequences of temporarily losing a high-quality diet, rather than give up load-bearing exercise. You see, human health is compositional, meaning, its length and quality are determined by a whole host of different factors. As a dietitian, I love and appreciate the power of food and its effect on the human body. However, I can humbly recognize that diet is not singular in its impact and importance on human outcomes and quality of life. In my Introductory Nutrition class, we cover basic principles of sports nutrition. Anecdotally, and without exception, whenever I ask students about how they feel on days with exercise versus days without exercising, they report feeling better on the days with exercise.

The benefits of exercise in human beings far exceed burning extra calories. Among all age groups and varied populations, there are many benefits observed from the consistent performance of physical exercise. Exercising leads to better sleep quality, even going so far as to help manage sleep disorders, such as insomnia. Exercise sessions improve your body’s immune system in resisting disease and fighting infection. Exercise reduces risk of death from any cause, even in adults already diagnosed with a chronic illness and are able to exercise. Young adults who exercise regularly reported much higher levels of self-esteem and self-efficacy, compared to their peers who do not exercise. I could go on, but for the sake of brevity, exercise appears to be the body’s closest approximation to ‘magic’ in providing benefit.

Given that backdrop, I was particularly shocked to read the results of a recent study that was published in the journal Psychiatry Research, regarding the effects of lifting weights on mental health symptoms in young adults.