There has been an unfortunate tendency, supercharged by and during the Covid-19 pandemic, for people and institutions to outsource their thinking to science — or to “Science,” or, even worse, to “SCIENCE.” Such invocations of the authority of science, a process driven by trial and error, often substitute political judgment for technocratic whim. With thin justification, dubious or even outright counterproductive actions became necessary, even mandatory, simply because Science/SCIENCE said so.
Well, it is with the backing of science, properly understood, that I present a finding so obvious that, frankly, I didn’t need anyone to tell me it is true: Working out makes you feel better. For their study, “Effectiveness of physical activity interventions for improving depression, anxiety and distress: an overview of systematic reviews,” published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers examined more than a thousand other studies on the effect of physical activity (PA) on mental health, involving more than 120,000 participants total. Their conclusion:
Findings suggest that PA interventions are effective in improving symptoms of depression and anxiety. Improvements were observed across all clinical populations, though the magnitude of effect varied across different clinical populations.
That is, in addition to its physical benefits, exertion can benefit the brain as well. This will come as no surprise to those, such as myself, who live an active lifestyle. We can personally attest to its mentally clarifying and edifying effects. It is also the case, as I wrote in Law & Liberty earlier this year, that “studies have found positive effects of exercise on brain function for groups as varied as young adults, stroke victims, and the elderly.”
Lest I be accused of selective appeals to science, I must also note that the researchers found it doesn’t actually take that much to achieve the beneficial effects of exercise that they describe. “Interventions do not need to provide high doses of PA for improvements in depression,” they write. Though I go out of my way for “high doses of PA” such as LSD (long slow distance, of course), I recognize that not everybody has to be as weird as I am to benefit from working out. Just do something. Science says so.