Impact of diverse exercises on anxiety in teenagers and young adults

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Created On: 16/01/2025

Acute exercise shows promise as a non-drug anxiety treatment, but its effects on adolescents and young adults are not well understood.

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Key take away

Mind-body exercises offer emotional and psychological benefits and cardiovascular conditioning or ‘cardio’ supports physical health, effective for treating anxiety in teens and young adults.

Background

Acute exercise shows promise as a non-drug anxiety treatment, but its effects on adolescents and young adults are not well understood. This network meta-analysis evaluated and compared the efficacy of various exercise interventions in easing anxiety in this population.

Method

Articles in the English language were explored across Embase journal, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Web of Science, PubMed and PsycINFO databases. The random-effects models were used to conduct the pairwise and network meta-analyses. The evidence certainty was analysed via the GRADE framework.

Result

This analysis included 33 studies with 1,121 participants. Mind-body exercises were the most efficacious in relieving anxiety in teens and young adults (standardized mean difference [SMD] = −0.36, 95% confidence interval [CI]: −0.70, −0.03, moderate certainty). Aerobic exercise (cardiovascular conditioning or ‘cardio’) also drastically lessened anxiety (SMD = −0.16, 95% CI: −0.28, −0.03, high certainty).

However, resistance exercise (SMD = −0.09, 95% CI: −0.33, 0.14, moderate certainty) and multi-component exercise (SMD = −0.01, 95% CI: −0.59, 0.57, moderate certainty) had non-significant effects on anxiety reduction.

Conclusion

Acute mind-body exercise could be the most useful exercise therapy for anxiety in adolescents and young adults as per the moderate certainty evidence (by GRADE). Multi-arm randomized controlled trials should be prioritized in the future for clearer evidence of the relative efficacy of different exercise therapies.