Jim Annesi
Biography

Move it and lose it - your stress, that is. Jim Annesi, PhD, is the Director of Wellness Advancement at the YMCA of Metropolitan Atlanta. He has research and applied backgrounds in the fields of health psychology, behavioral medicine, applied behavior analysis, and human performance enhancement. Annesi joined us on Nov. 10, 2005 to explain the connection between exercise and stress reduction and offered tips to help get you moving.

If you have questions about your health, you should consult your personal physician. This event is meant for informational purposes only.

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MODERATOR:
Welcome to WebMD University: "Stress Less." Your instructor today is Jim Annesi, PhD.

Welcome, Dr. Annesi. Could you please tell us a little bit about your background and area of expertise?

ANNESI:
My area of expertise is in health behavior change and basically I come under the domain of exercise health psychologist.

I was formerly a professor at Rutgers University and now I help with producing health promotion programs at the YMCA of Metropolitan Atlanta and other YMCAs throughout the country.

MODERATOR:
We've been talking about changing our behaviors to reduce our stress. How can exercise help us to reduce stress?

ANNESI:
There's two ways we can look at stress:

• Stress happens because of a certain incident.
• Stress or anxiety can be part of our psychological makeup.

Both kinds of stress are helped by exercise. Immediately after a person completes exercise their anxiety goes down and when a person exercises for several months or more, they simply become a less anxious person.

We find this is the case with physical activity amounts that are so low they don't even have to cause physiological health changes.

How this works is a matter of debate for psychologists and psychiatrists. Those that are more physiologically-based would tell us the biochemistry of the brain is being changed by exercise; those more psychologically-based might suggest it's due to feelings of competency, mastery and simply exercising in an environment of what normally stresses you.

There's a good chance that a combination of both is true, but my own research indicates it's more based on psychosocial and behavior factors than physical factors.

One of the reasons for this is that we very rarely get a better stress-reducing effect by exercising longer, and the amounts of exercise needed are so low that it's unlikely it would make much change in the biochemical systems.

"Continued exercise over time make an individual less stressed overall."

ANNESI:
It's not clear whether strength training has as much of an effect as aerobic or cardiovascular exercise, but my research points to strength training working, as well. So, just about any type of aerobic or cardiovascular exercise will work well.

With some sport-related training, if one overdoes exercise, it's possible to raise anxiety for a short period after completing. We should also note that after exercise stress goes down but it recovers back to its normal level within four hours.

However, continued bouts of exercise over time make an individual less stressed overall and more resilient to stressors. It's unusual -- the connection between the immediate result of physical activity on stress and how that seems to relate to changing a person's psychological makeup over time.

MODERATOR:
When you say it doesn't take much exercise for a positive effect, how little exercise are you talking about?

ANNESI:
I actually looked into the threshold for changing depression and anxiety. This was published in the European Journal of Sports Science 2003 and here's a summary:

• One 20- to 25-minute bout of moderate cardiovascular exercise per week significantly reduced anxiety over 10 weeks.
• One 15-minute bout of moderate cardiovascular exercise completed two to three times per week significantly reduced anxiety over 10 weeks.

I should note this study was done with people who weren't necessarily anxious initially; they were just drawn from the general population.

The usual pattern we see is the low amounts of physical activity will reduce anxiety up to a point and then regular exercise will maintain that change over time. In effect, the individual is a less anxious person at that point.

ANNESI:
I'm not aware of any studies that specifically tested anxiety disorders and depressive disorders simultaneously, but I'll give you what I know from anxiety.

There's little evidence that traditional therapies such as psychotherapy or drugs make different amounts of change than physical activity.

The opinions expressed herein are the guests' alone and have not been reviewed by a WebMD physician.