Cardiorespiratory fitness describes how well the heart, lungs, and muscles work together under high levels of physical activity. The better your cardiorespiratory fitness, the more physical activity you can sustain and endure. However, mental state also plays a big role in this relationship. There is without doubt that physical exercise is an absolute necessity in addressing depression and anxiety.

Analyzing data from four cycles of the Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT) between the year so 1984 and 2019 of nearly 50,000 people, 30,000 of which provided the necessary information, the researchers estimated cardiorespiratory fitness via statistical model based on sex, age, waist circumference, resting heart rate, and self-reported physical activity and compared that to prescribed anxiolytic and antidepressant prescriptions.

They found that the better one’s cardiorespiratory fitness, the less likely they were to purchase anxiolytics and antidepressants. Participants with high levels of fitness were found to be 16% less likely to use those medications. For men specifically, the likelihood was 21% less.

Exercise is the first line and baseline treatment for depression and anxiety, not medication. Medication should be the last line. So while it is hard to find oneself to be motivated to exercise when one is in those states, let it be known that being in states of depression and anxiety is the very reason to exercise more.

The authors study was published in Journal of Affective Disorders.

A Havnen et al. Cardiorespiratory fitness and incident use of anxiolytics and antidepressants in adults. A linkage study between HUNT and the Norwegian Prescription Database. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2023.07.029