Antidepressant effects of exercise: Does mindset matter?

• Changing a person's expectations (mindset) about exercise could facilitate the antidepressant effects of exercise. • Moderately depressed individuals told that their usual amount of activities may have antidepressant effects. • Results showed that although the amount of exercise did not change, the mindset group's depressive symptoms decreasing more rapidly than those of the control group. • mindset group's anxiety symptoms also decreasing more rapidly • Altering mindset about exercise appears to accelerate decreases in depressive symptoms. • Altering mindset may be an effective aid in the treatment of mild to moderate depression. Following research by reported by Crum and Langer (2007), perhaps changing a person's mindset (i.e., beliefs and expectations) about exercise could be a key to facilitating the antidepressant effects of exercise without changing the behavior itself. The experimental group participants were told that their daily activities were considered exercise which would alleviate their depressive symptoms. Control participants read a script that discussed various effective strategies to alleviate depressive symptoms. No preexisting differences in depression between groups approached significance, nor were there differences on any measure administered pre-experiment. A multilevel model analysis indicated a significant difference between the groups’ depression scores over time, with the mindset group's depressive symptoms decreasing more rapidly than those of the control groups. Although not of prime interest, result showed that anxiety scores also decreased more rapidly in the mindset condition. Altering mindset about exercise appears to, accelerates decreases in depressive symptoms. mindfulness-based therapies may quite naturally integrate elements that facilitate a patient's positive mindset and expectations. Broadly speaking, clinicians who are attuned to finding ways to incorporate therapeutic placebos like a positive mindset may find this beneficial to patients. As such, influencing mindset may be an effective aid in the treatment of depression.