New research indicates that brief, intense, intermittent exercise could be a more effective treatment for panic disorder than traditional psychotherapy, offering a natural and accessible approach to managing anxiety and improving mental health.
Key Points
- Brief, intense, intermittent exercise may be more effective than traditional psychotherapy for treating panic disorder.
- The study compared intense exercise to interoceptive exposure, where therapists trigger panic attack symptoms in a controlled environment.
- A 12-week programme of supervised walking with high-intensity sprints showed significant reduction in both the severity of panic attack symptoms and the frequency of the attacks.
- Intense exercise can be a natural, low-cost interoceptive exposure strategy, easily integrated into daily life and care models.
- The benefits of intense, intermittent exercise as far as panic disorder symptoms were concerned were sustained for at least 24 weeks after the programme.
A study suggests that brief, intense intermittent exercise might be more effective in treating panic disorder compared to standard care which involves psychotherapy sessions.
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that helps an individual develop strategies to address personal problems by changing one's thought processes.
Researchers from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil said that supervised walking interspersed with repeated 30-second high-intensity sprints is a more effective treatment for panic disorders, compared to interoceptive exposure where therapists trigger common symptoms of panic attacks like chest pain, sweating, rapid respiration and a racing heart in a safe, controlled environment.
'Here we show that a 12-week programme of brief, intense, intermittent exercise can be used as an interoceptive exposure strategy to treat panic disorder patients,' author Ricardo William Muotri, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sao Paulo Medical School in Brazil, said.
The study, published in the journal, Frontiers In Psychiatry, looked at 102 adult women and men diagnosed with panic disorder.
The participants were divided in two groups and did three sessions every week of their allocated exercise during a follow-up period of 12 weeks. No drugs were administered to either group throughout the trial.
Study methodology: Comparing exercise regimens
Patients in the experimental group began each session with a bout of muscle-stretching, followed by 15 minutes of walking and one to six 30 seconds-long bouts of high-intensity running, alternating with 4.5 minutes of active recovery and ending with additional 15 minutes of walking.
Patients in the second group did segmental muscle contraction exercises in the brachial, scapular, cervical, facial, dorsal, abdominal and lower limb regions, followed by localised muscle relaxation.
Data collected via monitoring devices worn during the exercises was analysed.
Key findings: Exercise helped reduce panic disorder symptoms
Average scores on the 'panic and agoraphobia' scale and those for anxiety and depression fell over time in both the groups, but more steeply in the brief, intense, intermittent exercise one, the researchers said.
The frequency and severity of the panic attacks also decreased in the brief, intense, intermittent exercise group, they said.
'A 12-week BIE (brief, intermittent, intense exercise) programme used as interoceptive exposure was feasible and more effective than relaxation training in reducing the panic symptom severity and the panic attack frequency, with effects sustained for at least 24 weeks,' the authors wrote.
Muotri said, 'Healthcare professionals can adopt brief, intermittent, intense exercise as a natural and low-cost interoceptive exposure strategy. It doesn't need to take place in a clinical setting so that exposure to the symptoms of a panic attack is brought closer to the patient's daily life.
"It could also be integrated into care models for anxiety and depression disorders.'
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