Given my predisposition for worry and a general inability to play it cool, I have yet to come across an anxiety-themed meme that doesn’t hit a little too close to home. Whether you also identify as an anxious person or you’re only vaguely familiar with the racing thoughts and heart palpitations characteristic of anxiety, chances are you, like me, could benefit from a few go-to strategies to keep calm in a hectic world.

While about 4 percent of the world’s population experiences an anxiety disorder, everyone experiences occasional anxiety, whether that includes stressing about health, work, finances, family, or some other big or small component of everyday existence. Characterized by tension and worry (often about the future), anxiety is considered a typical human experience that certain self-help strategies like meditation and breathing can help manage.

But what about our fitness routines? Does exercise help anxiety? If so, how exactly does it ease anxious feelings, and are certain workouts more effective at doing so than others? Below, answers to these questions and more from licensed mental health experts.

Does Exercise Help Anxiety?

While every person is different and anxiety can take many forms, yes, exercise can generally help ease anxiety.

But there are some important caveats here. In many cases, exercise can help promote positive sensations and tamper down fleeting feelings of anxiety, but it’s not a replacement for therapy, nor is it a cure for mental health conditions like generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), which may require professional treatment.

Furthermore, individuals who rely on exercise as their sole coping mechanism (including those with eating disorders) may be at risk for developing a condition known as compulsive exercise. “Like anything, the anxiety-relieving potential of movement can have a flip side,” says licensed neuropsychotherapist Britt Frank, author of The Science of Stuck. “In my personal journey, I spent many years hyper-focused on exercise and used it to avoid my feelings, rather than to assist me with managing through them. Any workout that allows you to bypass your feelings isn’t going to be helpful long-term.”

With those caveats and considerations in mind, experts agree that for the general public, various forms of exercise (in addition to other mental-health-promoting behaviors) can have a positive impact on run-of-the-mill anxiety. Again, while it’s not a cure for any serious mental health condition, exercise has been shown to be an effective way to help alleviate the more mild but common anxious feelings we all experience from time to time. 

But how does exercise help anxiety, exactly? Here are a few reasons why the practice can be so effective:

Exercise Releases Feel-Good Chemicals 

You may feel pleasant post-workout effects throughout your body, but exercise has a profound impact on your brain chemistry.

“There are so many great things that happen to us physiologically and neurologically when we exercise,” says licensed therapist and author Jenn Mann. “Exercise can lower stress hormones like cortisol which contribute to anxiety. When exercising, we also release feel-good chemicals like endorphins which improve mood.” 

Working out can also boost molecules called endocannabinoids, “which research has found reduces anxiety as well as sensations of pain,” Mann adds.

Exercise Changes Your Brain

Moving your body not only increases blood flow to the brain, but also helps improve memory by increasing the size of your hippocampus—meaning your workouts have the power to positively change your brain.)

“Studies show that long-term physical exercise results in changes in the hippocampus, an area of the brain that regulates anxiety,” Mann says. “It has been speculated that the brains of regular exercisers—runners in particular—respond to stress in the hippocampus differently than those that are sedentary.”

Exercise Flips Your Perspective

While exercise isn’t recommended as a long-term avoidance tactic, it can be a helpful strategy for temporary distraction or a way to gain some perspective. Because ruminating on negative feelings often makes anxiety worse, focusing your attention elsewhere can help shift your experience for the better.

“The rhythmic, repetitive nature of movement like running or cycling can function as a form of mindfulness, allowing us to momentarily escape the spiral of anxious thoughts and focus solely on the physical sensation of the workout,” Frank says. “This moment-to-moment awareness can break the cycle of rumination that often accompanies anxiety.”

Beyond breaking up unproductive anxiety spirals, your workouts can positively affect your outlook in other ways too. 

“Exercise improves sleep, which also helps anxiety,” Mann says. “Not to mention, when we exercise, we tend to feel a sense of accomplishment and feel good about ourselves, which is self-esteem-enhancing.”

Are Certain Workouts More Effective at Easing Anxiety Than Others?

“The type of movement that is most beneficial for anxiety depends largely on the individual,” Frank says. Just as you might gravitate toward a certain type of exercise to reach your fitness goals, you might find yourself more drawn to one form of movement over another when it comes to addressing anxiety—and that form of movement varies from person to person. 

“For some people, a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout is an instant anxiety-reducer,” Frank says. “For my nervous system, HIIT workouts make me feel worse, so even though I used to be a hard-core cardio person, I need to do reduced-exertion HIIT or other activities to get the anxiety reduction benefit.”

Mann agrees that different people benefit from different types of movement. There is, in fact, a vast amount of research dedicated to determining how and why certain forms of physical activity may be beneficial for calming anxious thoughts and feelings, so a variety of workout formats may be helpful. 

“Any type of exercise is helpful in improving mental health, but a few different modalities are particularly well-studied and consistently report maximum benefits,” Mann says. Here are a few of the major categories:

1. Running

Research shows that regular running may lead to reductions in anxiety, but any form of aerobic activity or cardio like cycling, swimming, rowing, or dancing can elicit similar effects. 

“Most people talk about getting a ‘runner’s high,’ which is a short-lasting, deeply euphoric state,” Mann says. “It provides the regular release of endorphins, the increase in blood flow to the brain, improved sleep, reduction of the activity in the part of the brain that handles reactivity, as well as the escape all contribute to the long-term benefits.”

2. Yoga

If there were any form of movement most associated with calming the nervous system, it’s likely yoga. And there’s quite a bit of research that shows it’s particularly good for reducing anxiety, Mann says. 

Beyond lowering stress hormones and boosting endorphins, research suggests that yoga increases a brain chemical called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), “which is known to elevate mood and decrease anxiety,” she explains. “Like meditation, yoga reduces activity in the limbic system, the part of the brain in charge of your emotions. This helps reduce reactivity and improves stress management.”

3. HIIT

While some may not exactly feel at peace pushing through intervals any time Peloton instructor Robin Arzón wears yellow (if you know, you know), others really notice an improvement in their anxiety when performing high intensity workouts. 

“HIIT is particularly effective in the treatment of anxiety disorders,” Mann says. “This type of high-intensity exercise has been shown to be particularly effective in reducing symptom severity of anxiety, as well as depression.” That said, more research is needed.

4. Strength Training

Lifting weights or doing any kind of resistance training isn’t just great for increasing bone density and muscle mass—it could help calm anxiety too. 

“Weightlifting has been shown to reduce tension and improve anxiety,” Mann says.. She points to one small 2020 study which found that resistance training twice a week for eight weeks led to a significant reduction in anxiety symptoms among young adults.

5. Outdoor Walks

As if you needed another excuse to join your favorite Peloton instructor in an outdoor workout, leaving your house for a walk may be another ticket to taking anxiety down a notch. 

“A 20-minute nature walk has been shown to lower stress hormones, reduce cortisol, and lower sympathetic nerve activity,” Mann says. “More and more research is pointing to the importance of stepping outside of our homes and connecting with nature.”

So, Which Workouts May Help You Ease Anxiety?

To determine which type of exercise may help you manage your anxiety, Frank says it may take some trial and error. 

“It’s best to think of yourself like a scientist and run experiments on different activities,” she says. “Try them out, then pay close attention to how you feel afterwards.” 

You could even record your “test results” in a fitness journal to help you decode which workouts are best for you at reducing anxious feelings. And by the way, the Peloton App has thousands of guided classes across 16 different modalities you can explore (including some classes specifically designed to soothe your mind).

How Long Might It Take for Exercise to Reduce Anxiety?

While establishing a regular workout regimen may help you manage anxiety symptoms over time, the calming effects of exercise can sometimes be instant. “Once you acclimate your body to certain types of movement, you can very quickly get relief,” Frank says. “Even a 10-minute walk does wonders for an anxiety spiral versus doing nothing.”

Mann agrees that aerobic exercise, weightlifting, and yoga in particular may help reduce anxiety relatively quickly, but you may need to modify certain activities to your fitness level in order to reap the most benefits. 

“Some forms of exercise, like running, require that you get to a certain level of fitness before you get the benefits of an endorphin rush,” she explains. “Sometimes you have to start out at a lower level of fitness and work your way up to get the full mental health benefits.”

The most important consideration when using exercise as an anxiety-reduction aid, according to Mann, is to actively work to remove any shred of guilt regarding what you can or can’t physically do. 

“One of the important factors is to set small, manageable goals and work your way up,” she says. “Going for a 20-minute walk has enormous benefits—unless you’re beating yourself up over it and mad at yourself because you didn’t run for 30 minutes.”

The Takeaway

For many people, exercise in many different forms can have a profoundly positive impact on standard anxiety. While anyone with a clinical anxiety disorder or who may be prone to compulsive exercise is encouraged to seek professional help, those who simply need an outlet for the everyday worries and stress that characterize “normal” anxiety can consider exercise one healthy tool in their toolkit for managing challenging feelings. 

The type of exercise that’s most effective for quelling anxious thoughts and sensations varies from person to person, but there’s evidence to support the calming benefits of everything from running and strength training to cycling, yoga, HIIT, and more.

“Not every body has the capacity to do every type of movement, nor is every kind of movement helpful for every body,” Frank says. “So for people who feel bad because they ‘can’t’ relax during yoga or find high-intensity classes to be overstimulating, you are not alone. It’s worth taking the time to experiment with which types of movement have which effect on your moods.”

For more information on anxiety, plus helpful resources on how to find treatment and support, visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) or the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).