Abstract
(1) Background: we aimed to investigate the effects of physical activity on cognitive functions and deficits of healthy population and other needy groups. Secondly, we investigated the relation between healthy habits and psychopathological risks. Finally, we investigated the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on exercise addiction and possible associated disorders. (2) Methods: From April 2021 to October 2021, we conducted a review aimed at identifying the effects of physical exercise on mental health, from cognitive improvements to risk of addiction; we searched for relevant studies on PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, PsycINFO and CINHAL. (3) Results: For the first purpose, results indicated multiple effects such as better precision and response speed in information processing tasks on healthy populations; improvement of executive functions, cognitive flexibility and school performance in children; improvement of attention and executive functions and less hyperactivity and impulsiveness on children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); improvement of executive and global functions on adults; improvement of overall cognitive functioning on patients with schizophrenic spectrum disorder or bipolar disorder. Data also demonstrated that exercise addiction seems to be related to low levels of education, low self-esteem, eating disorders and body dysmorphisms. Eventually, it was found that people with lower traits and intolerance of uncertainty show a strong association between COVID-19 anxiety and compulsive exercise and eating disorder. (4) Conclusions: these findings underline on one side the beneficial effects of physical activity on cognitive function in healthy individuals in a preventive and curative key, while on the other side the importance of an adequate evaluation of psychological distress and personality characteristics associated with exercise addiction.
Highlights
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) definition, physical exercise is “any body movement made by skeletal muscles which requires waste of energy”: this last one includes whatever everyday physical activity, and it is considered a determinant of a healthy lifestyle
The screening has selected 307 articles to assess for eligibility criteria, 2426 records have been excluded because not matching with the intent of the present review
A particular interest of our review was to explore the variable of the presence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in a sample of children, in which we found that short-term aerobic exercise, based on different formats of aerobic intervention, appears to be effective in mitigating symptoms such as attention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, anxiety, and may induce an improvement in executive functions and behavioral disorders at the socio-relational level
Summary
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) definition, physical exercise is “any body movement made by skeletal muscles which requires waste of energy”: this last one includes whatever everyday physical activity, and it is considered a determinant of a healthy lifestyle. “sport training” represents a lower-ranking classification compared to physical exercise, characterized by planning, organization, temporal repetitiveness and a final or intermediate aim to improve, or maintain, one or many physical.
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