Physical activity and mental health: what works for whom and when?
Walking, cycling or playing sports can have a positive effect on mood. Yet not every young person feels better after being physically active, and the effects may vary from one day to the next. The new Moving Minds study aims to discover for whom physical activity is associated with better mood and under which circumstances it can support young people’s mental well-being.
Young people’s mental well-being is under increasing pressure. Physical activity is often presented as an accessible way to help support mental health and potentially reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety. However, general advice such as ‘try to exercise more’ fails to take individual differences into account. One young person may feel better after vigorous exercise, while another may benefit more from gentler activity or notice little difference at all.
Moving Minds will therefore investigate not only how much young people move, but also how their mood changes in relation to physical activity. This project, led by Erasmus MC and Erasmus University Rotterdam, has received a grant of ten thousand euros from the Vaillant Fonds.
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Tracking physical activity and mood in daily life
Moving Minds is embedded in an ongoing study within the Convergence Health & Technology Flagship PROTECt ME. In this broader study, 300 young people between the ages of 16 and 25 are followed for a period of 12 months.
For Moving Minds, 50 participants from this study will be invited to take part in a three-week monitoring period. During this period, they will wear a Garmin activity tracker that continuously records their physical activity. They will also answer a few short questionnaires about their current mood on their phone five times a day. At the start, they will complete an additional questionnaire about psychological factors related to physical activity. All 300 participants in the PROTECt ME study complete questionnaires about their mental well-being before the monitoring period. They complete the same questionnaires again immediately afterwards and after three, six and 12 months.
By combining the questionnaire, the researchers aim to determine:
- who is most likely to experience an improvement in mood associated with physical activity;
- under which circumstances this relationship is strongest;
- whether patterns in physical activity and mood in daily life are associated with longer-term changes, for example in symptoms of depression.
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From general advice to more personalized prevention
What makes Moving Minds innovative is its combination of different types of data. The activity tracker provides an objective measure of how much and at which intensities someone moves. The brief questions delivered via smartphone capture how participants feel at different times throughout the day. The additional questionnaire provides insight into psychological mechanisms behind exercise behavior, such as previous positive or negative experiences with physical activity.
Together, these data allow the researchers to look beyond group averages and investigate which personal characteristics and circumstances may shape the relationship between physical activity and mood.
Moving Minds will not yet develop a treatment or exercise program. Its first aim is to build a better understanding of the relationship between physical activity and mood. In the future, this knowledge could help tailor interventions more closely to individual characteristics and circumstances. Before that can happen, however, the study must first establish which patterns emerge from the data.
With Moving Minds, we are investigating physical activity as a protective factor for mental well-being in both the short and long term. We aim to identify for whom, and under which circumstances, physical activity may be particularly beneficial.
Collaboration with research and practice partners
The researchers plan to share their findings and the instruments used in the study with a range of research and practice partners. Within the eHealth Junior consortium, the findings could potentially inform research into the Grow It! app. The researchers also collaborate with the Stress in Action consortium on the methodological validation of wearable technology.
In addition, they want to explore how the findings could be used in the exercise and training programmes of the So Fit & Fun Centre and by KNVB youth coaches.
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Part of PROTECt ME
Moving Minds contributes to PROTECt ME’s ambition to identify mental health problems in young people at an earlier stage and, where possible, prevent them. Within this Flagship, Erasmus MC, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Delft University of Technology bring together expertise in fields including psychiatry, psychology, educational sciences, artificial intelligence, design and health economics. Read more about the PROTECt ME Flagship.
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Project team
The Moving Minds project team consists of Sinika Stadeler-Timme, Annabel Vreeker, Hanneke Scholten and Manon Hillegers. The research is being conducted by Erasmus MC and Erasmus University Rotterdam, runs from June 2026 until May 2027 and is supported by the Vaillant Fonds.