Anxiety symptoms and disorders are common among individuals with a chronic illness such as cancer, fibromyalgia and cardiovascular disease. Health care providers often fail to recognize or treat anxiety and stress and may consider it to be an unimportant response to a chronic disease and illness. The medical community should realize that stress is a major cause of most illnesses.

Anxiety symptoms can have a negative impact on treatment outcomes in part because anxious patients can be less likely to adhere to prescribed medical treatments. Personal costs of anxiety among patients include reduced health-related quality of life and increased disability, role impairment, and health care visits.

The results of the research showed that patients had over 20 percent reduction in their anxiety symptoms with exercise. Makes sense doesn’t it?

The results provide clinicians with solid evidence to recommend exercise training to patients as a means for reducing anxiety symptoms with minimal risk of adverse events.

The largest reductions in anxiety were seen in patients who exercised for more than 30 minutes during a single session.

The study was published February 22, in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Tagged as: anxiety, Archives of Internal Medicine, cancer, Cardiovascular Disease, chronic disease and exercise, fibromyalgia, stress