The Exercise Effect on Mental Health

The Exercise Effect on Mental Health contains the most recent and thorough overview of the links between exercise and mental health, and the underlying mechanisms of the brain. The text will enhance interested clinicians’ and researchers’ understanding of the neurobiological effect of exercise on mental health. Editors Budde and Wegner have compiled a comprehensive review of the ways in which physical activity impacts the neurobiological mechanisms of the most common psychological and psychiatric disorders, including depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. This text presents a rigorously evidence-based case for exercise as an inexpensive, time-saving, and highly effective treatment for those suffering from mental illness and distress.

Henning Budde, Ph.D., is Professor of Sports Science and Research Methodology at the MSH Medical School in Hamburg and an affiliating professor at the Lithuanian Sport University and Reykjavik University in Iceland. Henning finished his "Habilitation," the highest academic degree in Germany at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and also received an honorary doctor from the Lithuanian Sport University (LSU). His main research interest is exercise neuroscience and how these findings can be implemented in school settings. He is funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation) BU 1837/5-1 and BU 1837/5-2.

Mirko Wegner, Ph.D., is currently a Professor of Sport Psychology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in Germany. His research interests focus on physiological and neurobiological responses to physical and psychological stress, and their affective, health-related, and cognitive consequences. He is an expert in motivation and self-regulation research and specialized in implicit motivational processes and their behavioral physiological associations. He applies his knowledge to the areas of health, physical education in school, and expert sport performance.