You love what being active can do for your body, but don’t forget about the benefits for your brain. New research in the journal PLOS ONE affirms working out puts you in a better mood.
“We found that people who are on average more physically active are also on average happier,” says study co-author Gillian Sandstrom, Ph.D., lecturer at the University of Essex. “And when people are more physically active than usual, they also report being happier than usual.”
These results were true both when the activity was self-reported and when it was sensed from the accelerometer on users’ phones. Activity was broadly defined as walking, running, and cycling.
“Our results apply to any physical activity, however mild, and it seems that just moving around more is associated with greater happiness,” says Sandstrom.
