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A Swedish study published in Mental Health and Physical Activity has shed light on the well-known link between exercise and mental health. The researchers found that, when accounting for sedentary behavior, cardiorespiratory fitness does not appear to improve anxiety and depressive symptoms, while frequency of exercise does.

The link between exercise and mental health has been well-documented, and yet findings are limited when it comes to the type of physical activity that is most beneficial. The literature has yet to establish the relative importance of the frequency, intensity, and duration of exercise.  As study authors Mats Hallgren and his team say, it is also unclear how cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) relates to mental health.

CRF refers to the strength of the body’s circulatory and respiratory response to physical activity, and it tends to improve with regular exercise. In their study, Hallgren and his team set out to disentangle the relative importance of CRF and exercise frequency in the prevention of mental health symptoms. As the researchers say, filling in these gaps in research can help improve the design of exercise-based prevention strategies for mental health.

The researchers analyzed data from a general health assessment that was administered to a large number of Swedish employees. The sample was made up of 36,595 middle-aged men and women with an average age of 41. The questionnaires asked respondents how many times a week they had exercised in the past 30 days and how often they had experienced “worry, depressed mood or anxiety.” They also completed a test of cardiorespiratory fitness on a stationary bicycle and were then classified as either low, medium or high CRF.

First, the researchers found evidence that more frequent exercise was linked to improved mental health. Respondents who reported exercising at least 1-2 times a week were less likely to report symptoms of depression and anxiety, even after accounting for sedentary behavior — which was measured as the amount of leisure time participants reported spending sitting still.

As the researchers explain, sedentary behavior appears to play an important role in the link between exercise and mental health. Another study led by Hallgren found evidence that passive sedentary behaviors, such as TV-watching, increase depressive symptoms while mentally-active sedentary behaviors may actually prevent them.

Interestingly, cardiorespiratory fitness appeared to be less important when it came to the prevention of mental health symptoms. While respondents in the medium and high CRF groups reported fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety, this effect disappeared when sedentary behavior was taken into account.

“Taken together,” Hallgren and colleagues report, “this suggests that high CRF may not be necessary to prevent common mental health symptoms. Instead, regular participation in a preferred form of structured exercise may be of greater relative importance.”

The researchers discuss the possibility that the impact of cardiorespiratory fitness may only be relevant when comparing people with very low CRF levels to those with higher levels. Previous research suggests that CRF appears to be most beneficial to somatic health when looking at improvements among those with low fitness levels. It could be that the current study’s sample, which was made up exclusively of employed persons, did not include enough people with low fitness levels to capture such an effect.

A substantial limitation was that symptoms of depression and anxiety were measured using a single item, and the researchers stress that this measure does not reflect a diagnosis of depression or anxiety. Moreover, symptoms of anxiety and symptoms of depression are distinct and would be better assessed separately in future studies.

The researchers conclude that regular exercise may be enough to lower anxiety and depressive symptoms among most people, while it may be useful to encourage exercises that boost CRF among people with particularly low levels of fitness.

The study, “Associations of exercise frequency and cardiorespiratory fitness with symptoms of depression and anxiety – a cross-sectional study of 36,595 adults”, was authored by Mats Hallgren, Aaron Kandola, Brendon Stubbs, Thi-Thuy-Dung Nguyen, Peter Wallin, Gunnar Andersson, and Elin Ekblom-Bak.

(Image by from Pixabay)

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I don’t know about you but when I walk into a new restaurant, I usually have a hard time choosing a dish—the ingredient list in the menu says nothing about how good the chef is. And if I ask the waiter’s opinion, how can I be sure they have taste buds as sophisticated as mine? Pictures of the food aren’t much help either. We all know that what you see is not what you get. My girlfriend says I have trust issues but I don’t believe her. I blame McDonald’s advertising.

Customers at Cuisine AuntDai, however, don’t have this problem. The owner of this Chinese restaurant in Montreal, Canada, has written incredibly genuine, no bs descriptions for their entire menu!

Recently, one of his clients, Kim Belair, turned to Twitter to share these wholesome texts, and they instantly went viral, generating over 72,000 likes and 10,000 retweets. Let’s hope this newly-found Internet fame will keep the joint afloat throughout the pandemic! After all, you can’t help but respect someone who’s trying to make an honest living.

Belair, who is a writer/narrative designer working in video games through her company, Sweet Baby Inc., first heard about AuntDai through a friend who loved the place and swore it was the best Chinese food in town. “I meant to go, but before I could, the original location burned to the ground. It was only when it opened the new location that I finally got a chance to order,” she told Bored Panda.

“It was really during the pandemic that it became a near-weekly staple for my partner and me. We usually have at least one dedicated ‘order-in night’, but AuntDai is good enough that we sometimes find ourselves thinking about making dinner and going ‘…How about AuntDai, though?’”

The writer really loves the food at the restaurant. Despite Fei’s humility, it’s Belair’s favourite place in the city and she believes every dish is really, really strong. “Each one feels like it sets out to do something different, and nails it,” Belair explained. “My partner’s a chef, and he often says that what sets AuntDai apart is this feeling of subtlety that many restaurants don’t get. They hit little details that don’t stand out on their own, but when contrasted with other places they consistently nail flavours, textures, and quality of their ingredients.”

Belair recommends their hot pepper beef on some rice with a bunch of dry-fried green beans and cabbage. “It’s out of control delicious.”

People really loved the honest descriptions

After Kim’s thread went viral, the owner of the restaurant created a Twitter account just to thank her

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Belair said she and Feigang ended up having a really lovely chat for about a half-hour! He told her more about his upbringing, his childhood, his work, what inspired him and his wife to open the restaurant, and how things have been going. “He’s such an interesting guy and his story is so compelling that I genuinely feel really lucky to have met him in this unusual way,” she said. “Like, for all the times I’ve had his food and loved it, and for all the comfort it’s offered me during this past year, it took this for us to finally talk. I’m eager to remain friends.”

Also, Belair thinks it’s funny that she’s a business owner as well and works in writing and narrative; they both found some commonalities, both in building a career and in having a critical eye on everything they make themselves. “No matter what you do, you’re always your toughest critic, and it’s reassuring to surface that with other people. I think it’s probably why the menu went viral: people see something of themselves in it, and they appreciate not only that honesty but the relatability of it.

“Everyone wants to be that candid or to have someone be that candid with them, and I think it’s just incredibly refreshing.”

“On January 11, Monday afternoon, I received an email from a journalist from a German newspaper called Süddeutsche Zeitung translated as ‘South German’ saying a tweet about our restaurant went viral,” Feigang Fei, the owner of the restaurant, wrote in his blog. “I thought it was spam and replied to ask for screenshots. She replied with the Twitter link. OMG, it was real I could not believe that tweet got almost 60K likes and 10K retweets even I am not a Twitter fan I knew it was not an easy number to get.”

Feigang agreed to this interview and everything started escalated pretty fast. Before he knew it, the man had interview requests from CBC, Global News TV, The Guardian, Today, Food Network, and the list goes on. He could not believe what just happened to him.

“When all this magic happens I can only think of one person that I have to say huge thanks to. It’s Kim Belair. On Saturday night I recovered my dormant Twitter account @feigangfei which was registered in 2011 when I was thinking about learning English by joining social media but there was zero activity during the past 10 years.”

“I replied to that HOLY tweet stating that I am the owner of Cuisine AuntDai and my name Feigang Fei. Right now, all those big-name media articles have Feigang Fei, Kim Belair, and AuntDai all together.”

Friday and Saturday the restaurant saw a lot of new customers and many of them told Feigang they heard about him on the radio or saw him on TV and they loved it.

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While people continued talking about his menu

The post first appeared on Bored Panda.

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