In The Press | Wellbeing and Exercise Research

15 February 2022

ISU study shows exercise improves heart and brain health | Todd Magel

AMES, Iowa — A new Iowa State University study shows exercise works out your heart and your brain. It’s no secret that working out helps your physical health, but now researchers say it’s also good for mental health. KCCI Senior Reporter Todd Magel shows us how staying active is beneficial in the long run.

“Mental health concerns are on the rise. We need to be able to talk about them and then have options to be able to help improve them.”

“Sitting is sort of a sneaky side effect of many of the behaviors that we do and we don’t necessarily know how much we are doing it. I think becoming more aware of how much we sit and how that might influence our own wellbeing could be really important.”

“Doing things that might not seem like exercise, you know, the “no pain, no gain” approach can actually be really useful, which I think is really cool.”
Dr. Jacob Meyer

25 June 2021

Want a Surprising Business Boost? Start Exercising | Robert Roy Britt

**From improving concentration to boosting mood, employees who perform physical activity can bring a variety of benefits to the business.** — Getty Images/RichLegg

Exercise has powerful short-term benefits that have obvious application in the workplace,” said Jacob Meyer, an expert on the neurobiological effects of exercise and director of the Wellbeing and Exercise Laboratory at Iowa State University.

24 May 2021

How to Create a Mental Health-Focused Workout Plan | Emma Betuel

Focus on activities you enjoy

“To exercise with mental health in mind, don’t worry about choosing one type of exercise over another, said Jacob Meyer, a professor of kinesiology at Iowa State University. Aerobic workouts, like running, have consistently been linked to greater mental health, but they’re not necessarily better than strength training — despite the powerful “runner’s high.”

“So far, research shows that aerobic exercise seems to be similarly effective to resistance exercise for improving mental health — both in the short term and in the long term,” he said.”

28 March 2021

Americans view health, especially weight, differently after one year of COVID-19 | Eleanor Chalstrom

*The past year, Americans watched COVID-19 cases increase. Over half of Americans said their weight also went up this year. Courtesy of Flickr.*

“Jacob Meyer is an assistant professor in Iowa State University’s kinesiology department. Meyer is the director of the Wellbeing and Exercise Laboratory at the university and is currently leading the COVID-19 and Wellbeing Survey, comprised of over 3,000 participants.

“What we saw was a lot of people were expressing they were reducing their exercise potentially because they couldn’t go to their gym or their sports leagues were shut down,” Meyer said. “That ended up resulting in people reporting they were being much less active while sitting, using screens for more time. Those things are certainly associated with less energy expenditure.”

The COVID-19 and Wellbeing Survey research began toward the beginning of the pandemic. Meyer said people report their exercise time, screen time and sitting time. The participants also report the state of their mental health.

“We found that, in particular, people who reduce their exercise, or who increase their screen time, had worse depression, stress, loneliness, et cetera,” Meyer said.”