Revista Europea de Biología Experimental Acceso abierto

Abstracto

The effect of eight weeks of aerobic exercise on depression, anxiety and sleep disorders in middle-aged women

Fatemeh Shokri, Ebrahim Khoshnam and Asghar Nikseresht

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of eight weeks of aerobic exercise on depression, anxiety and sleep disorders in middle-aged women. 60 middle-aged women (40-60 years old) volunteerilly participated in the study.Subjects walked for eight weeks, three sessions per week, each session lasting 60 minutes with 60% of maximum heart rate.Theycompleted General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28) before and after the eight weeks. DataAnalysis was performed using paired t-test statistical method. Significance level of the test was also considered P≤0.05.The results showed that depression symptoms decreased significantly after eight weeks (p=0.0001) but eight weeks of aerobic training had no significant effects on reducing anxiety symptoms and sleep disorders (p=0.090). According to the results it can be concluded that aerobic exercise can improve mental health and enhance life quality in middle-aged women by reducing depressionsymptoms.