Have you heard that exercise can improve mental health but felt like it's too hard to do, or not known where to start? You’re not alone. There is now a massive body of science showing that regular physical exercise can help us reduce stress, better control our emotions, improve our thinking skills, and enhance our mood. However, getting active, staying active, and knowing what to do and how to do it can be challenging, and programs that support people to achieve this are scarce.
To help address this, the BrainPark Behaviour Group partnered with the Turner Institute Adult Clinic to create BrainGains, a physical exercise program designed especially for people working to recover from mental ill-health.
BrainGains was available to clients of the Turner Institute Adult Clinic throughout 2021 and 2022. It provided a small-group exercise program designed and delivered by Exercise Physiologists, education about how exercise can change the brain to improve mental health, peer-support, and assistance from the Clinic's psychologists to get active, stay active and use exercise as a self-management tool to improve mental health for the long term.
This study has been approved by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (MUHREC): Project Number: 26006