Elderly couple walking outside

Increasing residents’ physical activity may put them in a better mood, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have found.

Investigators discovered that participants who moved around tended to report that their mood was better than those who remained sedentary.

“This study exemplifies the potential for combining the use of physical-activity trackers and electronic diaries to better understand the complex dynamic interrelationships among multiple systems in a real-time and real-life context,” said Vadim Zipunnikov, Ph.D., who led the data analyses.

Mobile assessments in the study included wrist-worn devices that automatically recorded levels of physical movement in real time and electronic diaries that assessed mood and perceived energy levels four times per day for two weeks.

These real-time mood and energy levels were rated by study participants on a seven-point analogue scale from “very happy” to “very sad” for mood and from “very tired” to “very energetic” for energy.

Results appear in JAMA Psychiatry.