Brief intense exercise more effective in treating panic disorder than standard care, study suggests

A study reveals brief intense exercise is more effective than standard care for treating panic disorder symptoms.

A study suggests that brief, intense intermittent exercise might be more effective in treating panic disorder, compared to standard care which involves psychotherapy sessions.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that helps an individual develop strategies to address personal problems by changing one's thought processes.

Researchers from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil said that supervised walking interspersed with repeated 30-second high-intensity sprints is a more effective treatment for panic disorder, compared to 'interoceptive exposure' -- where therapists trigger common symptoms of panic attacks like chest pain, sweating, rapid respiration, and a racing heart in a safe, controlled environment.

"Here we show that a 12-week program of brief intense intermittent exercise can be used as an interoceptive exposure strategy to treat panic disorder patients," author Ricardo William Muotri, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of São Paulo Medical School in Brazil, said.

The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry, looked at 102 adult women and men diagnosed with panic disorder.

The participants were divided in two groups and did three sessions every week of their allocated exercise during a follow-up period of 12 weeks. No drugs were administered to either group throughout the trial.