Stress is something that many people often experience and react to differently. Stress, especially in young adults, is super common as this is the time when people are balancing school, work, relationships and more which can be very overwhelming to handle all at once. Since stress can cause anxiety and make people overthink a lot, which could cause them to not act like themselves, people commonly do physical activity as it is recommended to help manage stress. This raises the question can exercising regularly change how a person responds to stress? Instead of simply making someone feel better and not overthink or be sad about a stressful situation, could physical activity influence the brains response to stress?
As previously mentioned, stress has a huge mental impact on people which everyone handles differently. While physical activity is a common way to manage stress, some people will exercise to help manage it but stress for some people cause them to become less physically active. Trevor Buhr's research dives into how stress may induce physical inactivity and which parts of the brain are involved in this reduction of physical activity. Buhr's research consisted of rats being exposed to certain amounts of tail shocks, then having access to a running wheel for 9 weeks. It was found that the rats who had the most stress were the ones to decrease physical activity and not run on the wheel. There were changes in monoamine neurotransmitters, including dopamine in the the brain areas that are involved in reward, motivation and movement. Stress was found to be associated with a mild dopamine deficiency in the striatum which could contribute to not being motivated to be physically active. This suggests that stressful experiences can potentially produce changes in the brain and body that affect physical activity even after someone is not stressed anymore. If stress can produce long lasting changes to reduce physical activity, is the relationship the same if it was the opposite, meaning could physical activity produce changes that help someone respond to stress more effectively?
In Baihui Luo's research article, it investigates the opposite direction by looking into whether regular aerobic exercise can influence young adult responses to acute stress. Young adults from ages 18-26 did four weeks of aerobic exercise and the findings was that it lowered anxiety during acute (short-term) stress and changed prefrontal cortex activity, which is the decision-making area. While Buhr exposed the rats to stress then observed their physical activity, Luo's research had the people exercise regularly first them examine how they respond to acute stress after exercise. Even though Buhr's study was with rats and Luo's was with humans, they both show the bidirectional results of how exercise impacts stress and how stress impacts exercise. Luo's research found a lower state of anxiety during acute stress for the exercise group compared to the control group. Prefrontal cortex activity was also looked at as the prefrontal cortex, specifically the orbitofrontal cortex is involved in decision-making and movement, which is relevant to understanding how people function and if they want to be physically active or not while under stress. The results show that regular aerobic exercise can potentially influence how the orbitofrontal cortex functions during stressful situations.
Both of these research articles suggest that the relationship between stress and physical activity can be bidirectional. Buhr looks at how stress effects physical activity, finding that stress does impact the brain which causes a persistent decrease in physical activity while Luo looks at how physical activity impacts stress, finding that regular physical activity changes stress related parts of the brain like the prefrontal cortex which lowers stress and anxiety during acute stress.
When thinking about the question can exercise make young adults more resilient to stress, it is important to know that there are different kinds of possibilities that give rise to resilience. Stress effects everyone differently which means someone might experience a lot of anxiety when stressed and some might experience less anxiety when stressed. Someone might be able to make clear and confident decisions while stressed while for some it may be harder to focus and make those clear decisions. While there is evidence that shows exercise potentially can create resilience in young adults, there is still so much to research and dive into. Factors, such as sleep, social interaction, confidence and more are things that may be involved with someone wanting to exercise or not. Luo focuses on young adults and Buhr focuses on rats, so each age group who are the participants might respond to different ways as well.
Paying particular attention to young adults is important to look into as people in this age group are facing lots of academic pressure, social pressure, thinking about their future and the unknown which is a lot to handle all at once. If exercise can influence the brains response to stress, physical activity could be more than just something people do to stay active. It could potentially be a factor that helps prepare people to handle stressful situations and experiences. Buhr shows that stressful situations can produce biological changes in the brain that are associated with altered behavior while Lou shows that regular exercise can influence brain function and behavior during stressful situations. Behavior, motivation and the brain working together is not a one-way relationship. It is bidirectional, meaning experiences can change behavior but behaviors can potentially influence how the brain responds to situations in the future.
Work cited:
1) Buhr, T. J., Reed, C. H., Wee, O. M., Lee, J. H., Yuan, L.-L., Fleshner, M., Valentine, R. J., & Clark, P. J. (2023). The persistence of stress-induced physical inactivity in rats: An investigation of central monoamine neurotransmitters and skeletal muscle oxidative stress. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
2) Luo, Baihui, et al. “Effects of 4-week Moderate-Intensity Aerobic Training on Stress Reactivity, Decision-Making, and Prefrontal Brain Activity under Acute Stress in Emerging Adults.” Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, vol. 28, no. 11, Elsevier BV, Nov. 2025, pp. 946–54
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