Quality of life and physical exercise in caregivers of patients with mental illness

Abstract

The chronic stress experienced by caregivers of persons with mental illnesses has been shown to be associated with adverse effects on their own mental health and overall quality of life, increasing the risk of severe symptoms of anxiety and depression, and sleep disorders. Physical exercise appears to be a way of addressing these negative effects, being associated with improvement in mental health, reduction in levels of stress and depression, as well as enhancement of the quality of life of caregivers. Physical exercise was part of a series of interventions aimed at improving the mental health and quality of life of caregivers of people with mental illnesses, and it proved to be of significant efficacy in lowering their anxiety and depression levels, in mood regulation, in reducing the “burden of care”, and in treating their sleep disorders, improving in these ways the overall quality of life of the caregivers. © Athens Medical Society.