Obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, appears to exert control over the thoughts and behavior of its victims by means of anxiety, which is often expressed as irritability. Those with OCD tend to have high levels of generalized anxiety in the first place. When they experience temporary surges in anxiety, they are more inclined to indulge in their obsessive and compulsive behavior. When they are prevented from pursuing their obsession, they experience acute anxiety, which heightens their desire to engage in their compulsive behavior. The expression of their compulsions brings immediate relief, but ultimately it reinforces and feeds an escalating cycle of maladaptive compulsive behaviors. Far from making anxiety and irritability worse, exercise appears to improve irritability, anxiety and OCD symptoms.
OCD
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is classified as an anxiety disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Symptoms include having obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors. Obsessive thoughts often have themes, such as fear of germs, needing to have things be neat and ordered, aggressive impulses or sexual images or thoughts. Compulsive behaviors often have themes as well, including counting, checking, washing, sanitizing, repeating the same behavior repeatedly, hoarding and orderliness. Someone might need to turn the lights off and on 10 times before leaving the room or to check that the doors are locked at night 20 times. Sometimes a phobia or some other irrational belief fuels the obsessive and compulsive behavior. A fear of germs can drive a person with OCD to wash his hands until they are raw.
Anxiety, Fight and Flight
Anxiety lies at the root of OCD. The medications that are most effective for OCD, tricyclics and serotonin-reuptake inhibitors, increase the levels of a brain chemical, serotonin, which regulates anxiety. Medications correct biochemical brain imbalances that boost anxiety and OCD symptoms.
Exercise can serve as an additional tactic in your attempts to prevail over your OCD. Exercise provides an outlet for the physiological arousal and psychomotor agitation that accompanies anxiety. When aroused by anxiety, your body goes into a '"fight or flight" response that has been designed by nature to prepare you for the rigors of exertion. By exercising you expend this energy in the way that nature intended: in physical activity. Exercise substitutes a healthy behavior that enhances fitness and well-being, for a behavior that disrupts your day-to-day functioning.
Research
Aerobic exercise relieves mild anxiety and depression in normal, non-clinical populations. It also improves negative mood, anxiety and OCD symptoms in those with OCD, a study published in the October 2009 "Journal of Anxiety Disorders" reports. Mood and anxiety improved after each exercise session, and OCD symptoms steadily improved over the course of the 12-week study. Another study, from the June 2007 "Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease," found that improvement in OCD symptoms persisted at least six months after the conclusion of the 12-week moderately intense exercise intervention.
Anxiety Vacation
The precise mechanisms for why exercise improves mood, lowers anxiety and decreases OCD symptoms are not widely researched or uniformly agreed upon. The act of exercising may dissipate the arousal state that earmarks energy for physical action. Also, intense exercise releases endorphins, brain chemicals that soothe your mood. Finally, the process of exercising requires your brain to focus its resources on processing sensory information, coordinating autonomic processes needed during exertion and controlling your motor behavior. The demands made on the frontal cortex of your brain cause a decrease in the functioning of other areas of your brain, such as the prefrontal cortex, that modulate your mood, psychiatrist Arne Dietrich suggests in the November 2006 "Psychiatry Research." Think of exercise as an activity that gives your brain's anxiety centers a brief vacation. The benefits of this break last long beyond the brief time you spend exercising.
References
- Brain Physics: Medication for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
- "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition"; 1994
- "Journal of Anxiety Disorders"; Acute Changes in Obsessions and Compulsions; Ana Abrantes, et al; October 2009
- "Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease"; A Pilot Study of Moderate-Intensity Aerobic Exercise; Richard Brown, et al; June 2007
- "Psychiatry Research"; Transient Hypofrontality as a Mechanism; Arne Dietrich; November 2006
- "The Journal of Neuropsychiatry & Clinical Neurology"; Prefrontal Cortex Modulation of Mood; Frank Padberg, et al; May 2001
