Sports and mental health

How Physical Activity is Linked to Well-being in Daily Life

Movement is good for us, as we all know. But many people do not engage in enough physical activity in their daily lives. Because knowledge of the positive effects of movement is clearly not sufficient to induce changes in behavior, science is increasingly focusing on mood and emotional factors. Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (PLUS), Austria, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany, and the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim (ZI), Germany, have analyzed data sets from over 8,000 individuals to determine how physical activity is linked to good moods and positive emotions. They found that most people feel better when they move throughout the day. At the same time, people are more physically active when they are in a better mood. The results are published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour from May 6, 2026.

Smartphones and other devices measure movement throughout the day

“It has long been known that physical activity has a positive effect on well-being, but we used to only have evidence of this from lab and cross-sectional studies,” says Professor Markus Reichert (PLUS, Ruhr University Bochum, ZI), who coordinated the project. He says that, for several years now, the correlation is also being examined in studies that monitor physical activity and well-being under natural, everyday conditions. This is possible with smartphones and similar systems. Routine activities like going on walks, going up the stairs, and housework can thus be assessed. It is also possible to differentiate between correlations within one individual (“I feel better when I move more”) and among multiple individuals (“I feel better than other people when I move more than they do”).

However, Reichert adds that the results from the studies are unclear and sometimes even contradictory. “It was important that we summarize the findings, also to be able to estimate the scope of the correlations for different aspects of affective well-being like positive and negative affect, energy, and calmness, and potentially identify differences between individuals,” explains Johanna Rehder (Ruhr University Bochum, PLUS, ZI), PhD student and first author of the publication.

Good feelings before and after physical activity

“This synthesis of a large quantity of research data from everyday life required innovative and complex meta-analysis techniques,” adds Dr. Julian Packheiser (Ruhr University Bochum). These analyses conducted by the core research group – which also includes Dr. Marco Giurgiu, Dr. Irina Timm (both KIT), and Dr. Gesa Berretz (Ruhr University Bochum and Radboud University) – revealed that affective well-being in general exhibits a positive correlation with preceding and subsequent physical activity. Only calmness showed a negative correlation with physical activity. This means that individuals were less calm before or after physical activity than they were when they were stationary.

Persons with low well-being benefit in particular

The analyses also revealed that the correlations between physical activity and affective well-being differ strongly between individuals. While the majority of the subjects exhibited a better mood when engaging in physical activity, some showed a decreased mood before or after physical activity. The results for energy as a form of affective well-being were the most consistent: Over 95 percent of the subjects felt more energetic before or after physical activity. 

“Our study also shows that persons with low well-being benefit in particular from physical activity,” says Onur Güntürkün (Ruhr University Bochum), which underlines the potential of everyday movement for mentally vulnerable groups. “Now our job for the coming years is to identify additional personal and contextual factors that can explain the differences in the correlations,” says Reichert. The data also does not present a causality of the correlations. These must be evaluated, such as through interventional studies of persons’ everyday lives. Only then can the full potential of the connections between physical activity and affective well-being be used for health-promoting interventions in care.