Professor David Lubans, co-director of the University of Newcastle’s Centre for Active Living and Learning, has worked with a team at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland looking at the lifestyles of 187 Finnish adolescents – including their physical activity, sedentary behaviour, sleep, diet, and screen time – and found that those who had spent more time on screens, especially their phones, during childhood and who had exercised less, were more likely to be stressed and depressed than their peers when they reached their teens.
“We are really interested in how particularly physical activity and physical activity of different intensities, might be protective against the emergence of mental health problems, but as well, in terms of screen behaviour and how specific types of screen behaviour may be linking to mental health problems,” Lubans tells EducationHQ.
Physical activity is well established as an effective intervention for improving mental health among people with chronic mental health problems, Lubans says, and we also know that adolescence is a time when a range of mental health problems start to emerge, particularly internalising disorders like anxiety and depression.
“Obviously there’s some neurobiology into that, in terms of what’s going on in the brain, but I think that our work would really suggest that the lifestyle behaviours that young people are being exposed to ... that’s going to really shape how those, particularly the internalising problems, start to manifest.”
Luban’s work is mostly focussed on the design, evaluation and dissemination of successful school-based physical activity interventions and each year he spends a month in Finland where he works with a team there, guiding some of their research, writing papers and giving presentations.
Chief investigator on more than 40 school-based physical activity interventions that have benefited large numbers of children and adolescents in Australia and abroad, he says based on his and others’ extensive research, there are multiple mechanisms through which physical activity and screen time might have an effect on mental health.
“Being physically active, and particularly [in] the type of activity that’s going to elicit improvements in fitness, we know that this has an effect on brain structure and function,” he explains.
“Particular parts of the brain, one of them is the prefrontal cortex, that’s responsible for executive functioning, as well as the hippocampus, which is more about the memory, retrieval and storage of memories, these are really quite responsive to activity, particularly activity that’s going to improve fitness.”
Lubans says while not all screen time is necessarily bad, it's the types of screen-based entertainment that young people are engaging with, particularly social media by adolescent girls, where they are looking for social connection and social validation, that can negatively affect mental health.
So in terms of neurobiology, Lubans says, if young people are getting fitter and being more active, then the brain is healthier, and a healthier brain is going to be more resistant to the stresses that they're exposed to.
The academic says there are also a range of what he describes as “psycho-social mechanisms”, which are significant contributors to good mental health.
“If you think about physical activity in sport that connects you with other people, that you have a sense of achievement and that you’ve got friends and you all are working towards common goals, that’s also a really protective mechanism against mental illness and problems.
“It’s one of the reasons why sport, and particularly team sport, seems to be really good from that perspective.”
Behavioural mechanisms are also a factor, according to the expert.
“Getting into good habits with exercise and physical activity means that you sleep better at night.
“We know that the brain requires sleep. If you don’t get sleep, you’re going to have all kinds of problems with processing information, which is going to lead to potential mental health problems as well.”
When delving into screen time and mental health, Lubans contends, the negative effects are probably more obvious and immediate.
“The research now is looking towards a more nuanced understanding of screen time behaviours and acknowledging that not all screen time is bad - in fact, playing video games with friends or watching TV or movies with the families is not, and there’s no reason why that would have a negative effect on mental health,” he says.
“However, if you start to dig a little deeper and look at the types of screen-based entertainment that young people are engaging with, and particularly adolescents and adolescent girls are probably the ones at risk of this, it's things like social media where young people are looking for social connection and social validation, and they’re often receiving anything but that.
“I’m going to pick out Instagram as being probably the worst for young people when it comes to mental health.”
Lubans has teenage children of his own and says schools need to reinforce to students that stress is an unavoidable part of life as they move towards the end of high school, with examinations and pending uncertainty about university and independence and jobs and transition all very present.
“We want to get young people to reframe stress and to reframe how they see stress – acknowledge that they are more than just their thoughts and feelings, and that there is potential to control those to some extent, and also encourage them into good behaviours that are going to help them to be resilient to that stress.”
Professor David Lubans says while getting rid of phones out of playgrounds and classrooms has been “a great step”, his biggest concern is that physical activity for older adolescents is not mandatory in their final years at high school. PHOTO: Jenni Kivimäki
The academic says while getting rid of phones out of playgrounds and classrooms in many schools nationwide has been “a great step”, his biggest concern is that physical activity for older adolescents is not mandatory in their final years at school.
“We’ve been working in this space on a project originally called Burn to Learn, which is about getting older adolescents to take a bit of a break from class and do an activity break, to help them learn more effectively.
“We don’t want that to be some really prescriptive, regimented, unenjoyable experience – there needs to be freedom and choice and autonomy in how they do it, because that also matters.
“What we want to have is activity breaks that are scheduled into the day and are expected for young people – so it could be that they go for a walk or do some dance or play a little game – we should be advocating this for all of our senior school students. It’s a missed opportunity.”
Lubans is at present working with schools in this space developing training modules and resources for those interested in activity programs for senior school students.
“The program we’re working on is actually integrating activity breaks with cognitive behavioural therapy,” he explains.
“We’re trying to give teenagers some actual skills, so whilst we can get them to be active, we believe it can have an enhanced effect when we actually teach them some simple yet very, very strong evidence-based approaches.
“We’re going to be doing some feasibility work later this year, and then looking at how we can offer training for teachers throughout the country. That’s our goal, is to try and really have a really positive population health impact.”
