Research paper · RP15

Move for Mood, Not Medals

Singh 2023 and Noetel 2024 put exercise level with psychotherapy for depression. That claim was built on people who already met a clinical cut-off. This umbrella review asks whether the same parity holds in adults who are not depressed — the people who fill Indian offices. In 183 randomised trials of 22,811 adults without a diagnosed condition, physical activity improved wellbeing by a standardised mean difference of 0.42 (95% CI 0.26 to 0.57), statistically indistinguishable from mindfulness (0.44, 0.35 to 0.54) and from yoga and other psychological programmes (0.41 to 0.49). Combined movement-plus-psychological programmes reached 0.73 (0.27 to 1.20), but that node rests on three trials. We searched eight databases and registries (2010 to 22 September 2026) for reviews of physical activity in non-clinical adults; fourteen met the eligibility screen. The large depression umbrellas (Singh, Munro, Rebar) overlap heavily, so they were not treated as independent. The independent head-to-head unit is Wilkie 2026, a network meta-analysis of adults without diagnosed conditions. Against inactive controls, physical activity produces a small-to-moderate lift in wellbeing and a small-to-moderate drop in stress and low mood. Against psychological programmes, the difference is compatible with zero. Certainty is moderate for activity versus sitting still, and low for activity versus coaching. Higher intensity helps mood symptoms more than it helps workplace stress. Leisure-time activity helps; occupational physical labour does not. The practical sentence for an Indian workplace is not “skip the coach and just run.” It is “move and coach are both countable reps.” Count the walk.