University sports scientist Dr Sakis Pappous has launched a new European awareness campaign, ‘Life is like a Bike’, following a survey into the positive effects of sport and physical activity on mental health.
However, only 31.5% of the mental health programmes surveyed had the facilities, possibility of using facilities, time or staff to implement exercise – with significant infrastructure shortfalls observed in eastern European countries.
The campaign, which runs from February to June 2018, is inspired by the Albert Einstein quote ‘Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you have to keep moving’.
Dr Pappous, who specialises in promoting inclusion in sport, co-ordinated the UK data collection for a pan-European survey conducted in 12 European countries that led to the campaign.
Canvassing the experience and opinions of sports organisations, mental health providers (recipients of their services or professionals) and the general population on the contribution of physical exercise and sport to mental health, it found a positive attitude towards the link between sport/exercise and mental health, and a desire to include physical activity as part of a therapeutic programme.
The ‘Life is like a Bike’ campaign aims to provide information to those who have not yet adopted active living as well as confirming the benefits to those who already have done so and encourage as many people as possible to take part in sports and exercise.
MENS (Mental European Network of Sport Events) Research has now published the initial results of Connecting Sport & Physical Exercise with Mental Health. The project is co-funded by the Erasmus+/ Sport programme of the European Commission.
A video based on the findings can be viewed.
The University of Kent is a scientific partner of the MENS project which is co-ordinated by the non-profit organisation, Social Cooperative Activities of Vulnerable Groups (EDRA).
Dr Pappous is a Reader specialising in the social and psychological aspects of physical activity and health at the University’s School of Sport and Exercise Sciences.
The survey called Connecting Sport & Physical Exercise with Mental Health lasted for two months from October to November 2017 and in total 2,656 participants from 17 organisations active in the field of mental health and/or sports and physical exercise took part.