Resilience in motion: emerging perspectives on stress, substance use and youth

Adolescence and young adulthood are developmental stages characterized by heightened stress sensitivity and limited cognitive control. The identification of the risk factors of alcohol consumption in these stages is crucial for early interventions focused on reducing harmful alcohol use. This review examines how exercise can modulate stress responses, reduce cravings, and preserve cognitive and emotional functioning. In animal models, it has been well described that exercise is able to reduce craving and protect cognitive and affective domains. Translational studies in young people with risky alcohol use (RAU) revealed comparable benefits. Acute aerobic exercise improved executive functions, such as verbal fluency, whereas stretching induced distinct neural oscillatory changes related to emotion regulation. These findings underscore the heterogeneous yet complementary effects of different exercise modalities, suggesting that tailored interventions may optimize outcomes. Future work will incorporate interoceptive measures to clarify the mechanisms linking stress dysregulation and RAU vulnerability, with particular attention to gender-related differences. Collectively, the evidence suggests that aerobic exercise may constitute a promising, feasible, and transdiagnostic intervention that strengthens stress-response systems, reduces craving, and fosters resilience in young people at risk of alcohol misuse, with women showing interoceptive deficits emerging as a particularly vulnerable subgroup.