Compositional Associations of 24-h Movement Behaviors With Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms in Middle-Aged Adults

Physical activity could reduce the risk of depression and anxiety. A 24-h day includes time spent sleeping, in sedentary behavior (SB), or engaging in physical activities. However, the joint and combined associations of these 24-h movement behaviors with depressive and anxiety symptoms remain unclear.

To investigate the compositional associations of 24-h movement behaviors with depressive and anxiety symptoms in a population-based sample of middle-aged adults.

The study population (N = 4490) comprised of participants from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 (NFBC1966). Over 14 consecutive days, movement behaviors-SB, light physical activity (LPA), and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA)-were recorded using a hip-worn accelerometer and were combined with self-reported sleep duration to obtain the 24-h time-use composition. Three different screening tools-Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), and Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 (HSCL-25)-were utilized to assess the severity of depressive and anxiety symptoms. Compositional linear regression and time reallocation analysis were performed to examine the associations of 24-h movement behaviors with depressive and anxiety symptoms.

Compositional 24-h movement behaviors were significantly associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms. Higher MVPA relative to other components of 24-h movement behaviors was associated with significantly lower depressive and anxiety symptoms. A 30-min reallocation of time from SB to MVPA was associated with 9.0% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 6.3%, 11.6%) lower depressive symptoms and 4.5% (95% CI: 2.1%, 6.9%) lower anxiety symptoms assessed with BDI-II and GAD-7 tools, respectively. Similar patterns of associations were observed in the time reallocation analysis when depressive and anxiety symptoms were assessed with the HSCL-25 screening tool.

Each component of 24-h movement behaviors was associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms. Among the component parts of 24-h movement behaviors, MVPA was most strongly associated with lower depressive and anxiety symptoms, whereas LPA only showed marginal favorable benefits.