{"id":153010,"date":"2023-04-06T11:23:33","date_gmt":"2023-04-06T09:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=153010"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:43","slug":"people-sometimes-seem-to-think-it-is-impossible-to-do-a-phd-and-still-have-a-nice-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2023\/04\/06\/people-sometimes-seem-to-think-it-is-impossible-to-do-a-phd-and-still-have-a-nice-life\/","title":{"rendered":"‘People sometimes seem to think it is impossible to do a PhD and still have a nice life\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Amy Hofman, who obtained her PhD last month, confirmed in her research: exercise is important to mental health. Yet during her PhD programme, she did not always get enough exercise. “That does feel wrong: writing that sitting is very bad for you, yet spending several years mostly sitting.”<\/p>\n

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What was the subject of your research?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe relationship between exercise and mental health among over-40s. What made our study special is that we took sitting habits and sleep into account. What happens if you exercise more instead of sitting or sleeping? These factors are important, because if you add up the hours spent exercising, sitting and sleeping, you arrive at 24.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather complex data to obtain!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we used data from the Erasmus Rotterdam Health Study, the ERGO study. It has been running in Ommoord since the 1990s, among all residents of that neighbourhood. We collect data on exercise, sitting and sleeping using an accelerometer, a kind of Fitbit for scientific research.\u201d<\/p>\n

What were the results?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important to take the 24-hour cycle into account, as the effects can vary. Exercising instead of sleeping or sitting was found to relate to fewer depressive symptoms. Sleep duration was found to have less effect on mental health. Sleeping for longer rather than sitting or light physical activity did improve sleep quality. In our studies, we found no positive relationship between exercise and sleep quality. This is surprising, as previous studies did find that exercise benefits sleep quality, although no correction was made for sleep duration in those studies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also observed that people with a healthier brain, with larger brain volumes, continued to exercise better over time, although we did not find that exercise positively affected brain volumes. So, perhaps participants with a less healthy brain should be a specific target group for physical activity interventions. Since these participants seemed to exercise less in the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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