How Do Activity and Nutrition Fare Against Trauma?

Jun 24, 2025

gray concrete statue of man holding stick — Photo by Marianna Smiley on Unsplash

I’m not a bodybuilder in the strict definition of the word, but I follow several (natural ones-- that is, those who don’t use anabolics or performance enhancers). And bodybuilders cavort with other bodybuilders, so the ones I follow frequently have conversations with other bodybuilders. Among the many commonalities is that many if not most of them got into bodybuilding reactively and reactionarily, as a way to manage or mitigate some trauma.

I’ve heard men and women discuss body images issues, disordered eating, or even eating disorders they had as young people, and they discovered bodybuilding and used it as a form of behavioral therapy, a way to harness some of their energy into healthy habits and healthier pursuits.

Many men get into bodybuilding, both natural and enhanced, due to some degree of bullying they experienced as kids or teens. Some were teased for being too skinny, others for being overweight. Many were rejected, platonically and romantically. Others find themselves hitting the gym after a relationship falls apart. Or worse.

Eric Helms is one of the biggest names in evidence-based physique and strength sports. He is a competitive pro natural bodybuilder, a powerlifter, and a professor and researcher. Moreover, he’s a coach and a popular fitness educator. He’s a part of several content vehicles: 3D Muscle Journey; the Iron Culture podcast; and the monthly research review MASS (Monthly Applications in Strength Sport)--all reputable and invaluable resources for all things fitness, specifically, of course, muscle building and fat loss.

Most importantly, Eric’s a kind and humble person, a rarity in most popular online spaces. He decided to do his first bodybuilding competition in his late 20s, after the death of his father, who died by suicide. His bodybuilding competition-preparation season--called a “contest-prep” which is nothing but structured physical activity and nutrition--in his own description was a way for him to keep himself together after such a traumatic event.

Events like these can give even the best of us post-traumatic stress. PTSD is technically a psychiatric condition of clinical diagnosis1, but any of us can present with these symptoms in a sub-clinical sense. It’s a “disabling psychological condition that may develop following exposure to one or more traumatic events. Re-experiencing trauma, intrusive memories, avoidance, and increased arousal are hallmark symptoms of PTSD which can disrupt social, occupational, and interpersonal activities.”2

Last September, I wrote an article about how physical activity and healthy eating can have positive effects on mental health. Given my previous article, “Coping with the Loss of a Pet”, I wanted to revisit this topic.

This time, though, I wanted to look at it through a slightly different lens--how exercise and healthy eating not only have positive effects on mental health but maybe if they can also help us rebound after experiencing one of those far and few--but inevitable and certain--indelible and catastrophic life events.

One review paper--“Relationship between physical activity and individual mental health after traumatic events: a systematic review”, published in 2023 in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology3--looked at this very question: “What is the feasibility of taking physical activity as a strategy to improve individual mental health after traumatic events?” After narrowing down the literature to relevant papers, the researchers included 33 studies that also explore this question.

In the authors’ introduction, they note how there are numerous psychological “interventions” to help treat people post-traumatic stress, as well as plenty of pharmacological interventions, which often carry adverse effects and aren’t too friendly on the wallet. However, they point out that, as helpful as these methods can be for some, the psychological interventions are cognitive-based, meaning that they require people to have adequate if not deep cognitive processing, and “traumatic experiences can seriously impair people’s cognitive functions and cause cognitive dysfunction,” thereby rendering cognitive-based interventions ineffective.

It's well established that exercise positively affects a person’s baseline mental health, and it also can alleviate depression and anxiety. Moreover, “it can change the physiological and emotional processing of those experiencing various traumatic events in a ‘bottom-up’ rather than ‘top-down’ way.” That is, instead of trying to think our way out of our emotional and psychic pain, moving the body can help nudge us away from it without the mental workload.

First, one thing the authors found was that having a regular exercise program seemed to form a buffer and have a protective effect before a traumatic event compared to those who didn’t regularly exercise. Looking specifically at strength or muscular endurance wasn’t included in the evaluation of the data nor was any assessment of aerobic fitness. That is, no level of fitness measures was compared between subjects. Simply having a regular exercise routine was sufficient to build up a psychological shield.

Overall, the authors “found that physical activity was positively associated with individual psychological health, mental resilience and subjective well-being in different degrees after traumatic events, which was a protective factor to maintain individual psychological health. Conversely, lack of physical activity was often a risk factor for all kinds of adverse psychologies. The above results were also confirmed in a large number of animal models and meta-analysis studies.” Yep, they even looked at studies that researched this same question in animals, and the outcomes appeared to be the same.

The authors also note that these associations appear to be true across the lifespan and in different age groups--from children to the elderly.

The physiological mechanisms might come down to the molecules produced during exercise. Specifically, we produce two neurochemicals--opioids and endocannabinoids-- during exercise and physical activity, which are “linked to pleasure, anxiolytic [anxiety-reducing] effects, sleepiness, and reduced pain sensitivity.”4

Additionally, as the authors explain, regular physical activity and exercise lowers baseline cortisol secretion--a hormone released in response to stress--and restores the balance of leptin and ghrelin, more colloquially referred to as the satiety/fullness and hunger hormones, respectively. Regular movement also improves immune function, lowers systemic inflammation, and increases plasma brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF—which I also wrote about last year)--a powerful molecule that works to maintain the functioning of cells and neurons of the brain and nervous system.

The bottom line here is that exercise has a protective effect on our mental health, before trauma and definitely after, so when we do experience a catastrophic or traumatic life event, we’re likely to be more resilient. Additionally, regular exercise appears to mitigate some of the post-traumatic stress from these events, even if we may not necessarily feel like it in the moment.

How does nutrition factor into all of this?

Probably most or all of us know what it’s like to do a little emotional eating--or even food abstention, as appetite loss is also a common feature of stress, trauma, anxiety, and depression.

Circling back to PTSD, the authors of that paper note that “PTSD has been associated with stress-related eating disorders, emotional eating, and poor diet quality,” so if we’ve experienced something life-alteringly traumatic, we are likely more prone to disregard our nutritive sensibilities, which only exacerbates our condition and negative feelings.

Like exercise and physical activity seem to improve our baseline for mental health, it’s similar with our nutrition. For example, “the available evidence suggests an inverse association between healthy or prudent dietary patterns and depression.”5 And as another paper puts it, “Dietary profile affects not only the brain composition, structure and function, but also endogenous hormones, neuropeptides, neurotransmitters, and the microbiota-gut-brain axis, in turn playing a key role in modulation of stress and inflammation and in preservation of cognitive function.”6

The role of nutrition in physical health is unequivocal. Its role in mental health is gaining such ground that a new field has emerged: nutritional psychiatry. “Nutritional psychiatry encompasses the study of dietary and nutrient-based interventions for the prevention or treatment of mental disorders.”7 This field focuses on sound nutrition to optimize health and wellbeing. For example, “there is increasing evidence indicating that high intakes of nutraceuticals such as fiber, phytochemicals, and omega-3 fatty acids are associated with overall mental health and with the prevention of neurodevelopmental disorders.”

Then, how does nutrition fare in a situation where there’s post-traumatic stress?

Unfortunately, the literature in this regard is much scarcer. Most of what I found has to do with nutritional interventions to help with anxiety and depression, which also have positive outcomes.8

Still, it’s also well established that the body’s energy needs change once an injury occurs. For example, basal metabolic rate often increases to aid repair and recovery. In fact, injury “can increase metabolic energy demands from about 20% for minor injuries and surgeries to 100% for more severe bodily insults such as burns.”9

Emotional and psychological pain, though significant, isn’t likely going to increase metabolic rate much. If anything, anxiety itself can increase resting heart rate, which will then increase energy output. I think these two points can be part of the seeds of emotional eating. An injury has occurred, and the brain and body know it. Extra food brings in extra energy and extra nutrients, giving us ample material to make some of those beneficial neurochemicals, helping to manage and offset some of these insults.

Along these lines, of course, nutrition plays a role in brain health. As one paper puts it, “consuming foods that contain phytochemicals that can cross the blood brain barrier (BBB), has been shown to reduce oxidative damage in the brain, and “poor brain health due to poor nutrition can cause damage to nerve cells within the body and the central nervous system (CNS), and to the part of the brain that can produce more nerve cells… this can lead to negative effects on memory, mood and overall cognitive functioning.”10 Suffice it to say, if we can promote brain health, it stands to reason that we can promote our mental health and wellbeing.

This same paper also reviewed another of UK veterans with PTSD.11 They had subjects participate in horticulture therapy--growing food that they’d eventually eat--or participate in occupational therapy. The researchers measured subjects’ cortisol levels and did subjective questionnaires of depressive symptoms and feelings. The researchers found that horticulture therapy reduced cortisol levels and reduced depressive symptoms more than occupational therapy. Though not directly related to nutrition, this outcome is likely the result of being active, outside, in nature, with others, and doing so regularly.

The nature of life is one of a roller coaster--highs and lows; twists, turns, and loops; slow climbs and fast drops; wildly unpredictable at times; different and extreme speeds; sometimes, we may literally go backwards. Unlike a literal roller coaster, whose track we can clearly see before we decide to take a seat and fasten in, the roller coaster of life is one that we ride in complete darkness. It’s only after we’ve already gone through the loop that we realize what just happened. Sometimes, we’re so disoriented that we never figure it out.

Some of these experiences, of course, are overwhelmingly stressful in the moment, but that stress lingers and can even grow.

There’s no one solution or panacea to extinguishing the pain and stress post-trauma. In the immediacy, we may need a pharmacological aid, but in my view, that’s band aid on a bullet wound--the symptom--and we need to address the root cause. Regular physical activity and exercise can give us a pre-event buffer, but it can also help manage this stress. Nutrition appears to have a similar role--giving us a protective shield beforehand while also helping us to manage and dissipate issues.

In my opinion, the most important factor in healing is time.

Implementing all these strategies over a long-enough period is our best shot at getting ourselves back to a baseline where we feel almost normal, even if it’s a new kind of normal.

The Flexitorium by Joseph Anthony

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