11 July 2025

Bringing movement into mental health care: A new approach at Community Living Well

We’ve known for years that being physically active can improve our mental health. Regular physical exercise can boost our mood, reduce and protect against symptoms of anxiety and depression, enhance cognitive function, and help manage stress.

NICE recognizes physical activity as a natural mood booster and suggests that it can be particularly helpful for individuals experiencing mild to moderate depression - It's not about intense workouts – any type of exercise that the individual enjoys and can sustain is recommended. This could be brisk walking, cycling, or even gardening.

Beyond its antidepressant effects, exercise offers a range of physical and mental health benefits. It can improve cardiovascular health, sleep quality, and overall physical fitness, which can contribute to a better sense of well-being. Exercise is not meant to replace standard treatments but can be a valuable addition. Combining exercise with antidepressants or CBT can enhance treatment outcomes, particularly for individuals with moderate to severe depression.

Despite evidence supporting its effectiveness in managing conditions like anxiety and depression, and a growing awareness among practitioners and service users, structured physical activity isn't routinely integrated into NHS Talking Therapies (formerly IAPT) or other mental health services.

This gap between what we know and what we do is often called the implementation gap.

To explore how physical activity might be used more directly in mental health care, CNWL’s Community Living Well (CLW) service are trialling something new.

As part of their Talking Therapies programme, service users were offered support to become physically more active – by engaging with 1 to 1 exercise sessions and/or related tailored signposting.

These sessions emphasized practical, real-world tasks that could be continued outside of therapy to promote lasting positive change. Sessions are delivered in a high-quality on-site gym, funded by CNWL Health Charity, LiveMore CIC and Sport England.

A partnership between CLW and UCL - University College of London masters research project evaluated the impact of the service pilot in 2024/25. The research looked at related improvements in mental health outcomes, patient’s experiences and perceptions, acceptability, barriers and facilitators to engagement, etc.

Initial results were encouraging - qualitative findings demonstrated that PA intervention was valuable to service users. Feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive. They spoke about the sense of progress, motivation and control the sessions provided, many felt it helped them look beyond their mental health problem and take steps toward recovery in a practical way.

Some participants shared:


“(…) it has given me the confidence to continue & implement it into my everyday routine. For someone like me who doesn’t like exercise, I have really enjoyed the sessions”

“(…) a great help and the program you’re doing really motivated me to continue helping myself with physical activity.”

People valued the one-to-one support, the expertise of the instructor, and the fact that activities were tailored to their needs. Suggestions for improvement included extended access and the option to join group sessions for more social interaction.

This early work shows that adding physical activity to Talking Therapies is not only possible, but welcomed by those who use the service – with further research involving a larger study population being strongly advised.

The Talking Therapies Gym is also an opportunity to collaborate with other mental health teams, academic institutions, health funders and partner businesses aligned to our vision of improving mental health with physical activity.

 

Resources and reading

 

Interested in support? You can self-refer to our Talking Therapies services here Talking Therapies | Community Living Well and here CNWL NHS Talking Therapies