While many forms of exercise boost mood, short sprint training may offer added advantages when it comes to depression.

Just a few five-second sprints, with plenty of rest in between, can take only six to 10 minutes and have been shown to reduce depression symptoms in as little as two weeks.

How Short Sprint Training Eases Depression

After screening 415 collegiate athletes and non-athletes for depression, Tamara Hew-Butler, an exercise physiologist and sport scientist, found that depression rates were much lower among athletes at 9.8 percent compared with non-athletes at 32.9 percent.

“We hypothesized that this is because of the clear antidepressant effects associated with physical activity,” Hew-Butler told The Epoch Times.

Exercise stimulates serotonin, norepinephrine, and brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF)—a brain protein linked to mood—all of which play a crucial role in the acute antidepressant effects of exercise, Hew-Butler said.

While these benefits occur across various forms of exercise, sprint interval training brings an added benefit: lactate production.

After high-intensity exercise, lactate is released from the muscle and enters the blood-brain barrier, triggering the release of more BDNF, which benefits people with depression, and often have lower BDNF levels.

Depression affects the nervous system, hormones, energy production, as well as brain chemistry, Jaz Robbins, a licensed psychologist and president of the Los Angeles Psychological Association, told The Epoch Times. “Interestingly, short sprint training positively influences each of these areas simultaneously,” Robbins added.

She referred to psychiatrist John Ratey’s book, “Spark,” when explaining how different types of exercise affect mental health.

“In extremely general terms, people who struggle with anxiety benefit from slow-paced exercise like walking, swimming, yoga, stretching, and low-incline hiking,” Robbins said. “Folks who struggle with depressive symptoms benefit from more fast-paced activities like short sprint training, running, circuit training, hip-hop dancing, kick-boxing, and high-incline hiking.”

Slow, steady movement tends to calm an overactive nervous system, which is common in anxiety, while faster, more intense exercise can help wake up underactive brain and nervous system pathways often seen in depression.

Lactate Is Not a Waste Product

Because sprint interval training produces large spikes in lactate, researchers are paying closer attention to what it is actually doing in the brain. Even though lactate is often thought of as a waste product, it is an important fuel source for the brain. It supports neuron function and plays a role in memory and learning.

During short, intense bursts of exercise, the body produces lactate as a by-product of glycolysis, the process that breaks down glucose for quick energy. Animal studies have shown that lactate has antidepressant-like effects and improves resilience to stress through several signaling pathways.

Studies in humans have shown that lactate further modulates how brain cells respond to serotonin by altering proteins linked to serotonin receptors. In addition, it appears to dampen the activity of certain molecular pathways that are also targeted by antidepressant medications such as lithium.

How the Body Makes Lactate

When you push your body through intense exercise such as sprinting or heavy lifting, your muscles require energy faster than your heart and lungs can deliver oxygen. To bridge this gap, your cells switch from their usual oxygen-based energy pathway to a high-speed “backup” system that rapidly breaks down glucose, producing lactate as a byproduct.

While your body prefers to burn fat and stored carbohydrates slowly and efficiently during light activity, these “explosive” efforts require a power output that only the faster, oxygen-free process can provide. As the intensity climbs, lactate builds up in your bloodstream more quickly than you can clear it, leading to the familiar “burning” sensation in your muscles that signals you have reached your physical limit.

Explosive exercises such as plyometrics, hill sprints, and short sprint drills also boost lactate production by teaching your nervous system to activate more muscle fibers at once. The more fibers that switch on during powerful movements, the more glucose your muscles use—and the more lactate they produce to support high-output efforts.

Along with hard training and heavy lifting, eating enough carbohydrates can increase lactate production. Lactate is made when your body breaks down glucose for fast energy. When your muscles have plenty of stored carbs, they can run this process at full speed during intense exercise. Training on very low carbohydrates shifts the body toward slower fat-based energy and can limit how much power—and lactate—you can produce.

When Motivation Is the Hardest Part

Sprint interval training may sound simple on paper. However, for many people living with depression, getting started is the hardest part.

There are many reasons why people don’t turn to lifestyle changes to support their mental health. Some don’t fully understand how daily habits affect mood and energy. Others struggle with low motivation, shame, guilt, or self-judgment that make change feel overwhelming. For people with a history of trauma, progress may be limited until those experiences are properly processed, Robbins said.

Depression itself also makes movement harder. Depression is closely linked to fatigue—the kind that makes staying in bed feel more realistic than going for a walk—which can make physical activity difficult to initiate, Hew-Butler said.

“Currently, we encourage people to participate in activities they enjoy and to join a group or invite a friend as ways to make exercise easier to stick with,” Hew-Butler said. “In my opinion, most people view exercise as painful, something they ‘have’ to do rather than something they ‘want’ to do,” she added.

That mindset makes long-term consistency difficult. Overcoming these barriers often starts with small, manageable steps. Even a few minutes of movement each day—a short walk or gentle stretches—can build momentum. Exercise feels less like a chore when it includes something enjoyable, such as music, a podcast, or an audiobook. Finally, integrating movement into daily routines, such as walking after morning coffee or stretching before bedtime, helps make it a regular part of everyday life.

In her exercise intervention studies, Hew-Butler has observed that once people commit to regular physical activity for a few months and begin to experience benefits, it becomes easier to maintain exercise as part of daily life.