Physical activity

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To date there is no evidence about the use of exercise for psychotic disorders other than schizophrenia, or co-occurring psychosis and AOD use disorder, though results of a meta-review suggest physical activity is a promising adjunctive treatment for people with either schizophrenia or AOD use disorders [990]. Research conducted among people with single disorder schizophrenia has found that physical exercise may be useful in terms of improving cognitive functioning (e.g., short-term memory), promoting healthy lifestyles, managing medication side-effects [991–996], as well as reducing symptoms of psychosis [997–999]. Studies that have examined the efficacy of exercise interventions among people with schizophrenia have included a range of physical activities, including basketball [1000], aerobic exercise [992, 998, 1001], cycling [997], and yoga [995, 1002, 1003]. Based on the evidence to date, aerobic activity has the most support [992, 994, 998, 1004–1009], but there is also some support for resistance training as an adjunct to other exercise [996, 1001, 1010, 1011]. In particular, endurance programs of at least 12-weeks, 3 sessions per week, of general aerobic endurance training lasting at least 30 minutes in duration are recommended [1012].

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