Benefits to Mental Wellbeing from Making Positive Changes in Health-Related Behaviours: An Ultra-Rapid Review

BACKGROUND AND AIMS. Changes in health-related behaviours that have a longer-term impact on physical health have also been found in many studies to lead to relatively rapid improvements in mental wellbeing. This ultra-rapid review aimed to draw together evidence from reviews and relevant individual studies to characterise this phenomenon in a way that could inform messaging aimed at motivating people to make positive changes in these behaviours. It focused on reducing alcohol consumption from high-risk levels, stopping cigarette smoking, eating a healthier diet, and moving from low to at least moderate levels of physical activity. METHODS. An ‘ultra-rapid review’ methodology was developed to summarise a body of literature in which there already exist reviews and individual studies pointing to a broadly consistent conclusion. The methodology involved 1) a manual search using Google Scholar and PubMed using a prespecified search expression, accompanied by 2) a structured research question as a prompt to a research-specific generative AI tool (elicit.com), then 3) manually synthesising the findings and identifying areas of inconsistency and nuance. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS. Reducing alcohol consumption from high-risk levels, stopping cigarette smoking, moving from an unhealthy to a healthy diet, and from a low to at least moderate level of physical activity have been found to result in relatively rapid overall increases in mental wellbeing that persist over time. Improvements can be detected as early as a few weeks after making the changes. The conclusions derive from experimental as well as observational studies, increasing confidence in the associations being causal.