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Chase Aiken

Professor Evans

Writing 2

28 January 2024

Proposal

This project offers me an opportunity not only to delve into a subject that piques my

interest but also to engage with it in a manner previously unexplored. The literature I'll be

translating is "Role of Physical Activity on Mental Health and Wellbeing: A Review" authored

by Aditya Mahindru, Pradeep Patil, and Varun Agrawal

(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9902068/). This article delves into the interplay

between physical activity, exercise, and everyday life stressors. It discusses various forms of

exercise such as yoga, weightlifting, and walking, elucidating their effects on mental health and

wellbeing through the examination of neurochemical processes in the brain. The target audience

encompasses individuals interested in personal fitness as well as professionals like personal

trainers seeking to deepen their comprehension.

Penned in 2023 by the aforementioned graduate students, this article remains current and

aims to enlighten its readers about the mental health benefits of physical activity.

The genre translation I will be attempting is lecture notes, typically comprising bulleted

or dashed lists, and may include images. These notes serve as a mnemonic aid for the writer and

their peers, aiding in future recollection or study sessions. I've chosen this translation endeavor

with the intention of honing my note-taking skills. Moreover, translating this specific piece will

serve as a valuable reference in the future. Through this project, I aim to develop proficiency in
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translating from an IMRaD article into a different genre while familiarizing myself with the

intricacies of that particular genre.

Translation into Lecture Notes

Physical Activity and Mental Health 3H:

Lecture 1/28 Notes:

Topics are bolded, Subtopics Italicized

ABSTRACT:

● Physical Activity Powerhouse:

○ Positively impacts both physical and mental health.

○ Inactive individuals face higher morbidity rates and healthcare costs.

● Therapeutic Exercise:

○ It is recommended for tackling health challenges and promoting mental

well-being.

○ Empirical studies highlight links to positive mental health traits.

● Body and Mind Harmony:

○ Nonclinical investigations reveal notable effects on self-concept and body image.

○ A comprehensive review delves into physiological and psychological

mechanisms.

● Hormonal Harmony:

○ Regular physical activity enhances the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis.

● Mental Health Marvel:

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○ Exercise's impact on depression and anxiety is particularly pronounced in clinical

populations.

○ Diverse hypotheses explain the intricate link between physical fitness and mental

well-being.

● Sleep, Savior, and Psychiatric Shield:

○ It aids in sleep improvement and alleviates various psychiatric disorders.

○ General exercise elevates mood and enhances overall quality of life.

● Yoga and Substance Cravings Management:

○ Exercise and yoga assist in managing substance cravings, especially for those

with limited therapy access.

● Psychotic Symptom Alleviation:

○ Increased physical activity shows promise in attenuating psychotic symptoms and

treating associated medical comorbidities.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND:

● Ancient Wellness Roots:

○ Physical activity traced to the Indus Valley in 3000 B.C. laid the foundation for

modern yoga.

● Vital Health Role:

○ Well-documented literature highlights the crucial role of physical activity in

healthy living and health disorder management.

● Holistic Fitness Boost:

○ Frequent exercise enhances strength, endurance, and overall fitness for a

functional lifestyle.
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● Disease Defender:

○ Exercise significantly reduces the incidence of chronic illnesses like

cardiovascular disease.

● Quality Living:

○ Regular exercise improves overall quality of life and relieves various health

conditions.

● Substance Support:

○ Exercise aids in addressing substance use disorders, contributing to efforts like

smoking reduction.

● Global Standards:

○ Worldwide guidelines recommend "150 minutes" of weekly exercise for

substantial health benefits.

● Disease Reduction Impact:

○ Following guidelines can lead to a 20%-30% reduction in many chronic diseases.

● Efficiency in Motion:

○ Even a small amount of exercise yields significant health benefits, emphasizing

efficiency.

REVIEW:

● Methodology:

■ Exploration Approach:

● Investigates physiological and psychological processes during

exercise for mental health enhancement, employing a

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multidisciplinary approach to understand the holistic effects of

physical activity.

■ Employed targeted search terms in PubMed, Google Scholar, and Medline,

focusing on recent references to ensure the inclusion of the most

up-to-date research findings and insights.

○ Impact on Mental Health:

■ Positive Findings:

● Growing evidence supports physical activity's positive impact on

mental health, indicating its potential as a non-pharmacological

intervention for improving well-being.

● Systematic evaluations reveal improved mental health outcomes

with both brief and extended exercise, highlighting the versatility

and effectiveness of physical activity interventions.

■ Psychological Effects:

● Studies consistently highlight enhanced mood, self-esteem, and

reduced stress tendencies through exercise, underscoring its role in

promoting psychological well-being.

● Regular exercise correlates with an improved frame of mind,

offering psychological benefits that extend beyond physical fitness.

○ Neurochemical Boost:

■ Physical activity triggers the production of opioids and endocannabinoids,

which are linked to pleasure and reduced pain sensitivity, providing a

natural mechanism for mood enhancement and stress relief.

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○ Cognitive Benefits:

■ Exercise positively influences attention, focus, memory, cognition,

language fluency, and decision-making for up to two hours post-exercise,

demonstrating its immediate and long-term cognitive benefits.

○ HPA Axis Optimization:

■ Regular physical activity improves the functioning of the

hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, regulating cortisol secretion

and restoring hormonal balance, which plays a key role in stress response

and overall mental health.

● Exercise and Mental Wellness:

■ Immunomodulatory Wonders:

● Exercise optimizes catecholamine levels, lowers cortisol, and

reduces inflammation, promoting mental well-being.

■ Global Insights:
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● Research globally links exercise to improvements in both mental

and physical health, emphasizing its universal benefits.

● Yoga for Mental Health:

■ Ancient Wisdom in Science:

● Yoga, an ancient practice, has been studied for its therapeutic

benefits, particularly in the West, demonstrating its relevance in

modern mental health care.

■ Mind-Body Harmony:

● Yoga's mind-body interventions show promise for addressing

neurosis spectrum mental health issues, offering holistic

approaches to wellness.

■ Physiological Boost:

● Yoga activates neuromuscular systems, stimulates the limbic

system, and reduces sympathetic tone, contributing to improved

mental well-being.

● Exercise and Schizophrenia:

■ Complex Challenge:

● Schizophrenia treatment challenges are met with promise through

increased physical activity, highlighting exercise as a

complementary approach in managing the condition.

■ Aid for Symptoms:

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● Exercise shows potential in alleviating psychotic symptoms and

treating comorbidities in schizophrenia, offering holistic support

for individuals with the disorder.

● Exercise Against Alcohol Dependence:

■ Combating Substance Abuse:

● Exercise effectively supplements treatment for alcohol use

disorder, mitigating health consequences and aiding in recovery.

■ Cravings Management:

● Exercise and yoga help manage substance cravings, providing a

positive replacement for substance use and supporting long-term

sobriety.

● Physical Activity and Sleep Quality:

■ Crucial Sleep Benefits:

● Regular exercise positively impacts both the quantity and quality

of sleep, contributing to overall well-being and mental health.

■ Age-Related Positives:

● Exercise contributes to better sleep quality, which is particularly

beneficial with age, addressing age-related sleep issues and

promoting healthy aging.

● Exercise in Depressive and Anxiety Disorders:

■ Global Mental Health Challenge:

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● Exercise offers potential relief for depression, addressing a

significant global burden of mental illness and providing accessible

treatment options.

■ Endorphin Connection:

● Exercise triggers endorphin release, showing promise in alleviating

depressive symptoms similar to traditional antidepressants,

highlighting its role as a natural mood enhancer.

● Endorphin Elevation:

○ Physical activity triggers the "endorphin hypothesis," releasing natural opioids,

reducing pain, and uplifting mood. This process, often termed the "runner's high,"

involves the release of endorphins, neurotransmitters that bind to opioid receptors

in the brain. This not only alleviates discomfort but also contributes to a sense of

euphoria and well-being, making exercise beneficial for mental health.

● Ageless Mood Boost:

○ Exercise enhances mood and diminishes depressive symptoms across all age

groups. Regardless of age, regular physical activity is linked to improvements in

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mood regulation, self-esteem, and overall psychological well-being. This

highlights its universal appeal and therapeutic potential for mental health.

● Global Validation:

○ Worldwide research confirms exercise as an effective remedy for depression.

Studies across diverse populations consistently demonstrate its antidepressant

effects, underscoring its accessibility and evidence-based nature in combating

depression on a global scale.

● Yoga's Serenity Impact:

○ Most yoga forms positively influence depression and overall well-being through

breathing and self-awareness practices. Yoga offers a holistic approach to mental

health by fostering stress reduction, emotional resilience, and self-awareness,

complementing traditional interventions for depression.

● Exercise for Unipolar Depression:

○ Meta-analysis shows exercise's notable impact on unipolar depression,

comparable to standard treatments. This highlights exercise as a valuable first-line

or adjunctive treatment for depression, emphasizing its accessibility and

effectiveness in improving mental health outcomes.

● Anxiety Adjunct:

○ Exercise serves as a beneficial adjuvant treatment for anxiety disorders, though

less potent than medications. Regular physical activity can provide significant

relief from anxiety symptoms over time, complementing existing treatments and

improving overall well-being.

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CONCLUSIONS:

● Mental Wellness:

○ Exercise positively impacts mental health, particularly in schizophrenia, by

promoting neurochemical balance and psychological well-being. Regular physical

activity has been shown to reduce symptoms of schizophrenia, such as

hallucinations and delusions, while also improving overall mood and cognitive

function.

● Yoga Synergy:

○ Yoga enhances outcomes when paired with exercise for schizophrenia, offering

holistic benefits that encompass physical, mental, and emotional aspects of health.

The combination of yoga and exercise not only improves physical fitness but also

cultivates mindfulness and relaxation, which are crucial for managing symptoms

of schizophrenia and enhancing overall quality of life.

● Sleep Quality Boost:

○ Regular activity significantly improves sleep quality, fostering restorative rest and

enhancing overall cognitive function and emotional resilience. Engaging in

physical exercise helps regulate the body's internal clock, promotes deeper and

more restful sleep, and reduces the likelihood of sleep disturbances, such as

insomnia or sleep apnea.

● Alcohol Recovery Support:

○ Exercise, alongside medical therapy, aids alcohol dependence by reducing

cravings, mitigating withdrawal symptoms, and promoting a sense of

empowerment and self-efficacy in recovery efforts. Physical activity provides a

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healthy outlet for stress relief, helps individuals cope with triggers and cravings,

and enhances overall well-being during the recovery process.

● Depressive and Anxiety Relief:

○ Physical exercise proves effective in alleviating depression and anxiety,

modulating neurotransmitter levels and promoting the release of endorphins, thus

enhancing mood regulation and stress resilience. Incorporating regular exercise

into treatment plans can complement traditional therapies, such as medication and

psychotherapy, and offer additional benefits for individuals struggling with

depression and anxiety disorders.

● Clinical Integration Priority:

○ Integrating exercise benefits into clinical practice is vital, emphasizing structured

therapy and professional training to optimize treatment outcomes and promote

long-term well-being for individuals with mental health disorders. Healthcare

providers should prioritize incorporating physical activity interventions into

treatment plans, providing education and resources to support patients in adopting

and maintaining healthy lifestyle habits.

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Genre Translation Reflection (IMRaD to Lecture Notes)

This first writing project was a challenge. There were a lot of ups and downs that I went

through during this project, from finding the right IMRaD article to doing the translation and

even choosing what genre I wanted to translate to. But, in the end, I successfully translated the

IMRaD article I found into lecture notes. I thought translating to messages would be a breeze,

but it wasn't. There were many intricacies I had to follow, such as how many notes I decided to

"take," what type of information from the article I would include, and what kind of format I

wanted to use. When finished, the notes took up a lot of space, almost eight pages. Still, I believe

that having in-depth notes is essential for studying and remembering ideas in the future, whether

you're studying for a test or just staying informed on a topic. The new audience that my lecture

notes addressed was myself and anyone "studying" the subject I chose, which was the effect of

physical activity on mental health. So, anyone looking to study that topic could use the lecture

notes I created from the IMRaD article. The audience changed only slightly from the IMRaD

article. Because the article was a study done on people and published by post-grad students, their

audience was either students studying anything about the topic or their colleagues who were also

interested in the case. Overall, the translation was made more accessible because of the only

slight change in audience.

I chose the genre of lecture notes because I want to become better at taking notes and

following a specific structure when taking notes. The process went well; it was a fun exercise,

and I learned a lot. This translation will improve my note-taking skills in the future. My notes

have always been all over the place. If I could translate an entire academic article into notes, this

would make taking informative notes easier. When reading Kerry Dirks' Navigating Genres, I

was intrigued by the example of the country song and the "bending" of genres. The fact that
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country songs have certain aspects that make them considered a "country song" really stuck with

me. Also, all genres have parts characteristic of that particular genre. Still, those characteristics

can be bent slightly while staying in the same genre. This stuck with me; while I didn't choose to

bend how the lecture notes were created, I still followed along with aspects of lecture notes.

Those included a bulleted list with separate indents for smaller and larger ideas, images or

drawings to help further understanding, bolded topics to make it easy to find certain things, and

short, concise sentences that form a bigger picture. My lecture notes would hit my intended

audience because that audience was me. I noted how I would learn and retain information the

best using the characteristics above.

Integrating information from the IMRaD article into my lecture notes was relatively easy.

I removed any fluff the report provided and broke it down into main ideas. The lecture notes are

still long, but that is because the IMRaD article was even longer. I kept most of the necessary

information, pictures, and diagrams because they provided extra insight in notes. I did this

because messages need to include all relevant essential details, such as main ideas and examples,

to be helpful with studying. I left out a lot of the fluff that was added and anything that was

repeated. I didn't have to add anything from the outside, either. This was because the IMRaD

article was already super in-depth. It was just chipping down the paper and rebuilding it into a

bulleted list. When reading Lisa Bickmore's Genre in the Wild, what stood out to me was that

"genre does not stand alone." This meant that even though I was making something as simple as

lecture notes, there was more to it. Those notes work within a system. For instance, I created

many messages, such as Cornell notes or a simple bulleted list. But there is also an overarching

genre, notes in general. So, I took ideas from different types of messages to create my lecture

notes, which worked well.

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Some of the significant challenges I faced in this genre of translation included what

information to include, the translation length, and just finding the article to translate. While

reading Kara Taczak's Reflection is Critical for Writers' Development, I was introduced to the

idea that "Reflection allows writers to recall, reframe, and relocate knowledge and practices;

therefore, it must be worked at to be most effectively learned and practice" (79). This helped me

through the process of translation. While looking for the article I wanted to translate, I reviewed

about 4-5 pieces that needed to be corrected. I decided they weren't right by reflecting on them.

After reading, I would recall what I learned, and I chose the best article because I recalled the

most from it. I overcame the other challenges of what to include in the notes and the length of the

letters by looking at my past lecture notes along with the directives of some of my friends. I then

used what I learned from that to craft my genre translation.

The concerns I kept in mind while translating to my new genre were the change in

audience, the difference in structure, and the change in content. While the shift in audience was

minimal, I still had to change some of the wording due to the original audience being post-grad

and me not being post-grad. I had to make things simpler and easier to understand without

changing the meaning. While translating, I had to remember the structure of the notes. This was

a significant change from the IMRaD article. I still used the same topics, but I changed

everything else. I took out the fluff, only took the vital information, and turned that into a

bulleted list that was easy to understand. Content-wise, I kept things mostly the same but refined

them and didn't change any important main ideas. As I said, I also kept the pictures and

diagrams. I kept the photographs and charts because of McClouds, Writing with Pictures. I didn't

realize so much information could be relayed through a simple diagram or picture, which

surprised me, and McCloud reinforced that. It just fit with my new genre, so I kept the pictures.
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The skills I used to complete my translation included reflection on the IMRaD article, my writing

and deduction skills, which helped in choosing and manipulating the information from the

article, and recognition skills/ By recognizing what it meant to be lecture notes; I was able to

craft my own from the paper. Overall, this was a very enlightening project. I didn't know how it

would be to switch genres, but I was thoroughly surprised by how it went.

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Works Cited

Bickmore, Lisa. “GENRE in the WILD: Understanding Genre within Rhetorical (Eco)Systems.”

Pressbooks.pub, 1 Aug. 2016, pressbooks.pub/openenglishatslcc/chapter/genre-in-the-

wild-understanding-genre-within-rhetorical-ecosystems/.

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1.

Mahindru, A., Patil, P., & Agrawal, V. (n.d.). Role of Physical Activity on Mental Health and

Well-Being: A Review. PubMed Central (PMC).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9902068/

McCloud.“Writing With Pictures Clarity, Persuasion and Intensity.” PDF Download

Taczak, Kara. “Reflection is Critical for Writers’ Development.” PDF Download