Sprinting vs. Relaxation: New 2026 Study Reveals Best Exercise For Panic Attack Prevention

Multiple studies have found that exercise may help to alleviate symptoms of anxiety.

And a new paper, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, found that a 12-week brief intermittent exercise (BIE) program “was feasible and more effective” than relaxation training in reducing panic symptom severity and panic attack frequency, with effects sustained for at least 24 weeks among participants.

In this research, sprinting (the BIE in question) was used as a kind of exposure therapy known as interoceptive exposure.

Exposure therapy involves confronting people with things they’re worried about in a controlled, professional-guided session.

Interoceptive exposure, originally used as a treatment for panic disorder in cognitive-behavioural treatment (CBT), involves repeated exposure to uncomfortable physical sensations in a safe environment “for the purposes of reducing negative emotion (typically anxiety) associated with the sensations”.

It can involve holding your breath, spinning in a chair while shaking your head, or running on the spot. This study used sprinting intervals.

The research involved 72 adults with panic disorders. They were split into two groups and given either relaxation training, which involved progressive muscular relaxation, or BIE for 12 weeks.

In this case, BIE took the form of walking interspersed with 30-second sprints.

Researchers looked at the Panic Agoraphobia Scale (PAS) of participants at six, 12, and 24 weeks during and after the program. They also took into account how many panic attacks the people in the study had experienced in those periods.

Though both the relaxation and BIE groups improved over time, the BIE group saw lower scores on average by the end of the tracking period.

They had fewer panic attacks and lower PAS scores. This stayed true even at the 24-week mark, 12 weeks after the programs ended, when both scores for each group had begun to pick up again.

That’s not to say that sprinting should be used during a panic attack; interoceptive exposure, which is supervised by a professional, is designed to slowly build a tolerance to uncomfortable sensations people may feel during periods of anxiety over time.

As study author Richard William Muotri explained: “I think the main lesson is that you don’t have to be afraid of your own body.

“Many people try to just relax when they feel panic, but this study shows that facing the physical feelings through exercise is actually a more powerful way to feel better.”