Gentle Exercise May be More Effective Than Medications at Managing Chronic Pain

An umbrella review of 158 systematic reviews covering 2,700 randomized controlled trials with nearly 250,000 participants found that exercise reduces both acute and chronic pain by 1.1 points on a 1-to-10 scale—60% better than pain relief from common medications—with lower-intensity, shorter-duration programs showing the greatest benefit across neurological, inflammatory, musculoskeletal, and cancer-related pain.