Skiers had a nearly 60% lower risk of getting diagnosed with anxiety disorders compared to non-skiers, according to a study published Friday in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.

However, the current study's authors wrote, previous research has been inconclusive about the impact of exercise amount or intensity or physical fitness level on the risk of developing anxiety disorders, and how these relationships might differ among men and women.

When compared to non-skiers, skiers had an approximately 60% lower risk of getting diagnosed with anxiety disorders, study author Martina Svensson said, regardless of education level, age and sex.

Differences between women and men skiers

How long skiers had taken to finish the race -- which the authors used as a measure for physical performance -- didn't impact skiing men's risk of anxiety disorders.

Among female skiers, however, "physically high-performing women had almost a doubled risk of developing anxiety compared to lower-performing women," Svensson, an associate researcher in the Experimental Neuroinflammation Laboratory at Lund University in Sweden, said via email.

Despite these findings among fast women skiers, "the total risk of getting anxiety among these high-performing women was still lower compared to the more physically inactive women in the general population," Svensson said.

Additionally, according to the study, these women's higher physical performance could indicate anxiety was already there but undiagnosed.

Why skiers had lower anxiety risk

The study adds to previous research about how a physically active lifestyle could affect the development of anxiety disorders, the authors wrote -- including a 2017 study which found low levels of cardiovascular fitness were linked with a higher risk of getting diagnosed with anxiety disorders in their study of over 1 million Swedish men followed for up to 42 years.