Depression Treatment & Information

We all know that exercise has numerous benefits on the physical body, but there is now substantial evidence to prove that exercise is also a great tonic for balancing a person’s mental and emotional well-being. Depression affects nearly 19 million adults each year. It is a serious and life-shattering mental illness that is often misunderstood, misdiagnosed and ridiculed. When you are depressed, you cannot simply ’shake off the blues’ - this is a debilitating disease which makes you feel isolated and fatigued, full of self-doubt and eternal hopelessness.

Counseling and anti-depressant medication are the principal forms of treatment, but these can become addictive and do little to boost a sufferer’s self-esteem. Furthermore, the number of clinically depressed adults is growing year by year, so scientists have spent years researching new ways to treat and combat the illness.

One on-going review of studies, stretching as far back to 1981, show that those who regularly partake in exercise are less likely to develop clinical depression. In addition, regular physical activity is correlated with the improvement in clinical depression and anxiety, and also mild to moderate depressive symptoms such as insomnia, and resilience under stress.

A study published in 2005 found that walking fast for 35 minutes a day five times a week, or 60 minutes three times a week, had a significant influence on mild to moderate depression symptoms. A follow-up study also found that the beneficial effects of exercise lasted longer than those of antidepressant medication. In addition, people who exercised regularly after completing the study were less likely to relapse into depression. Smaller amounts of activity, as little as 10 to 15 minutes at a time, also proved to lift mood in the short term. However, it is not how much a person exercises, how intensely or how long. What mattered was only how long the exercise program lasted - at least two months.

To summarise, regular exercise is not only beneficial in relieving depressive symptoms, but also prevents relapses of and the onset of depression.

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