An Insurance Policy for a Healthy Mind
According to GMTV’s Mr Motivator, "Exercise makes you feel good".
Adele Collins looks why we need a healthy body for a healthy mind.
"One in ten people will suffer from mental illness at some point in their life," declares MIND, the mental health organisation. Mental illness is life threatening; 15 percent of those with depressive illnesses will eventually commit suicide - a sobering thought, especially if you know someone who has been, or is, depressed. But what can be done about it? Some doctors now believe that being physically fit is the key to a balanced mind.
The use of exercise to treat depression is long-standing theme, but until recently there was little evidence to support it. Dr Peter Salmon, Clinical Psychologist at Liverpool University has studied the effect of different types of exercise on mood for years. He believes that "Regular exercise plays an important part in mental health, and has perhaps all along been the key to beating depression." The implications of this are important because if exercise can prevent or cure this misery then it will provide relief for many.
Dr Salmon put patients suffering from mild depression on an exercise programme to see if this affected their mood. His experiments tested the effects of two different types of exercise: cardiovascular (aerobic), such as running, which strengthens the heart and lungs, and strengthening and toning (non-aerobic), like weight training and stretching. Both forms of exercise tested the popular belief that only cardiovascular exercise has mood benefits. The patients were divided into three groups and either did running, weight training, or went to psychology classes. The patients who carried out ten weeks of any exercise, three times a week, felt much happier and had fewer depressing thoughts. Yet the control group who went to psychology classes felt no improvement in their mood. The results show that in order to feel good, you do not have to go through a strenuous aerobic routine - a sigh of relief for those 50-70% of the population who avoid regular exercise. All that is required is 20 minutes of stretching and toning exercise three times a week to work up a good mood.
So what is it then that makes someone feel more positive after regular exercise? The answer is probably a psychological and chemical one. Depression is a vicious circle. A depressed mood increases depressive thoughts rather than cheerful thoughts. Exercise distracts people from these dark thoughts and helps them to retrieve positive thoughts. Dr Salmon explains: "Exercise provides a distraction from the self which enables a person to take notice of their environment and see their problems in a clearer light. Exercise is rewarding in that physical changes like bigger, shapelier and stronger muscles make you look good. Walking or running up stairs will no longer make you feel puffed-out as cardiovascular improvements have occurred. These bodily rewards will in turn bring more positive feedback as others admire your fitter body, or simply give you praise for overcoming the apathy most of us feel at the thought of ‘working out’."
Chemicals in the brain may be responsible for the stress-protecting benefits of exercise. Nerve cells in the brain secrete chemicals which zip from place to place like bicycle-couriers, dropping tiny electrical parcels as they arrive at their destinations, before being reabsorbed by the nerve cells. There are several different chemical messengers, but only serotonin, noradrenaline and perhaps dopamine are involved in depression. Scientists can measure the amount of each messenger between gaps in nerve cells, called synapses. People with depression often have less serotonin and noradrenaline in their brain than people who are not depressed. Similarly, these messengers decreased when exercise was performed just as a one-off. This could explain why people who do not do exercise regularly experience unpleasant effects. But if exercise is performed frequently, noradrenaline and serotonin levels recover and increase. These results suggested that regular exercise prevents depression by maintaining noradrenaline and serotonin levels, and cures depression by increasing messenger levels.
"Ask any jogger on the street why they are doing it," says Professor Lewis Wolpert at the University of London, "and they will tell you that it is not for health reasons, but because it makes then feel good and stops them from feeling low." GMTV’s Mr Motivator holds a similar view: "Exercise makes you feel good. It makes you love your life. It’s the best insurance policy in the world, as you reap the benefits while you’re still alive," he says. It all sounds convincing, but does it really work, and it is also for those who just feel down in the dumps sometimes, not depressed? Dr Salmon believes it is for everyone. He says: "Whilst pharmaceutical research is being carried out on antidepressant drugs for the future, regular exercise is an effective way to keep depression at bay today." So what is there to lose? After all, Mr M says: "Exercise should be fun, else don’t do it." It could be worth a try.
