Exercise and Depression

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GOAL: Weekly blogging.
PREFERRED GOAL: 3 blogs a week.
Present progress: 1 blog a week.

I am at Disney with my family blogging briefly to you.

Mental Health and Exercise: The Inexpensive Therapy for Depression.

Note: I am creating a multi-media format to get information directly to you about mental health. See this weeks www.fitfamilies.tv online video segment on “Exercise and Depression.” In this blog I will review the study which was the basis for that the video segment on the impact of exercise on depression.

Exercising and happiness or exercise and well-being have been found to be associated with each other in the last two decades according to psychologists Georgia Stathopoulou, Mark Powers, Angela C.Berry, Jasper Smits, and Michel Otto. These psychologists published a qualitative and quantitive review in 2006 in the journal Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice (Vol. 13(2), May, 179-193).

Psychologists prescribing exercise? That reminds me of my son saying “Why are you a beachbody coach when you are a psychologist?” (See www.beachbodycoach.com/drshinaver). The answer is simple: exercise reduces symptoms of depression as well as a host of other mental health problems.

To me what is most notable about this fact is just the reality that it is psychologists who have studied this link and come to the conclusion that exercise would benefit people with depressed feelings. Are these psychologists working themselves out of a job? No, they are behaving like ethical psychologists in that they are studying what works and exercise works.

Additionally these researches report in the last few years exercise has been used with “clinical populations” (those people diagnosed with a mental health disorder. They state that there is “evidence of substantial benefit.” Those are quite strong words for psychologists. We are very careful with our words. Overstatement by a psychologist is akin to a lack of intellectual sophistication, a form of social death.

These authors reviewed 11 treatment outcome studies with people specifically diagnosed with depression in which exercise was used as a treatment form compared to controls. They found a large “effect size.” In English: exercising reduces depression when compared to doing nothing.

Stathopoulou et al. (2006) suggest that psychologists encourage patients to incorporate exercise into their treatments. I do. I encourage you to work out!

This is a primary reason I am a beachbody coach.Exercising helps me to reduce all mental health symptoms and I know it will do the same for you.

Exercising is mental health hygiene.
In a while I will do my beach body workout with my son. Check out my site with beachbodycoach.com/drshinaver. I will continue to encourage clients to exercise and I enjoy being a beachbody coach because in this difficult economy it allows people to live a healthy lifestyle and earn a supplemental income and in some cases replace the income of a full time job. I find that the accountability of being a beachbody coach further motivates me to keep working out! So, check out www.beachbodycoach.com/drshinaver.

Reference:

Exercise Interventions for Mental Health: A Quantitative and Qualitative Review.
Stathopoulou, Georgia; Powers, Mark B.; Berry, Angela C.; Smits, Jasper A. J.; Otto, Michael W.
Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice. Vol 13(2), May 2006, 179-193.

Charles Shinaver, PhD

www.charlesshinaver.com
www.fitfamilies.tv
www.ourfitfamily.ning.com

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