I recently finished reading the book Physical Activity and Mental Health, by Angela Clow and Sarah Edmunds. It’s a heavily academic book (not mainstream) that looks at and summarizes all the available research on the connections between physical activity and mental health. I only read the parts that were interesting to me (what’s interesting to me is the parts relevant to my clients, like anxiety, depression and Alzheimer). I skipped the parts that were not interesting to me, like the sections on schizophrenia, eating disorders, etc. Since my company doesn’t really service people with those conditions, I didn’t read that.

Original source: here.

So without further ado, here are some interesting tidbits from the book:

  • You know how “they” say that you can’t make new brain cells once you’re an adult? It’s true for the most part, but the hippocampus is one part of the brain where that’s just not true. That’s the part of the brain responsible for memory
  • There are 4 factors that determine physical self-worth:
    • Sport competence
    • Body attractiveness
    • Physical strength
    • Physical conditioning
    • Of all of these, body attractiveness has the largest impact on physical self-worth
    • In one study, fifty 13 and 14 year old British girls participated in an aerobic dance class. Even though their bodies didn’t change, their own perception of physical attractiveness improved. Cool.
  • People who have a chronic condition (like diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, etc.) plus depression have a worse quality of life than people who have 2 chronic conditions, but no depression.
    • Quality of life is measured using questionnaires
  • Diabetics are twice as likely to experience depression as people who don’t have diabetes.
  • Inactive diabetics are 72-75% more likely to experience depression compared to active diabetics (those who exercise).
  • There is a linear relationship between symptoms of depression and duration of physical activity. The more physical activity you do, the less depression you feel, up until 180 minutes per week. There doesn’t seem to be much additional benefit to exercising more than 180 minutes per week (at least when it comes to depression).
  • One study looked at 126 people who had depression, and medications failed to work. They divided these people into 2 groups. Group 1 ran at a speed of 6.4 km/h for 210 minutes per week. 28.3% of the people in this group experienced complete remission of their depression, even when medications didn’t work!!!!! (the extra exclamation marks are for emphasis. They emphasize my excitement J) Group 2 walked at a speed of 4.8 km/h for 75 minutes per week. 15.5% of this group experienced remission of their depression. Still not bad.
  • It appears that the best form of exercise for the treatment (not prevention) of depression is aerobic exercise, at an intensity of 60-80% of maximal heart rate, 3 times per week for 30 minutes.
    • This is superior to both stretching and strength training
  • Personally, I think that listening to Modern Talking 6 times per week is an excellent treatment for depression. This came from a study out of the University of Igor’s Wishful Thinking in 2015. To help you with your depression, here’s some Modern Talking.
  • The best form of exercise for the treatment of anxiety is a combination of endurance training (cardio) and strength training.
  • Compared to psychotherapy, exercise is more effective for anxiety.
  • Compared to medications, exercise is just a hair less effective. However, it comes without side effects.
    • Additionally, anti-anxiety drugs take a few weeks to work. Exercise works in a matter of minutes to hours.
  • The perception of people with depression on whether they thought exercise would be effective was dependent on whether their problem was situational or biochemical.
    • Those who believed their depression was biochemical tended to favour more intense aerobic exercise.
    • Those who believed their depression was situational (caused by certain events in their life) tended to favour less intense aerobic exercise.
  • One epidemiological study found that inactivity in midlife is associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s Disease by 250%.
  • In one study of 120 older adults, they found that aerobic exercise increases the volume of the hippocampus by 2%. The hippocampus is the part of the brain responsible for memory.
    • An increase of this by 2% is equivalent to turning back the clock 1-2 years

 

It is a bit of a catch-22, however. If you have depression, you don’t feel like exercising. And you don’t exercise, so it perpetuates the depression. One of the best ways to kind of “force yourself” to exercise is to be accountable to someone. Ideally that someone can also help you set up a proper exercise program, and help you with the nutrition and supplementation side of things as well. Our trainers can do that, and if you’d like to see whether you qualify, you can fill out this form.