The Efficacy of Physical Activity
A small study (”Efficacy of physical activity in the adjunctive treatment of major depressive disorders“) has found that depressed women who exercised had significant improvements in their symptoms over the next 8 months. Those who didn’t exercise showed only marginal improvements.
Before the study, all of the women had tried taking antidepressant medication for at least 2 months but had failed to improve.
The study included 30 women ages 40 to 60 who’d been diagnosed with major depression. The researchers randomly assigned the women to either stick with antidepressants alone or to start an exercise program. All of the patients continued to take their medication.
The exercisers worked out as a group twice a week for one hour, using cardio-fitness machines. At the beginning of the study and 8 months later, women in both groups completed standard measures used to assess depression severity.
Women in the exercise group showed marked improvements in their depression symptoms, while those on medication alone made only modest gains.
Physical activity seems to affect some key nervous system chemicals — norepinephrine and serotonin — that are targets of antidepressant drugs, as well as brain neurotrophins, which help protect nerve cells from injury and transmit signals in brain regions related to mood.
“Exercise may help with hard-to-treat depression,” Scientific American