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as she walked on that cold day, the metaphor became fact by pfv.Creative Commons
 
Is Exercise the Best Drug for Depression?
Jed Diamond, Ph.D. has been a health-care professional for the last 45years. He is the author of 9 books, including
Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, Male Menopause,The Irritable Male Syndrome,
and
 Mr. Mean: Saving Your Relationship from the Irritable Male Syndrome 
.He offers counseling to men, women, and couples in his office inCalifornia or by phone with people throughout the U.S. and around theworld. To receive a Free E-book on Men’s Health and a freesubscription to Jed’s e-newsletter go towww.MenAlive.com. If youenjoy my articles, please subscribe. I write to everyone who joins myScribd team.
I love to walk. I live in the country and find walking the hills is relaxing andpeaceful. But I also like to walk in town. I find a whole new world openswhen I do the 10,000 step walk (5 miles) through Willits. I usually run into just the right people I’ve been wanting to talk with. I don’t need to schedulean appointment or drive to their office. The wisdom of the universe guidesour encounter.As a mental health professional, I often use walking therapeutically. I find thatmen and boys do much better when we walk and talk than when we sitlooking at each other in an office. Maybe it has something to do with our hunter/gatherer roots. For men the only time that someone was lookingintently at them was when they were just about to be eaten by a stalkingtiger.Men, in particular, enjoy “side-to-side” communication rather than “face-to-face” communication. If you want to talk to a guy, go for a walk, don’t sit himdown for a “honey, we need to talk moment.”But walking doesn’t just make us feel better. New evidence indicates that itmay be good for treating depression, perhaps as good or better than allthose anti-depressant drugs we are taking. In his wonderful, easy to readbook,
Walking Your Blues Away: How to Heal the Mind and CreateEmotional Well-Being,
Thom Hartman says, “I’ve identified a specific healingmechanism and process that nature has built into the human mind and bodythat enables us to process trauma in a way that is quick, functional, andpermanent.”It’s not the latest drug he’s talking about. It’s walking. There’s even goodscientific evidence accumulating which explains why it works. “In its simplestform,” says Hartman, “this mechanism involves rhythmic side-to-sidestimulation of the body. This side-to-side motion, or 
bilateral movement 
,causes nerve impulses to cross the brain from the left hemisphere to the right
 
hemisphere and back at a specific rate or frequency. This cross-patterningproduces an organic integration of left-hemisphere ‘thinking’ functions withthe right-hemisphere and brain-stem ‘feeling’ functions. This integration isnecessary precursor to emotional and intellectual healing from trauma.”Now a recent article in
Time Magazine
offers new evidence for the therapeuticadvantage of exercise.
 By LAURA BLUE Laura Blue
 – Sat Jun 19, 1:30 am ETAt his research clinic in Dallas, psychologist Jasper Smits is working on a somewhatunorthodox treatment for depression. It is not yet widely accepted, but his treatment isfree and has no side effects. Compare that with antidepressant drugs, which costAmericans $10 billion each year and have many common side effects: sleep disturbances,nausea, tremors, changes in body weight.This intriguing new treatment? It's nothing more than exercise.That physical activity is crucial to good health - both mental and physical - is nothingnew. As early as the 1970s and '80s, observational studies showed that Americans whoexercised were not only less likely to be depressed than those who did not, but were alsoless likely
become
depressed in the future.In 1999, Duke University researchers demonstrated in a randomized controlled trial thatdepressed adults who participated in an aerobic exercise plan improved as much as thosetreated with sertraline, the drug that was marketed as Zoloft, and was earning Pfizer morethan $3 billion annually before its patent expired in 2006.Subsequent trials have repeated these results, showing again and again that patients whoundergo aerobic exercise regimens see comparable improvement in their depression asthose treated with medication, and that both groups do better than patients given only a placebo. But exercise trials on the whole have been small and most have run only for afew weeks; some are plagued by methodological problems. Still, despite limited data, thetrials all seem to point in the same direction: Exercise boosts mood. It not only relievesdepressive symptoms, but appears to prevent them from recurring."I was really surprised that more people weren't working in this area when I got into it,"says Smits, an assistant professor of psychology at Southern Methodist University.Molecular biologists and neurologists have also begun to show that exercise may alter  brain chemistry in much the same way that antidepressant drugs do - regulating the keyneurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine. At the University of Georgia,neuroscience professor Philip Holmes and colleagues have shown that over the course of several weeks, exercise can switch on certain genes that increase the brain's level of 
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Sonny S. Patel, MPH

Sorry, I guess my comment was too long for Scribd - if you can't understand it, let me know and i can facebook or tweet it or just explain over the phone

reply08 / 18 / 2010
Sonny S. Patel, MPH

.... How many times have you heard or seen in the news that person who had a mental breakdown (whether depressed, work-related stress, or so on) harm other people/co-workers/classmates or make this grand tantrum in public? Normally I see few headlines each month about it happening all over the world. Jet blue anyone?

reply08 / 18 / 2010
Sonny S. Patel, MPH

....become more “globalized” with less borders or boundaries on transmission. Here’s a question to ponder about” How many times have you heard or seen in the news that person who had a mental breakdown (whether depressed, work-related stress, or so on) harm other people/co-workers/classmates or make this grand tantrum in public? Normally I see few headlines each month about it happening all over t

reply08 / 18 / 2010
Sonny S. Patel, MPH

I hear you Jed. Paradigm shift obviously needs to occur in society along with the realization by all of us that each of our personal health is very deeply connected with each other (we can't assume that one person's health is not going affect another person-as there's an increasing trend that it is going affect other people! It just depends on the degree but diseases and health become more “global

reply08 / 18 / 2010
Sonny S. Patel, MPH

Of course!

reply08 / 17 / 2010
Jed Diamond, Ph.D.

But if exercise is better than drugs for depression how are we going to keep the pharmaceutical industry alive and making profits for themselves and their shareholders?

08 / 18 / 2010
Sonny S. Patel, MPH

Very nice Jed! I was thinking of writing something similar about this too as its amazing how many people don't know this!

reply08 / 16 / 2010
Jed Diamond, Ph.D.

Sonny, Glad you liked it. Maybe readers of Men's Health would enjoy it as well. What do you think?

08 / 17 / 2010
Jed Diamond, Ph.D.

Completed my long run yesterday, 17 miles, getting ready for a marathon. I'm sore, but happy today. Exercise has many benefits, including relieving depression and other stresses.

reply08 / 16 / 2010
Jed Diamond, Ph.D.

If you're feeling stressed and depressed, or know someone who is, you may want to consider this.

reply08 / 13 / 2010
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