NEWS: Exercise Helps Mentally Ill?

CULTURE: Excercise Helps Mentally Ill?

Mental illness brings with it a host of other health issues: weight gain/loss, emphysema from smoking, muscle loss from a sedentary lifestyle, physical disability from self-inflicted abuse, and malnourishment from poor eating. A new project aims to build healthy lifestyles for those with mental illness in order to educate them on nutrition, exercise, and healthy lifestyle choices.

While I don’t doubt that increasing movement has a profound effect on one’s psychological well-being, it’s difficult to incite hope and energy in someone who sees no point in actually going through the motions and moving around. Ask anyone who hated every moment of running around a track for twenty minutes in junior high.

Exercise creates endorphins which have a dramatic positive effect on mental health. This is well documented in peer-reviewed articles in respected journals. One of the most important things that people with mental health problems can do is get more exercise. But, as you mention, getting the motivation to do so can be a problem. So, for people with moderate depression the combination of meds and exercise can help a lot.
Exercise should also help with socialisation; getting out of the house and meeting other people is an important part of it.

"...and happy people just don't kill their husbands"

I think we can all agree that living a healthy lifestyle can make people a lot less crazy...I know my friend Chris was a lot less neurotic when he was a vegan...of course, he kind of lost 40 pounds, which to him...that's a vital organ or two...

ok, but what about those of us with chronic major depression? i keep reading studies and even the plain old anecdotal evidence for the efficacy of exercise, but goddamnit! i just can't seem to do it. it's all i can do to get out of bed every day. i'm not kidding. and no, pills don't work. shock treatment (ect) does, but that's kind of a pain. so, anyone have any ideas here??? i'm out.

i definitely feel your garden-variety depression is definitely quelled by some sort of exercise. hell, i know that from my own life experience once i took up yoga. chronic depression of the sort abyssia (apt username, i have to admit here) is a harder nut to crack. i used to work in a mental ward, and indeed, it's hard for these people to even muster up the energy to get out of bed. the only thing the doctors could really do was throw a lot of meds at them and see what stuck.

i also know pets are very good for the mentally ill. they seem to provide a very calming and stabilizing influence which mentally ill people desperately need.

Working out at Bally's isn't going to cure a psychiatric disorder. Nope. Ain't gonna happen.

I suppose if you've had a series of bad days in a row, it may help.

I'm not a big fan of stories like these because they seem to trivialize the difficulty in treating mental problems.

been there done that something different for everyone took me 6-7 years to get the right meds and a cocktail of them along w/ lithium finally something they call life but i think its different for different people. I hope Abyssia gets it all worked out i been there and have a huge history of self mutilation so good luck for her (she is a classic one isnt she) After all that throw in a little walking and fresh air crisp cold air. I say keep out of the mental hospitals all together they do nothing for us popping u pills and thats it along with some lame ass intern therapy nothing against interns but wrong place to put them patients need real care and attention.I could go on but wont ; we all have are own ideas as to what works... darling69

I don't think that is the point. I think the point is that a holistic approach to overall health and well-being can help mitigate symptoms or at least mitigate secondary negative effects that arise from the disorder.

Certain people react better to certain types of exercise. If you feel it isn't helping your mental state, you might try experimenting with different things.

For me, cardio does practically nothing for my mood. I've never felt a so called "runner's high" despite having done insane amounts of cardio at different times in my life, including running 10k's on a regular basis. I have found heavy resistance training is what works for me, likely because of the testosterone spike (upwards of a 400% increase) the male body experiences after a session of lifting really heavy weights. It's the best anti-depressant in the world for me, and I've tried them all.

When I started getting really crazy, I used excercise as a form of abuse. When I started getting medicated and had a find a way to deal with the jitters, I had to excercise to calm down. Now, years later, if I don't exercise, I get incredibly anxious. It is my only addiction, I guess.

I have trouble imagining a person with serious chronic problems going through a regular, healthy workout routine. But, if doctors can get them to do it, then I think that is awesome. Soon, even the crazy people will be fit and only the lazy people will be out of shape~

Exercising won't cure psychiatric disorders, because most of them are technically incurable. But it sure as hell can treat them. Aerobic exercise has been in my experience the ONLY reliable thing to snap me out of an acute, self-destructive depressive episode. To dismiss the positive emotional effects of exercise is to trivialize what can be the key (as it has been, in my case) to living with mental illness.

The major point that medicine dances around is that being healthy leads to better health, and being unhealthy leads to poor health. That sounds really stupid, but look around you, nobody understands this.

All the therapy and drugs in the world aren't going to do much if a person is malnourished and physically weak... And that's 99.9% of the population these days. It amazes me the extent to which modern medicine will bring crazy drugs, invasive surguries, etc. to bear without ever considering a person's basic physical health. Well, unfortunately, being healthy requires some effort and consistency, which means it is effectively impossible for the average person. I've seen this time and again, with my own family and friends. Give people the choice between cutting something off or taking a pill for instant relief, and spending time, effort, maybe a little pain to ACTUALLY SOLVE THE PROBLEM, and they want pills and knives.

Nick

[Edited on Dec 22, 2004 by The_Incubator]

Thank you. (Gives a witness)

yes