Sport And Depression, Emotional Healing

Depression is already presented as the disease of the 21st century and is the first reason for sick leave in various parts of the Western world, being related to the high level of stress that we suffer. And sport can help in its treatment.

The question we are asking you invites you to reflect on which strategy seems more appropriate for you to overcome an emotional bump: Prozac or adidas? This question is the title of a chapter in the book Emotional Healing,  by David Sevan-Schereiber. In it we want to throw some information about which are the most effective ways to cure depression.

Still, studies are ongoing. One of them, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, reports that 69% of people who take selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), the main type of antidepressant, have never suffered from Major Depression Disorder.

What is the cause of this over-medication?

On the one hand, that people look for quick and strong solutions. On the other, a greater prescription by general practitioners in health centers, who are overwhelmed by the lack of psychologists and psychiatrists to treat these cases.

And to this must be added a lack of organization and agility in the medical circuits, so that these cases are handled jointly by a psychologist and psychiatrist if necessary.

Actually, they offer us an infinity of remedies to combat depression, but in this article we will focus on a comparison: healing via medical and healing through sports. Are they comparable? Do you think that even in the most extreme moments of human sadness, sport can act not only as a balm, but also as a remedy?

Sport and depression

Sport can counteract some of the effects of depressed mood in people: it  allows weight control, increases libido, improves sleep, reduces blood pressure, strengthens the immune system, protects against heart disease and even has protective effects against some types of cancer.

Although it is indisputable that in some cases prescribing medication is logical, in cases in which the patient has stopped doing practically any activity, it is good to have the perspective that only in severe depressions will the medication be useful to help patients to take your life back. It will be useful in the short to medium term, but in the long term it seems to have the same efficacy as other non-medical treatments.

While a person decides which treatment to take, they should be aware that sport can help them, and a lot : without any symptoms of depression (it could stop its onset), with mild depression, with dysthymia or with other less serious mood disorders ( PMS, seasonal depression, sadness, anguish, fears, stress).

Advantages of doing sports before choosing to take medication

Sport offers many benefits, including the following:

• Running, with its prolonged physical effort, stops the flow of black ideas, characteristic of depression.
• After thirty minutes of sustained effort, you enter a state where your thoughts are spontaneously creative or positive. They are less self-aware and are guided by the rhythm of effort.
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the “flow states” researcher, reasons that what keeps a runner in that state is pushing our effort to the limit, but no more.
• It is not necessary to be young to take advantage of physical exercise, depressed people between 50 and 67 years old, walking lightly for thirty minutes a day, already has a therapeutic effect on them.
• Exercise has an impact on the emotional brain, on endorphins and their derivatives such as opium, morphine and heroin, immediately giving a feeling of well-being, but without unpleasant side effects such as those of these substances.

• When the emotional brain is stimulated, the activity of the immune system is also stimulated.

But, for exercise to have these therapeutic effects it is necessary :

• Make it regular.
• It is not necessary to do a lot of quantity.
• Sustained effort.
• Start softly and let the body guide us, always stay at the limit but not beyond.
• Collective or accompanied exercise is even more effective.
• Choose an exercise and place that we like.

So, if you are going through a moment of sadness or a slight depression, try not to go to the medication right away, seek therapeutic help and… put on your adidas!