In a bad mood? MOVE

byfabray

310 followers

10 years ago

IN A BAD MOOD? MOVE!

“In 2010, the American Psychiatric Association issued new guidelines for treating depression, and for the first time, exercise was listed as a proven treatment. Thus, the APA finally caught up with Hippocrates, who recommended that all people in a bad mood should go for a walk—and if it did not improve, walk again. . . .

Sedentary behavior causes brain impairment, and we know how: by depriving your brain of the flood of neurochemistry that evolution developed in order to grow brains and keep them healthy.”

—John Ratey and Richard Manning from Go Wild

Did you know the American Psychiatric Association now includes exercise as a PROVEN TREATMENT for depression? Yep. In Spark,, Ratey tells us: “If everyone knew that exercise worked as well as Zoloft, I think we could put a real dent in the disease.” Unfortunately, exercise doesn’t have quite the same marketing budget as pharmaceuticals.

Ratey also puts it this way in Spark: “I tell people that going for a run is like taking a little bit of Prozac and a little bit of Ritalin because, like the drugs, exercise elevates these neurotransmitters. It’s a handy metaphor to get the point across, but the deeper explanation is that exercise balances neurotransmitters — along with the rest of the neurochemicals in the brain. And as you’ll see, keeping your brain in balance can change your life.”

A little bit of Ritalin and a little bit of Prozac. I’ll take it!

And, gotta love Hippocrates’ wisdom.

In a bad mood? Go for a walk! Still in a bad mood? Keep on walking! :)

John Robbins echoes this wisdom in his great book Healthy at 100, where he tells us: “In the modern world, when people are feeling down they are often told to ‘take it easy,’ to simply lie in bed and relax. In both Vilcabamba and Abkhasia, however, people experiencing ‘the blues’ typically respond by becoming active and involved with others. Rather than withdrawing and becoming sedentary, they will walk great distances for the joy of visiting one another. So great is the recognition of the healing power of walking to visit a friend that there is a saying in Vilcabamba that each of us has two ‘doctors’—the left and the right leg.”

Let’s bring it back to you. How can you put your two doctors to work and optimize your exercise?