According to the World Health Organisation, more than 300 million people worldwide are now living with depression, an increase of more than 18% between 2005 and 2015.
What is depression?
Depression is a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. Also called major depressive disorder or clinical depression, it affects how you feel, think and behave and can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems. It affects psychological, physical and social behaviour.
It has become common practice for victims of depression to be prescribed to antidepressants but this seems to be counterproductive in the long run.
There must be a better way to combat this and therein lies fitness and exercise. Research has shown that fitness and exercise is an effective but often underused treatment for depression. While it is true that antidepressants help battle depressive states yet they carry a heavy baggage of adverse and negative side effects. Some of which are nausea, weight gain and also loss of sexual desire and other sexual problems, such as erectile dysfunction and decreased orgasm. Fitness has the potential to help treat depression minus these negative side effects. On the contrary, fitness can increase energy levels, increase sexual libido and overall wellness and also lose body fat and increase muscular weight and thus help you achieve a more lean and attractive body.
Even joining a gym and therefore having the courage to do the first step goes a long way as let’s face it, the truth of the matter is, if you live with depression, you are already exhausted to a degree of tiresome extent to battle your state and it can put you in a solitary and lonely mental state. Hence, joining a gym would be the perfect chance to meet and socialise with others that may or may not suffer from the same mental struggle as you do but that share the same ultimate goal as you do and that is to better yourself both physically and mentally. Exercise helps you gain self-confidence, one of depression’s main culprits. A person can start setting personal goals through gym training and also through his diet and through the course of achieving these goals, self-confidence is boosted.
A study published in Volume 175, Issue 7 of The American Journal has found that fitness and exercise can in fact prevent depression from even developing in the first place.
Dr Joseph Firth from the University of Western Sydney stated that “[p]eople who were sufficiently physically active were at 15 per cent reduced risk of developing depression”. Additionally, Dr Firth commented on the type of exercise one should opt for, stressing that there was no right or wrong choice of exercise as long as the activity is enjoyed by the person. Moreover, it must be added that during exercises such as running, swimming and biking, certain chemicals, called endorphins, are released in the brain which act like antidepressants.
As far as duration goes, again there is no right or wrong answer as the person’s differing lifestyles do play a significant role but on average 30 mins three to five times a week may drastically improve depressive symptoms.
Written by Jayden Borg