A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world, an US physician Paul Dudley White had said long back.
Similarly in a recent finding in a study led by Mental Health Foundation, exercise has been suggested as a solution for depressions in a survey of 200 English practitioners. Interestingly 22% of practitioner prescribed exercise to treat milder form of depression.
The study showed that exercise can help people with mild form of depressions by improving self esteem through better body image as exercise also releases feel good body chemicals like endorphins.
Celia Richardson, Director for the campaign for the Mental Health Foundation, said, “It can help people physically, socially and biologically.”
“They often meet others who have been in the same situation as them, but are now further down the line and feeling better,” she added.
The findings said that it is important that doctors do not just prescribe antidepressants but also suggest exercises. The finding said that one in every four women and one in every six men suffer from depression.
The study also revealed increased percentage of up to 61% medical practitioner believed that exercise is beneficial to fight depression which is more than 20% increase from what earlier the practitioner used to prescribe.
MHF organizes exercise programmes which is funded by Department of Health but are only available to selected place in the country. The MHF will publish the result of six new schemes in which patients will assigned a personal trainer for appropriate exercise rule for them.
According to MHF depression is a complex illness and that there is a need to make it sure that exercises should be prescribed along antidepressant and psychological therapies.
These finding will help to tackle a major health problem which according to World Health Organisation (WHO) will be the second biggest health problem world-wide, behind heart disease by 2020.
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