Day 235- Exercise is the Best Medicine When it Comes to Depression

Anti-depressant drugs cost Americas $10 billion a year, and have many undesirable side-effects. I googled the anti-depressant Zoloft to see what the side effects may be; first of all it had important safety information:

Antidepressant medicines may increase suicidal thoughts or actions in some children, teenagers, and young adults especially within the first few months of treatment. Depression and certain other serious mental illnesses are important causes of suicidal thoughts and actions. Patients of all ages who are started on antidepressant therapy should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, or unusual changes in behavior

Sold already? Wait there is a whole list of possible side-effects:

Anxiety, constipation, decreased sexual desire or ability, diarrhea, dizziness, drowsiness, dry mouth, increased sweating, loss of appetite, nausea, nervousness, stomach upset, tiredness, trouble sleeping, vomiting, severe allergic reactions, bizarre behavior, black or bloody stools, chest pain, confusion, decreased bladder control, decreased concentration, decreased coordination, exaggerated reflexes, fainting, fast or irregular heartbeat, fever, hallucinations, memory loss, panic attacks, aggressiveness, irritability, ringing in the ears, painful erection, seizures, unusual weakness, worsening of depression, etc.

So basically taking the anti-depressant Zoloft can increase depression symptoms???? Sounds like a winner to me.

What else can be done to address depression issues?

• Addressing blood sugar dysregulation
• Addressing estrogen dominance
• EXERCISE!!!!!

An article in TIME - Health states:

In 1999, Duke University researchers demonstrated in a randomized controlled trial that depressed adults who participated in an aerobic-exercise plan improved as much as those treated with sertraline, the drug that, marketed as Zoloft.

Molecular biologists and neurologists have begun to show that exercise may alter brain chemistry in much the same way that antidepressant drugs do — regulating the key neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine. At the University of Georgia, neuroscience professor Philip Holmes and his colleagues have shown that over the course of several weeks, exercise can switch on certain genes that increase the brain's level of galanin, a peptide neurotransmitter that appears to tone down the body's stress response by regulating another brain chemical, norepinephrine.

The result is that exercise primes the brain to show less stress in response to new stimuli. In the case of lab rats and mice, those stimuli include being plunged into very cold water or being suspended by the tail. And while those are not exactly problems most people face, the thinking is that the human neurochemical response may well react similarly, with exercise leaving our brain less susceptible to stress in the face of harmless but unexpected events, like missing an appointment or getting a parking ticket. A little bit of mental strain and excess stimulation from exercise, in other words, may help us to keep day-to-day problems in perspective.

I'm not claiming that anyone should get off their anti-depressants if they already are on them, nor am I saying that exercise will cure depression. But studies have been showing the amazing affects that exercise has on the brain since the 70's so I definitely think that it is an option that doctors should be discussing with their patients, and if nothing else this article is just another kudos on the benefits of exercise.

Pura Vida!

Alica Ryan, NTP