Natural Depression Remedies Work
Wise & Well Weekly: The newsletter helping you make tomorrow a little better than today
Welcome back to your weekly dose of wisdom and wellness, with science-backed insights you can use to improve your physical, mental and emotional well-being. If you appreciate highly curated, professionally edited articles, please follow Wise & Well and/or subscribe to this newsletter. Lots of healthy new articles below, but first…
THIS WEEK’S SPOTLIGHT
Plenty of research has shown that physical activity is vital for all of us. It makes us physically healthier and more capable in practical, everyday tasks, and also boosts mood in the moment and over time. So the results of this new study are no surprise:
Compared to inactivity, several types of physical activity were found to be effective for reducing symptoms of depression, alone or along with psychotherapy, medications or other treatments. A review of 218 studies involving more than 14,000 participants revealed the successful activities include walking, jogging, yoga, dancing, strength training, mixed aerobic exercises, tai chi and qigong.
If I may extrapolate slightly: Anything that gets you moving can help.
“Our findings support the inclusion of exercise as part of clinical practice guidelines for depression, particularly vigorous-intensity exercise,” the researchers conclude in the journal BMJ.
The message is for individuals, of course, but also for healthcare professionals who wish to help people by giving them all the available options shown by science to be effective.
“Primary care clinicians can now recommend exercise, psychotherapy, or antidepressants as standalone alternatives for adults with mild or moderate depression,” writes Juan Ángel Bellón of the University of Malaga in an accompanying editorial in the journal.
Let’s not oversimplify any of this. As I’ve written before, there’s no silver bullet for depression, which has become the biggest mental health crisis in America and many other countries. A proper diagnosis is vital, experts say, and a treatment plan needs to be a collaborative effort between patient and provider. What works for one person may fail miserably for another. Bellón and other experts acknowledge that engaging with exercise may be challenging for anyone dealing with depression. And therein lies the big chicken-and-egg challenge.
One important outcome of the study: The type of exercise most likely to succeed is the type a person will enjoy the most.
For much more on this topic, see Wise & Well’s Special Report: The United States of Depression. And if you’re searching for a way to start moving, see my No-Excuses Guide to Physical Activity.
HEALTHY READING
A selection of this week’s informative and insightful Wise & Well articles:
Power: The Forgotten but Vital Training Variable
Exercise routines tend to focus on strength and endurance. But power is different, and it’s vital to enhancing overall health, capability and can even help you live longer. Learn from this physical therapist simple ways to measure your power and the exercises you can do to improve it.
— By Zachary Walston, PT, DPT, OCS
Could This Be a Heart Attack?
A woman in her 60s called with chest pains after shoveling snow from her driveway. Was it a bad muscle strain or the sign of a heart attack? In this cautionary tale, her doctor had to decide, over the phone, if the woman should brave the snowy conditions and head to the emergency room or wait things out and see if the pain would pass.
— By Dr. Monique Tello
Why Aren’t New Alzheimer’s Drugs More Popular?
The first medications to treat the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia, were introduced 30 years ago. Subsequent waves of new drugs have offered greater promise. But with each new drug, fresh risks and questions emerge. This psychiatrist and neuroscientist takes an in-depth, critical look at the medications aiming to cure the №1 cause of human mental decline, and what we can hope for in the future.
— By John Kruse MD, PhD
Breastfeeding Benefits Mothers as Much as Babies, but…
Human milk provides the optimal nutrition for infants, boosting health and lowering the risk of everything from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) to respiratory diseases and obesity. Breastfeeding moms have a lower risk of diabetes, breast cancer and ovarian cancer. However, barriers to breastfeeding are common, in the workplace and elsewhere — especially in the US Southeast, where the widest racial gaps in breastfeeding exist. Two experts explain the details and what needs to be done.
— By Tisha Felder and Joynelle Jackson
And from our sister publication, Aha! …
Why Do Some People Sweat Like Pigs?
Our bodies are adorned with up to four million sweat glands. The feet are packed with 250,000 sweat glands per pair, which helps explain that smell. Other places are sweat-free. Learn why some people sweat a lot, others not so much, and what to do if you’re a heavy sweater. Oh, and about those pigs: We’ve got that simile all wrong.
— By Annie Foley
Could Your Fingernails Become Sharp Enough to Cut Steel?
The writer, a scientist, has always wished he could grow his fingernails out to fulfill a primal instinct to have claws ready to defend himself like the superhero Wolverine. So finally, he’s dug into the nitty-gritty of the science and explained, in plain English the difference between sharpness and hardness, and what we can (and cannot) slice with sharpened fingernails, and why.
— By Sam Westreich, PhD
What are the World’s Deadliest Animals, Really?
Scary headlines can cause us to unjustifiably fear death by any number of threats, however minuscule the actual risk. Unless you live in certain disease-riddled locations or spend a lot of time off the beaten track among packs of predators, your odds of dying from all the Top 10 killer animals combined is less than the threat of expiring from cancer or a heart attack. This Top 10 list puts reality in perspective. Here be sharks, hippos, snakes and…
— By Robert Roy Britt
Wise & Well writers are physicians, psychiatrists, research scientists, dieticians, fitness experts, journalists and other professionals who share their expertise to help you make tomorrow a little better than today.