Why exercise lifts mild depression so reliably .

It has both physical & psychological effects:

The physical effects:

1. Exercise boosts blood flow & oxygen to your brain.

In some ways your brain is just like a car engine that burns fossil fuels. It takes in oxygen & fuel and outputs energy & carbon dioxide.

So, if your brain s intake of oxygen & fuel & its ability to get rid of carbon dioxide & other waste products is below optimum, you have less energy; don t feel as good; & don t think as well.

By getting enough of the right kinds of regular exercise, your blood carries more oxygen to your brain & you

get enough more & better blood flow that your brain works better.

If you don t exercise, it s a bit like having a car that has a weak fuel pump. If you find you d like to feel better, adding regular exercise that you keep doing is much like replacing your weak fuel pump with one of the best new ones available.

Then your brain will work better. And, it s no surprise that you ll feel better also.

And, there s more.:

2. Exercise optimizes your neurotransmitters which directly improves your mood.

How you feel physically is tied directly to the neurotransmitters in your brain & the related chemicals in your blood.

Dopamine fires up

or empowers your pleasure centers so it s easier to enjoy things & take pleasure in them. If it s low it s very difficult even if things are actually going well.

Norepinepherin causes adrenalin to be released. If it or your level of testosterone is too low, you will have & feel less energy.

And, not having enough energy makes it difficult to feel good.

Exercise increases norepinepherin if it s low. And vigorous or strength training exercises tend to increase testosterone levels in both men & women. (Women have less; but they do have testosterone also.)

Other similar chemicals help to over-ride minor pains so you don t notice them at all or very

much. Exercise increases these chemicals & has this effect. So people who exercise regularly quite literally feel less pain than those who do not.

Serotonin helps you to feel calm. Oxytocin helps you to feel affectionate & to feel pleasure. I ve seen no reports of research yet as yet that show that exercise optimizes them. But I suspect very strongly that it does.

Cortisol appears when you are under stress. Again, I ve not seen reports of research showing that high levels of it in your blood make you feel worse. But I suspect very strongly that it does. And, cortisol at excessively high levels does make your belly fat

& damages your brain.

Since exercise does lower your perceived stress level & physically relieves or turns off stress reactions, it very likely reduces cortisol. So you feel better.

3. Exercise tends to slow your resting heart rate & breathing & reduce your blood pressure if it s higher than it should be.

This is one of the ways exercise protects your heart. But it s also one of the ways that exercise reduces your perceived stress level.

The psychological effects:

1. Exercise boosts your ability to be proactive.

Getting regular exercise is very much a real world problem solving activity & trainer. This is even more true of getting the best results from exercise.

The bad news is that you have to schedule it regularly. And, you have to be resilient & resourceful to keep doing it & get enough of it when sickness or injury or family or personal emergencies show up.

And, to get the best results, you have to track what you do; continuously learn from people who have gotten good results; increase or slightly reduce the exercises you do; & try new things to see how they work for you.

The good news is that if you persist & continue to make an effort each week & keep exercising, you gradually get better at these skills.

And, the wonderful news is that these real world effectiveness abilities make you

more likely to take action to achieve worthwhile things & solve the problems that beset you — & for your actions to be successful.

It should hardly be surprising that makes people feel better.

2. Exercise tends to improve your self image.

Exercise, particularly if you do it regularly & well, tends to make you stronger, have more stamina, be sexier, & to look better due to having more muscle & less fat.

There s also a reverse psychology to it. If you succeed in getting yourself to do it, at some level your brain says if you are doing it for yourself, you must think you are worthwhile to explain to itself why you are

doing it.

(This is a proven effect psychologists have studied.)

Here again it should be no surprise this makes you feel better when you exercise regularly.

3. By making you more proactive & improving your self image, exercise increases your feeling of control.

Since your actual effectiveness tends to go up & you see yourself as more attractive & more able, your feeling that you control some of your life increases & the amount of your life you feel you have some control over increases.

Again, you feel better than you would have if you didn t exercise.

Exercise reduces stress for all these reasons.:

If it takes a lot to make you feel stressed; you handle it well

when you do feel stressed & tend to recover from it quickly; & if you can physically turn off any excessive stress reactions you get anyway, you ll certainly feel a lot less stressed.

When you feel less stress, you have more energy & feel better.

Each of these effects of regular exercise contributes to this.

And, even if you are under very high stress levels, exercise has some ability to physically relieve your stuck-on-high stress reactions.

When you are exercising, your attention is moved from thinking about what s stressing you to doing the exercises you are doing.

And, even better, when you finish exercising & rest, the physical recovery process from your exercise tends to bring down your

physical stress reactions with it.

And, even if these two things are temporary in severe stress situations, you still get more a break & rest from the stress than people in comparable situations who don t exercise.

When you add all of these together, it certainly makes sense that exercise is effective as it is in preventing, improving, or reversing mild depression.

(For several other articles that can help you get into & keep doing effective exercise, see our blog post on Thursday, 11-16-2006 at www.iehealth.blogspot.com )

I’ve made a study of ways I can protect my health & now subscribe to both alternative & medical sources of health information & useful health news. I’ve raised my HDL cholesterol

to 95 & cut my LDLs from 130 to 84 without drugs. And, I’ve lost 30 pounds & kept it off. I do both cardio exercise & strength training regularly each week. I also am avidly interested in health-enhancing foods.

My blog, Focus on Your Health, is at http://www.iehealth.blogspot.com