Beat depression better with walking, jogging, yoga and strength training

Battling hard against depression Walking or jogging yoga and strength training seems to be the most effective exercises to ease depression either alone or alongside established treatments such as psychotherapy and drugs suggests a studyThe World Health Organisation WHO estimates that more than 300 million people worldwide have depressionExercise is often recommended alongside psychotherapy and drugs but treatment guidelines and previous evidence reviews disagree on how to prescribe exercise to treat depression bestThe new evidence based on a review of 218 trials involving 14170 participants with depression and published by The BMJ suggests that the more vigorous the activity the greater the benefits are likely to beResearchers from Spain Denmark Australia and Finland noted that these forms of exercise could be considered alongside psychotherapy and drugs as core treatments for depressionCompared with active controls large reductions in depression were found for dance and moderate reductions for walking or jogging yoga strength training mixed aerobic exercises and tai chi or qigongModerate clinically meaningful effects were also found when exercise was combined with SSRIs or aerobic exercise was combined with psychotherapy suggesting that exercise could provide added benefit alongside these established treatmentsAlthough walking or jogging were effective for both men and women strength training was more effective for women and yoga or qigong was more effective for menYoga was also more effective among older adults while strength training was more effective among younger peopleWhile light physical activity such as walking and yoga still provided clinically meaningful effects the benefits were greater for vigorous exercise such as running and interval trainingExercise appeared equally effective for people with and without other health conditions and with different baseline levels of depressionEffects were also similar for individual and group exercise The team acknowledged that the quality of evidence is low and very few trials monitored participants for one year or moreMany patients may also have physical psychological or social barriers to participation they notedNevertheless they suggest a combination of social interaction mindfulness and immersion in green spaces that may help explain the positive effectsOur findings support the inclusion of exercise as part of clinical practice guidelines for depression particularly vigorousintensity exercise they saidHealth systems may want to provide these treatments as alternatives or adjuvants to other established interventions while also attenuating risks to physical health associated with depressionThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever