Product Description

Depression is a disabling condition which can adversely affect a person's work, sleep, eating habits, and family life-as well as one's overall health. Unfortunately, while commonly used treatments can be highly effective, they may not be ideal for everybody. For instance, some drugs have unwanted side-effects, and many people are turned off by the social stigma of going to therapy. Money can be an issue as well.

This is the point of Exercise Beats Depression. It is not a substitute for medical therapy, but rather represents another option that can be used alone or in combination with other treatments to effectively lower or eliminate the symptoms of depression. Here's a little of what's inside...

• you pick either the strengthening exercise program or the aerobic exercise program
• either exercise program will take up no more than one hour, three times a week of your time
• either exercise program can be done at home or at the gym
• depression levels typically start to go down the first week you start to exercise.
• over the following weeks, depression levels continue to improve, and studies show that even if you stop exercising, the improvements you have made in depression can be maintained
• who can benefit? Exercise has been shown to be effective on people diagnosed with major depression. Exercise can also help just about anyone to generally improve their mood.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #978103 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .16" h x 11.02" w x 8.26" l, .44 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 80 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781608441228
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

From the Author
What proof is there that exercise is actually effective in treating depression?
 
A lot. In medicine, if you want to prove that something is effective and really works, the best kind of study you can conduct is what's called a randomized controlled trial.  While there are plenty of randomized controlled trials that I could tell you about, I don't want to overload you with study after study, so let me just tell you about a few of the better ones that have compared exercise to no treatment at all. These kinds of studies are good to look at, because if they show positive results, well, then you know that exercise is far better than leaving things alone and letting depression run its natural course. 
 
     Now one of these studies (Doyne 1987) took 40 subjects, diagnosed as having either a major or minor depressive disorder, and randomly assigned them to one of these three groups:
 
· a walking/running program  or
· a weight lifting program  or
· a waiting list control group
 
     At the end of the study, follow-up showed that both exercise programs significantly reduced depression compared to the control group that did nothing.  Noteworthy is the fact that none of the study subjects took antidepressants or received any other treatment for depression during the study.
 
     Moving right along, another investigation (McCann 1984), took forty-three subjects considered to be depressed according to the Beck Depression Inventory (one of the most commonly used scales in research studies), and randomized them to one of three groups:
 
· an aerobic exercise  group  or
· a relaxation group  or
· no treatment at all
 
     The results? Subjects who exercised showed greater decreases in depression than the those in the other two groups. 
 
     And last but not least, this particular study (McNeil 1991) took 30 depressed individuals (according to the Beck Depression Inventory), and randomly assigned them to either a walking/casual conversation group, a casual conversation group, or a waiting list. No subjects took antidepressants or received any other treatment for depression during the study.  As with the two previous studies mentioned above, the group that exercised once again had the biggest decrease in depressive symptoms.
 
     As you can tell, there's more than one randomized controlled trial conducted in this area that proves exercise can actually beat depression-and as you will see, that's only the tip of the iceberg.  Additionally, I can name at least six published review articles that have looked at the effect of exercise on depression (Mead 2008, Sjosten 2006, Stathopoulou 2006, Lawlor 2001, Craft 1998, and North 1990) and all have found that exercise was effective. Keep in mind that these are studies where researchers have systematically searched the entire medical literature to see what overall conclusions can be drawn.
 
     So when all is said and done, the answer to the question, "What proof is there that exercise is actually effective in treating depression?" should now be obvious: multiple randomized controlled trials - which are the highest form of proof in medicine that a treatment is really effective!

About the Author
Jim Johnson, P.T. is a physical therapist who has spent over nineteen years treating both inpatients and outpatients with a wide range of pain and mobility problems. He has written many books based completely on published research and controlled trials including Treat Your Own Knees, The Sixty-Second Motivator, Treat Your Own Rotator Cuff, The 5-Minute Plantar Fasciitis Solution, Finding Happiness in a Frustrating World, Treat Your Own Tennis Elbow and Treat Your Own Spinal Stenosis. His books have been translated into other languages and thousands of copies have been sold worldwide. Besides working full-time as a clinician in a large teaching hospital and writing books, Jim Johnson is a certified Clinical Instructor by the American Physical Therapy Association and enjoys teaching physical therapy students from all over the United States.