how does aerobic exercise compared with antidepressants in the treatment of depression

A systematic review shows aerobic exercise improves clinically diagnosed major depression compared with antidepressants or treatment as usual. Previous reviews found conflicting evidence of benefit. The new review only included the trials thought to have the most applicable results.

Full Answer

Does aerobic exercise improve depression?

Oct 18, 2018 · An analysis of randomized controlled clinical trials indicates that supervised aerobic exercise has large antidepressant treatment effects for patients with major depression. The systematic review...

How effective is exercises as effective as antidepressants?

Mar 11, 2015 · Same powerful effect. They conclude that an exercise training program may be considered an alternative to antidepressants for treatment of depression in older persons, given that they’ve shown that a group program of aerobic exercise is a feasible and effective treatment for depression, at least for older people.

Can the serotonergic system play a role in Exercise-induced depression?

Blumenthal and colleagues conducted several RCTs comparing the effects of aerobic exercise to antidepressant medication. In the first SMILE (Standard Medical Intervention versus Long-term Exercise) study , 156 older adults with MDD were randomized to four months of either aerobic exercise, sertraline, or a combined exercise and sertraline group ...

Why is exercise not considered a viable treatment option for depression?

Jan 10, 2019 · Interestingly, adding exercise to antidepressant drugs primarily affected core symptoms of depression rather than somatic symptoms ( 133 ). Moreover, individuals receiving aerobic exercise plus antidepressants displayed greater improvements in cognition and autonomic balance compared to those only receiving antidepressants ( 134, 135 ).

Is exercise more effective than antidepressants?

Here's the most important thing I learned while writing a book on running and mental health: In clinical studies, regular aerobic exercise is as effective as antidepressants in reducing symptoms of mild to moderate depression.Mar 12, 2018

How does aerobic exercise help depression?

Regular exercise may help ease depression and anxiety by: Releasing feel-good endorphins, natural cannabis-like brain chemicals (endogenous cannabinoids) and other natural brain chemicals that can enhance your sense of well-being.

Is aerobic or anaerobic better for depression?

Aerobic and anaerobic exercise have both been found to lead to improvements in mood. This seems to be true in the short term, although studies show that a single bout of exercise is more likely to reduce anxiety than depressive symptoms just following exercise.Jun 22, 2018

Is aerobic exercise an antidepressant?

An analysis of randomized controlled clinical trials indicates that supervised aerobic exercise has large antidepressant treatment effects for patients with major depression. The systematic review and meta-analysis is published in Depression and Anxiety.Oct 18, 2018

How does aerobic exercise improve mental health?

Exercise improves mental health by reducing anxiety, depression, and negative mood and by improving self-esteem and cognitive function. Exercise has also been found to alleviate symptoms such as low self-esteem and social withdrawal.

Does exercise help everyone with depression?

Many experts consider exercise to be an effective treatment for depression. However, new research casts doubt on this theory by showing that not everyone may benefit.May 11, 2019

Is aerobic exercise better than anaerobic?

Aerobic exercises tend to be rhythmic, gentle, and of longer duration. Anaerobic exercises tend to involve short bursts of high intensity activity. Generally speaking, aerobic exercise helps increase endurance, whereas anaerobic exercise helps increase muscle mass and strength.Jun 3, 2020

Is aerobic or anaerobic better for stress?

Results: The results showed that in both aerobic and anaerobic groups the mean score of depression, anxiety, stress and happiness improved after treatment. However, the improve in the mean score of anxiety, stress and happiness was more apparent in the anaerobic group.

Which exercise is good for depression?

This includes running, swimming, walking, hiking, aerobics classes, dancing, cross-country skiing, and kickboxing. According to the Mayo Clinic, engaging in at least 30 minutes of exercise on three to five days of the week could significantly lessen depressive symptoms.Nov 8, 2021

How does the use of exercise compare to medication in treating depression?

Conclusion: All studies but one (Chalder et al., 2012) informed that patients using exercise as an adjunctive treatment for depression showed a significant depressive improvement after the exercise period, and/or that the proportion of patients with a clinical response was larger for the exercise group than the control ...May 15, 2017

Can exercise affect antidepressants?

Studies indicate that exercise may be safe and effective in augmenting depression treatment. This study will determine whether exercise can complement selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) therapy in people with MDD who have residual symptoms of depression despite drug treatment.

Is exercise better than SSRI?

A 2011 study took this conclusion even further: It looked at 127 depressed people who hadn't experienced relief from SSRIs, a common type of antidepressant, and found that exercise led 30 percent of them into remission—a result that was as good as, or better than, drugs alone.Mar 24, 2014

What is aerobic exercise?

Aerobic exercise varied from walking, jogging, running or swimming to using cardiovascular gym equipment such as step machines and stationary bicycles.

How many people in England have depression?

Depression is a common disorder, affecting around 10% of adults in England in 2017–18, amounting to about 4.5 million people. Almost a quarter of a million new cases are diagnosed each year. Exercise has long been recognised as beneficial for physical health, but its effects in supporting mental health are less clear.

What is included in the new review?

The new review only included the trials thought to have the most applicable results. This meant that trials recruiting people who might not have a clinical diagnosis of depression or through media adverts were not considered. Also, studies were only included if they featured aerobic exercise – walking, jogging or using cardiovascular gym equipment ...

Is aerobic exercise considered a psychological intervention?

Exercise is already recommended as a low-intensity psychological intervention in national guidance. Though the review only included 11 trials of 455 adults, ...

Does exercise help with depression?

One systematic review suggested that exercise may reduce depressive symptoms in new mothers. A 2013 Cochrane review of exercise in depression found 39 trials of exercise in 2,326 people with depression. Overall, exercise was beneficial for depression compared with no treatment or other control intervention.

Why is depression associated with low physical activity?

The reason depression may be associated with low physical activity is that people feel too lousy to get out of bed. What we need is an interventional study, where you take people who already have depression, and randomize them into an exercise intervention and see if they get better. And that’s what we got.

Why did the exercise group get better?

Maybe the only reason the exercise group got better is because they were forced to get out of bed, interact with people —maybe it was the social stimulation, and had nothing to do with the actual exercise.

How many minutes of warm up for cardio?

In both of the exercise studies: 3 times per week (for 16 weeks), 10 minutes of warm-up followed by 30 minutes of walking/jogging while maintaining a heart rate corresponding to 70% to 85% maximum heart rate reserve (as tested at the start of the study), followed by 5 minutes of cool down. see more.

Does exercise help with ADHD?

Exercise can also help with ADHD ( Treating ADHD Without Stimulants) and improve immunity ( Preserving Immune Function in Athletes With Nutritional Yeast ), not to mention extend our lives ( Longer Life Within Walking Distance ). But what we eat matters: Paleo Diets May Negate Benefits of Exercise.

Does exercise work as well as drugs?

Before you could definitively say that exercise can work just as well as drugs, what you’d like to see is the same study but with an additional group, the same two plus a home exercise group, where they were just told to exercise on their own at home, no extra social interaction.

Is aerobic exercise good for depression?

They conclude that an exercise training program may be considered an alternative to antidepressants for treatment of depression in older persons, given that they’ve shown that a group program of aerobic exercise is a fe asible and effective treatment for depression, at least for older people. Not so fast, though.

Does physical activity cause depression?

Well, we know physical activity has been associated with decreased symptoms of depression. For example, if you look at a cross-section of 8,000 people across the country, those who exercised regularly were less likely to have a major depression diagnosis.

Abstract

Major depression shortens life while the effectiveness of frontline treatments remains modest. Exercise has been shown to be effective both in reducing mortality and in treating symptoms of major depression, but it is still underutilized in clinical practice, possibly due to prevalent misperceptions.

Introduction

Depression exerts an enormous impact on different domains of individual functioning, as well as physical health ( 1, 2 ). Physical exercise is increasingly recognized as an effective intervention to improve these outcomes.

Depression is Associated With a Shorter Lifespan

Even if a direct causal role is still debated ( 16 ), depression could increase mortality through several mechanisms ( 10 ). First, it negatively impacts lifestyle choices. Individuals with depression tend to be sedentary ( 17, 18) and less physically fit than their non-depressed counterparts ( 19 ).

Exercise is Effective for the Physical Health of Depressed Patients

Physical activity and exercise have a wide range of beneficial effects ( 72) that involve both “body” and “mind.” Bearing in mind this is an artifactual and anachronistic convention, here we provide an overview of exercise effects on the body “from the neck down” that could be relevant to individuals with depression.

Exercise is Effective Against Symptoms of Major Depression

Physical exercise has been shown to be an effective treatment for major depression in adults 14, 91 in several randomized controlled trials comparing it to a wide range of other treatments, including usual care, psychological interventions, and antidepressant medications 14, 92.

Effectiveness of Exercise in Late Life Depression

The clinical features and pathophysiology of late-life depression are largely distinct from that encountered among younger adults ( 122 – 124 ).

How Should Exercise be Prescribed to Individuals With Depression?

Depression is usually treated by primary care physicians, psychiatrists, and psychologists. Exercise interventions can be delivered by professionals with a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, including group exercise leaders, personal trainers, clinical exercise physiologists, wellness specialists, and physical therapists.

How does depression manifest physically?

Depression manifests physically by causing disturbed sleep, reduced energy, appetite changes, body aches, and increased pain perception, all of which can result in less motivation to exercise. It's a hard cycle to break, but Dr. Miller says getting up and moving just a little bit will help.

Why is exercise good for you?

Exercising starts a biological cascade of events that results in many health benefits, such as protecting against heart disease and diabetes, improving sleep, and lowering blood pressure. High-intensity exercise releases the body's feel-good chemicals called endorphins, resulting in the "runner's high" that joggers report. But for most of us, the real value is in low-intensity exercise sustained over time. That kind of activity spurs the release of proteins called neurotrophic or growth factors, which cause nerve cells to grow and make new connections. The improvement in brain function makes you feel better. "In people who are depressed, neuroscientists have noticed that the hippocampus in the brain—the region that helps regulate mood—is smaller. Exercise supports nerve cell growth in the hippocampus, improving nerve cell connections, which helps relieve depression," explains Dr. Miller.

How long does it take for a nerve cell to feel better?

You should begin to feel better a few weeks after you begin exercising.

Is exercise as effective as antidepressants?

Exercise is as effective as antidepressants in some cases. One in 10 adults in the United States struggles with depression, and antidepressant medications are a common way to treat the condition. However, pills aren't the only solution. Research shows that exercise is also an effective treatment. "For some people it works as well as ...

Does low intensity exercise make you feel better?

The improvement in brain function makes you feel better.

Does exercise help with depression?

"In people who are depressed, neuroscientists have noticed that the hippocampus in the brain—the region that helps regulate mood—is smaller. Exercise supports nerve cell growth in the hippocampus, improving nerve cell connections, which helps relieve depression," explains Dr. Miller.

Why Was This Study needed?

What Did This Study do?

What Did It find?

What Does Current Guidance Say on This Issue?

What Are The Implications?

Citation and Funding

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