Exercise For Depression – Hypnotherapy in Ely and Newmarket

I’ve been busy continuing my training for my upcoming ultra-marathon that is now getting ominously close. I’m up to over twenty miles in my training runs and looking to keep building as much as I can to support me to get around on the day (and to hopefully raise as much as I can for MacMillan Cancer Support).

The weather when running can make a huge difference and after a heat wave marathon and a frozen ultra last year I’ve got my fingers crossed for something more pleasant in April. Thankfully it has been pretty mild recently and when the sun is up early then the scenery and views here in the Fens are spectacular.

I’ve covered before how valuable I find exercise, and particularly running, to support my own mental health. Way back when I struggled with anxiety and low self-esteem it was my go to coping strategy. It was how I processed my overthinking, moved on from my negative self talk and dissipated my unwanted emotions. I always felt mentally better for it afterwards. These days it is my way of thinking through things, or deciding not to really think about much at all, and it is my way of boosting and supporting my mental health and sense of well-being.

There is a wealth of research and evidence supporting how exercise can help with your mental health and especially with anxiety and depression symptoms. Because there is such a volume of research I’ve covered this topic several times before in previous articles. Exercise and being active sit very nicely alongside psychological therapies, such as hypnotherapy, for helping you to alleviate your anxiety and depression.

Recently another paper was published that took a look at the effect of exercise for depression and I’ve covered that briefly further down in this article. The message is loud and clear that if you want to feel better then some sort of activity is likely to help you positively boost your mental health.

 

Being Physically Inactive and Your Health 

Before moving on to explore exercise for depression, it is useful to remember the negative impacts and risks that can come from being inactive. Spending a lot of time each day being inactive can affect both your physical and mental health and well-being.

Spending 6-8 hours a day sitting or lying while expending low amounts of energy increases your risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and numerous other health conditions. And, of course, having a health condition can lead to anxiety, stress and depression and other mental health conditions. As anyone with anxiety or depression is also too aware, spending lots of time being inactive is a potential recipe for more and more overthinking, dwelling and ruminating.

Replacing sedentary time with time on other behaviours can boost your mental health and well-being. Research suggests that both short and long term psychological benefits may result from reducing the amount of time you spend sitting (total time or long periods) with other uses of your time, such as light or moderate physical activity. There is more on this in another article of mine: Boost Mental Health By Sitting Less and Moving More.

The World Health Organisation suggests that some physical activity is better than none, and that more physical activity is better for optimal health outcomes. They also highlight the importance of regularly undertaking both aerobic and muscle strengthening activities, and limiting sedentary behaviour.

Linked to this, research shows that daily physical activities, such as climbing the stairs and gardening, can enhance your sense of well-being and boost your mental health. So even if you feel adverse to any form of  structured and deliberate ‘exercise’, you can still support your mental health by engaging in more simple daily activities and so reducing the amount of time you spend sitting around.

The research and evidence all converge towards the many benefits of moving more for your mental health and well-being. There’s more on this subject over in this article: Daily Physical Activities Can Boost Your Well-being and Mental Health

 

Exercise For Anxiety

If you are struggling with depression symptoms then it is likely that you also experience elements of anxiety and worry. Both anxiety and depression often go hand in hand where each exacerbates the symptoms of the other. You just feel worse and worse.

Research has shown that exercise can help with depression and anxiety symptoms, and that running reduces your risk of certain health conditions. I’ve written about the research, and why you should get exercising for your mental health here: Ely Festive 5k 2019 and Why You Should Get Running For Your Mental Health. and there’s more about this subject here: Anxiety and Exercise – Anxiety Hypnotherapy in Ely

Research shows that exercise helps with the treatment of anxiety. Regular exercise has been associated with lower anxiety and depression, exercise has demonstrated a reduction in anxiety and exercise can help to decrease your overall anxiety sensitivity.

A systematic review of exercise for anxiety disorders has found that exercise can help reduce anxiety. Both aerobic and non-aerobic exercise seemed to reduce anxiety symptoms. And another assessed the use of exercise in the treatment of anxiety and looked at the benefit of high intensity exercise versus low intensity exercise (I wrote about this here: Anxiety Disorders – Why you should get moving to treat anxiety). They concluded that exercise is a viable treatment option for anxiety with high intensity exercise being more effective that lower intensity.

Further support for the benefits of exercise for anxiety disorders comes from research that investigated whether a twelve week exercise intervention, with different intensities, could reduce anxiety symptoms in patients with anxiety disorders. Exercise was associated with reduced symptoms of anxiety in primary care patients with anxiety. Both low and moderate/ high intensity exercise interventions improved anxiety symptoms, although many participants had a low level of physical activity at the start of the study and so even a low intensity program would have been a significant increase in physical activity compared to their previously sedentary lifestyles.

If you are currently struggling with anxiety symptoms alongside your depression (or you have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder), then adding regular exercise to your habits could well help ease anxiety and boost your mental health. Of course, many people with anxiety also massively benefit from hypnotherapy to help with tackling persistent overthinking, negative thoughts and other anxious thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

 

Aerobic Exercise and Depression

Exercise is associated with depression relief. Research has strongly found that aerobic exercise shows a significant anti-depressant effect for people with a clinical diagnosis of depression.  Aerobic exercise certainly does have an anti-depressant effect in people with depression and that makes it worth considering and including in your treatment plans.

The research has also suggested that short term (up to four weeks) aerobic exercise could provides an important role in the early stages of treatment as many anti-depressant prescription medicines can take that sort of length of time before they provide benefit. Aerobic exercise involving personal preferences of the type of activity revealed large anti-depressant effects. This can be important, because as anyone who has ever exercised knows, if you don’t choose it and enjoy it then the chances of staying motivated diminishes.

Pretty encouraging stuff that suggests that, if you struggle with depression, aerobic exercise may be a useful strand of recovery and improvement alongside other therapeutic or pharmaceutical approaches.

There is also some evidence that anaerobic exercise may be equally effective in reducing depressive symptoms compared to aerobic activity. Resistance training may be an option for those where aerobic exercise is inappropriate or where they do not have the motivation for aerobic exercise.

The exact mechanism by which exercise helps with depression is not necessarily clear. It may be that there is a psychological reason for the mental health benefits of exercise. Engaging in exercise may increase perceived coping skills for depression, or may lessen the volume or the intensity of ruminations, worries and anxiety. In addition, exercise involves being active which is in direct contrast to the usual tendencies associated with depression. And so, by doing something that is inconsistent with the depression, you experience a different result; often with my own anxiety and depression clients I will actively encourage them to do specific things that conflict with unwanted habitual thoughts and feelings and which can start to create some leverage towards them feeling better.

The evidence strongly suggests that exercise can play a useful role here. That’s not to say that all other treatment approaches and strategies should be abandoned in favour of exercise. Yet research after research suggests that for many people with anxiety and depression, it may serve a beneficial role alongside other treatment. And if all the research is suggesting that something can help you feel better, and overcoming depression and anxiety is your goal, then certainly it must make sense to at least give it a period of sustained commitment to find out how it works for you, mustn’t it?

There’s more on all of this in another article: Depression: Does aerobic exercise have anti-depressant effects?

You may also be interested in learning a bit about hypnotherapy for depression: Cognitive Hypnotherapy For Depression – How Effective Is It?

 

Further Support For Exercise For Depression

Recently, even more evidence has been published supporting the positive effect of exercise for helping with depression.

A systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials, based upon 14,170 participants with depression in 218 studies, sought to identify the optimal dose and modality of exercise for treating major depressive disorder (Noetel, Sanders, Gallardo-GÃmez, Taylor, del Pozo Cruz, van den Hoek et al, 2024).

They found that exercise is an effective treatment for depression, with walking or jogging, yoga, and strength training more effective than other exercises, particularly when intense. Yoga and strength training were well tolerated compared with other treatments. Exercise appeared equally effective for people with and without co-morbidities and with different baseline levels of depression. The results suggest that these forms of exercise could be considered alongside psychotherapy and antidepressants as core treatments for depression.

Interestingly, the benefits from exercise tended to be proportional to the intensity prescribed, with vigorous activity being better.

Depression can have huge adverse impacts upon your life. You can struggle with your thoughts and emotions and your life satisfaction is greatly diminished. Depression symptoms can also exacerbate other issues such as anxiety alongside some physical conditions.

Not all forms of exercise will suit everyone, although pretty much everyone can do some sort of physical activity of some kind. And I don’t think anyone is suggesting that exercise alone will always be enough to help you to overcome your depression. You will likely need some other support and solutions such as hypnotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy and/or medication. However, all of the mounting evidence does strongly support that you should seek to be active towards feeling better. It may well be that more intense exercise is more helpful, however, anything that fits with your own characteristics and personality is going to help.

Sometimes, with depression, you need some help to develop a sense of hope for getting better, alongside some added motivation, persistence and ways to interrupt negative thinking,  however, the end results of your exercise efforts are very likely to be positive in relation to how you are feeling.

To your health and happiness,

Dan Regan

Award Winning Hypnotherapist in Ely & Newmarket

 

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Reference: Noetel M, Sanders T, Gallardo-Gómez D, Taylor P, del Pozo Cruz B, van den Hoek D et al. Effect of exercise for depression: systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials BMJ 2024; 384 :e075847 doi:10.1136/bmj-2023-075847