Kassandra Lee
Valerie Swartz
82836
12/14/2014
Exercise: A Cure For Depression?
Approximately 121 million people worldwide are currently suffering from some sort of depression, and this number increases approximately 20% per year (Healthline). Depression, the most common mental illness, effects 25% of Americans (Olga Khazan). Of those affected, over 80% are not receiving any specific treatment for their symptoms (Healthline). While there are many medications that can be prescribed for depression-like symptoms, exercise is a natural way to combat the symptoms of depression, and research shows that exercising can reduce the chance of relapse versus medication alone.
Doctors may prescribe a medication by itself, or with another medication or exercise. This method is called
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Exercise has become an important part of my daily life, and because of the improvement in my mood, and it will continue to be something I do daily.
While medication alone, or paired with exercise can help with short term depression, exercise alone has proven to help better both for the short term and long term, and has a lower chance of relapse. Studies show that the relapse chance of exercise alone to be 8%, while medication, or medication paired with exercise to be much higher at 38% and 31% respectively. Exercise not only helps with a patient’s mental state, it has also been proven to be improve high blood pressure, diabetes, and even arthritis. With the results of recent studies, I am hopeful that more medical providers will look to prescribing exercise instead of medication to patients with depression.
“Exercise, like any other treatment, won’t work for every depressed patient. But the psychiatrists who incorporate it into their practices are finding that the only way it can work is if it’s treated like real medicine” (Olga