{"id":1071,"date":"2010-04-23T01:40:25","date_gmt":"2010-04-23T01:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2010-04-23T01:40:54","modified_gmt":"2010-04-23T01:40:54","slug":"exercist-therapy-a-natural-anti-depressant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/2010\/04\/23\/exercist-therapy-a-natural-anti-depressant\/","title":{"rendered":"Exercist Therapy: A Natural Anti-Depressant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/files\/2010\/04\/running1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1073\" style=\"margin: 5px\" title=\"running\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/files\/2010\/04\/running1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><em>By Abby Larson<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Have you ever felt sad or stressed, laced up your running shoes and went on a run to find yourself feeling happier once you got back?\u00a0 Anti-depressants might not be the best treatment for depression and anxiety, conditions that many Americans take drugs for.\u00a0 Psychology Professors Smits and Otto from Southern Methodist and Boston Universities have shown that Exercise Therapy is a successful treatment of many mental health problems.<br \/>\nPresenting their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oup.com\/us\/catalog\/general\/subject\/Psychology\/PractitionerClientGuides\/?view=usa&amp;ci=9780195382259\">findings<\/a> at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adaa.org\/\">Anxiety Disorder Association of America<\/a>\u2019s annual conference in March to researchers and mental health care providers, Smits and Otto have found that people who exercise show fewer signs of depression and stress.\u00a0 Much like an anti-depressant, exercise triggers the release of neurotransmitters in the brain that help relieve stress and depression and allow patients to perform daily tasks more efficiently.\u00a0 Additionally, as one exercises more, resting heart rate lowers, causing patients to feel less anxiety.<br \/>\nSmits believes that patients should exercise at least 150 minutes a week at a moderate-intensity or 75 minutes at high-intensity.\u00a0 Exercise therapy is about the immediate benefits of exercise on mood, not just the long-term health benefits.<br \/>\nAs the list of learned health benefits of exercise grows, psychiatrists should be encouraged to prescribe schedules and goals to exercise instead of anti-depressants for a less costly and more beneficial therapy for mood disorders.\u00a0 So, next time you\u2019re stressed about work or academics or have a loss of confidence, get outside and exercise.\u00a0 It\u2019s what the doctor ordered.<\/p>\n<p>For more information, see links at <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.smu.edu\/research\/\">SMU research<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Abby Larson Have you ever felt sad or stressed, laced up your running shoes and went on a run to find yourself feeling happier once you got back?\u00a0 Anti-depressants might not be the best treatment for depression and anxiety, conditions that many Americans take drugs for.\u00a0 Psychology Professors Smits and Otto from Southern Methodist &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/2010\/04\/23\/exercist-therapy-a-natural-anti-depressant\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Exercist Therapy: A Natural Anti-Depressant<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":269,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/sciencenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}