Regular exercise can cure depression

Regular exercise has an additive effect with anti-depressant medication in treating hard-to-cure depression. Besides other benefits, it has been found that people who are physically active have fewer chances of getting depression than those who don't. A regular form of exercise can provide as effective results as anti-depressant drugs. It has been seen that physical activity seems to affect some key nervous system chemicals, like norepinephrine and serotonin, which help protect nerve cells from injury and transmit signals in brain regions related to mood. In a recent study in America, it was found that depressed women who started a supervised exercise regimen had significant improvements in their symptoms over the next 8 months. Those who didn't exercise showed only marginal improvements. Before the study, all of the women had tried taking antidepressant medication for at least two months but had failed to improve. To test the long-term efficacy of exercise in treating depression, researchers from the University of Cagliari conducted another study on 30 women within the age group of 40 to 60 who'd been diagnosed with major depression. These women were randomly assigned either to stick with antidepressants alone or to start an exercise program. All of the patients continued to take their medication. The exercisers worked out as a group twice a week for 1 hour, using cardio-fitness machines. At the beginning of the study and 8 months later, women in both groups completed standard measures used to assess depression severity. The findings of this study indicated that women in the exercise group showed marked improvements in their depression symptoms, while those on medication alone made only modest gains. Therefore, exercise can be a good additional treatment for depression over the long term. In cases, where anti-depressant medications have failed, exercise can help a great deal in curing depressive symptoms.