Combining exercise and meditation can help fight depression
If you’re someone that suffers from depression, new research says that combining meditation and aerobic exercise can help alleviate the symptoms of the condition.
Over eight weeks, researchers from Rutgers University in New Jersey studied a group of men and women, 22 of whom were clinically depressed. The data, which was published in Translational Psychiatry, found that the mind and body combination done twice a week for two months reduced symptoms of depression by 40 per cent.
“Exercise in itself might not make someone smarter, more enlightened or more peaceful, but if you couple it with some learning experiences then I think the combination is pretty powerful,” says lead researcher Tracey Shors.
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Shors, a professor of behavioural and systems neuroscience at Rutgers, says our brains continue to produce new neurons throughout life and if we learn something new, many of these cells will stay alive.
“The idea behind the intervention was that through aerobic exercise you’re creating new neurons in your brain, but then also keep them alive once they’re made.”
She says she was surprised to see depressive systems go down as much as they did. The study also saw a significant decrease in ruminations about the past.
“That’s something that would affect many aspects of your life, the more you’re ruminating about the past, the less likely that you’re experiencing the present. The past doesn’t exist. Even though it seems like it does, but it doesn’t. It’s important to learn that.”
Shors notes that by settling your mind down during meditation and then immediately switching to exercise makes you feel complete afterwards.
“We’re not trying to tell people how to think. We’re helping them find a way to learn how to think about their lives with their own mind. Then you exercise, because it’s aerobic it brings all this oxygen and blood into the brain and that somehow solidifies the learning experience.”
Catherine Sabiston, Canada research chair in physical activity and mental health, says one of the main challenges in working with people with mental illness is getting them motivated. However, once they begin exercising the benefits come quickly.
“If we’re dealing with non-clinical populations, that exercise can help anything from reducing stress, to reducing depressive symptoms, helping with anxiety symptoms, general mental well-being. And then we also know in clinical populations that exercise in some trials is as beneficial as medication.”
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Sabiston says the basic principles behind the combination of the focused breathing and aerobic exercise is a very good approach in terms of depression. However, the study only focused on one combination - meditation followed by aerobics. She would be interested in seeing if other combinations perform just as well.
“I would like to see what happens if you combine just one versus the other versus both and where the gradient of effects lies in that as well.”
A key thing to remember is that you don’t need intense workouts to get the benefits of exercise. Simply walking for 20 minutes a day can reduce symptoms of depression.
“There’s no specific exercise that’s better or worse. It’s not an intensity thing. We don’t have a sense of the dose of it. It’s really doing a little bit more tomorrow than you’re doing today and making it purposeful and that has extreme benefits.”
Would you give combined meditation and exercise a try? Let us know your thoughts by tweeting to @YahooStyleCA.
