‘Mind-body’ at Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life, Page 3

It’s official! Or at least one study, the Framingham Offspring Study ‘Marital status, marital strain, and risk of coronary heart disease or total mortality’, shows that women who bottled up their feelings during arguments with their spouse were four times as likely to die during the 10 year study period as those who told their husbands exactly how they felt.

As new government figures show that prescriptions for antidepressants have increased by 33 per cent in the last six years, costing the UK economy over £28 million, a mental health charity today says it has been awarded £95,000 by the Department of Health to promote exercise as an effective treatment for mild to moderate depression.

How useful is exercise for people with severe depression, anxiety, or chronic mental illness? Hundreds of studies suggest it may help, but the actual causal relationships between exercise and mental health remain unclear. The December issue of the Harvard Mental Health Letter outlines several possible explanations for the apparent mood-enhancing effect of exercise.

New research suggests that depression may hasten the progression of heart disease by increasing the levels of a key protein that causes inflammation. In a study of 32 people with heart failure, the 14 patients who felt the most depressed had nearly twice the levels of this protein in their blood.

A study in the Journal of Preventive Medicine indicates that exercising for half an hour per day, six days per week, offers significant mental health benefits — and for those suffering from depression, benefits are comparable to those of medication or cognitive behavioral therapy.