Running For My Life

Since Childhood, I'd Struggled With Crippling Depression. When Drugs and Therapy Failed to Help, I Took Other Steps.

By Daniele Seiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 15, 2009

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There's a lot of medical research that confirms my experience of mental health through running. Although studies show the benefits vary from person to person, most reveal exercise to be as useful as medications and psychotherapy in reversing mild to moderate depression. It's not totally clear why that is. Many believe exercise has neurochemical effects on the brain that closely mimic the effects of antidepressant medication. But while antidepressants tend to boost a few select mood-enhancing neurotransmitters, studies show exercise boosts the supply of several of them, including serotonin, dopamine, endorphin, epinephrine and norepinephrine, which play key roles in depression. Exercise may also reduce the level of the stress hormone cortisol.

A March 2006 article in the Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience found evidence that major depressive disorder is linked to a decrease in neurogenesis, the process of synthesizing new neurons in the brain, and that exercise, which is known to promote the growth of new neurons in the brain, may be effective for this reason.

In a study comparing the therapeutic effects of walking to stretching and relaxation, researchers found even mild exercise to provide fast and effective relief from depression. Researchers had college students facing a major depressive episode begin exercise walking. After 10 days, the results were compared with a similar group whose members had been told to do stretching and relaxation exercises. The proportion of walkers reporting a significant decline in depression was 65 percent, compared with 22 percent for the relaxation group. Their conclusion: Endurance exercise may help to achieve substantial improvement in the mood of selected patients with major depression in a short time.

There is also evidence that the therapeutic benefits of exercise increase with intensity.

"With just 20 to 30 minutes of vigorous exercise, you get five or six hours of lasting effects -- reducing anxiety, anger, fatigue, and other negative emotions," Keith Johnsgard said in a 2007 Runner's World article. Johnsgard is a clinical psychologist who has studied exercise's effects on depression for decades.

However it works, it works for me.

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Now, if I am feeling down, I go for a run. I usually start feeling better almost as I head out the door -- in part, I believe, because I am taking charge and doing something. But by mile four, I can actually feel my thinking beginning to change, from negative to positive, as if four miles, or about 30 minutes, is some kind of threshold. On longer runs, by about mile 13 or 14, I start to feel a mild euphoria. If I run faster, I'll notice it earlier. If I'm doing an easier, slower run, it takes a bit longer.

On really long runs, of 18 to 20 miles or more, the nature of my thoughts go beyond just positive to creative. I start having brainstorms, one after the other, and I begin to feel "one with things," for lack of a better way to describe it. It's like deep meditation in which your personal boundaries open up and you no longer notice where you end and everything else begins.

I have figured out that if I run at least four miles, I feel relaxed, positive and clearheaded, feelings that can last from hours to days. And if I do so consistently, I won't fall into a really dark state.

Every once in a while, though, I'll have a day when it's as if no time has passed since I've gotten better. It's hard to describe, but it's more than just feeling down. There's an awful familiarity to it. But it never lasts very long. This, I believe, is due to my keeping around me a safety net of mood lifters -- talking to positive people, listening to uplifting music, etc., but especially running.

Much more at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...009091402163_pf.html