Considering the fact that more than 80% of Americans are inadequately active, medical experts often recommend including exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle. In fact, studies have found that weight lifting helps curb depression, and cardiovascular exercises help reduce anxiety and improve mental health.
According to a new study at the University of Vermont Medical Center, exercise should be recommended to patients with mental health problems before prescribing psychiatric medications.
This study follows a growing problem linked to SSRIs and other pharmacological interventions. Studies have found that the effectiveness of antidepressants reduces over time; this leaves patients with more side effects than actual benefits.
Recently, Jerome Groopman said, “The field of psychiatry has long offered contentious treatments because we do not have a biology for mental illness.”
For this study, researchers built a gym for patients of the psychiatry unit. Lead author David Tomasi noted that many Americans are first treated with drugs, and exercise is recommended later nor not at all. It is the first center to prescribe exercise as the first line of treatment for mental health issues.
The patients underwent an organized exercise regimen, including each 60-minute session of a combination of strength training, flexibility training, and cardio.
The investigators found that 95 percent of patients reported feeling better, 63 percent reported feeling happy or very happy, while a whopping 91.8 percent reported they were pleased with their bodies during the session.
Tomasi said, “The general attitude of medicine is that you treat the primary problem first, and exercise was never considered to be a life or death treatment option. Now that we know it’s so effective, it can become as fundamental as pharmacological intervention.”
No patient involved in the study has been suggesting abandoning psychiatric medications yet. Meanwhile, the researchers suggest that integrating gyms into psychiatric facilities for more real-world testing. Tomasi added, “The priority is to provide more natural strategies for the treatment of mood disorders, depression and anxiety. In practice, we hope that every psychiatric facility will include integrative therapies — in our case, exercise in particular — as the primary resource for their patients’ psycho-physical wellbeing.”
