As I am sure you could guess, the lifestyle of an ancient human is completely different from that of a modern one. While the nature of these differences may seem trivial, it is of the utmost importance to the scientific community. Ancient humans were the result of millions of years of evolution. Their adaptations were designed for their environment. Unfortunately for us, the time course of evolution lags significantly behind the time course of human technological development. It is for this reason that, biologically speaking, we are not particularly fit for our current environment. Today, we live sedentary lifestyles, often cooped up in front of computers and televisions, and our bodies pay the price. In fact, the relationship between physical activity and mental health outcomes is very well studied. Data supports the conclusion that reduced physical activity can be a contributing factor to the development of depressive symptoms (Marques et al., 2020). This begs the question, how effective is exercise in treating depression?
A significant number of studies have been conducted to evaluate the efficacy of exercise as an antidepressant. When compared to traditional forms of treatment (SSRIs, CBT, etc…) exercise was found to be equally as effective in reducing depressive symptoms (Blumenthal et al., 2012). Moreover, the combination of medication and/or therapy with exercise has been found to provide an even greater reduction in symptoms compared to either of these treatments independently (Lee et al., 2021).
Now the next question you may be asking yourself is: how much exercise is enough exercise to get these antidepressant effects? Well, the data on that is a bit more scattered. That being said, most scientific sources agree that 20-30 minutes of moderate to intense exercises 3-5 times a week yields clinically significant reductions in depressive symptoms (Craft & Perna, 2004; Mayo Clinic, 2017). Additionally, there is strong evidence to suggest that both aerobic and resistance training are effective forms of exercise to treat depression (Stanton et al., 2013).
I’d like to end this article with a caveat. Every individual’s personal experience with depression is different. For some, exercise alone can be enough to quell a depressive episode, however, for others, exercise is just a small piece of the treatment puzzle. That said, we can all stand to benefit from a little extra time moving our bodies like our ancient ancestors!
