Walking, Jogging,Yoga, and Strength Training may alleviate symptoms of depression

A review study published in the BMJ on 14th February 2024, suggests that walking or jogging, yoga and strength training appear to be the most effective exercises for easing depression, whether used independently or in conjunction with established treatments like psychotherapy and medication.

Even low-intensity activities such as walking or yoga are beneficial, but the results show that the more vigorous the activity, the greater the benefits are likely to be.

The World Health Organization estimates that more than 300 million people worldwide have depression. Exercise is often recommended alongside psychotherapy and drugs, but treatment guidelines and previous evidence reviews disagree on how to prescribe exercise to best treat depression.

To address this uncertainty, researchers searched databases for randomised trials that compared exercise as a treatment for depression with established treatments (SSRI antidepressants, cognitive behavioural therapy), active controls (usual care, placebo tablet), or untreated controls.They found 218 relevant trials involving 14,170 participants with depression for analysis. Each trial was assessed for bias and the type, intensity and frequency of each exercise intervention was recorded.Other potentially influential factors such as participants’ sex, age, baseline levels of depression, existing conditions, and differences between groups were also taken into account.

Compared with active controls, large reductions in depression were found for dance and moderate reductions for walking or jogging, yoga, strength training, mixed aerobic exercises and tai chi or qigong.

Although walking or jogging were effective for both men and women, strength training was more effective for women, and yoga or qigong was more effective for men. Yoga was also more effective among older adults, while strength training was more effective among younger people.And while light physical activity such as walking and yoga still provided clinically meaningful effects, the benefits were greater for vigorous exercise such as running and interval training.

“Our findings support the inclusion of exercise as part of clinical practice guidelines for depression, particularly vigorous-intensity exercise,” researchers say. “Health systems may want to provide these treatments as alternatives or adjuvants to other established interventions, while also attenuating risks to physical health associated with depression.”

Reference: BMJ 2024; 384 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2023-075847