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Want to improve your mental health and that of the environment at the same time? Pay attention. Planet Green has told you countless times that ditching the car, bicycling more and planning more walkable communities have myriad environmental benefits, but now new research from Southern Methodist and Boston universities details what many people have intuited for some time: Exercise is good for your mind, being nearly a 'magic drug' for depression and anxiety.
AOL Health says:
It has long been known that working out boosts the production of serotonin and other happiness hormones, which are in short supply in the brains of depressed people. But the SMU report, which examined the results of numerous other studies, found that the effects of physical activity on depression are even more powerful than had previously been believed.
In fact, the study says exercise does something similar in the brain to what antidepressant drugs can do for depression--so much so that for patients with milder symptoms it can replace drugs altogether, even if for other patients with more severe symptoms it may not fully do the trick.
Researcher Jasper Smits sums up the mental benefits of more exercise: "After just 25 minutes, your mood improves, you are less stressed, you have more energy, and you'll be more motivated to exercise again tomorrow...This isn't about working out five times a week for the next year. It's about exercising for 20 to 30 minutes and feeling better today."
If you're walking at a quick clip, that's well within the 40% of everyday trips the US Dept of Transport says are two miles or less, by the way.
Which considering some of the green news lately--Americans attitudes not much changing about the environment in a decade, KFC thinking the Double Down is actually food, and Sarah Palin's latest non-sense--means I'm going out for an hour-long stroll right after this.
