Exercise boosts the brain and mental health – The Peninsula Qatar

Exercise boosts the brain and mental health – The Peninsula Qatar

Mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety aren't easy to treat. Medications help many but have a high failure rate and may bring nasty side effects. Talk therapy is time-consuming and expensive. And neither approach is suited to preventing the disorders from developing in the first place.

But many people overlook another option that, when it works, can be one of the most effective, least disruptive and cheapest ways of managing mental health disorders: Exercise.

It's hardly news that exercise is good for your physical health, and has long been extolled as beneficial for mental health, as well. But researchers are now making progress in understanding how exercise works its mental magic.

Exercise, they are learning, has profound effects on the brain's structure itself, and it also provides other, more subtle benefits such as focus, a sense of accomplishment and sometimes social stimulation - all of which are therapeutic in their own right. And while more is generally better, even modest levels of physical activity, such as a daily walk, can pay big dividends for mental health.

"It's a very potent intervention to be physically active," says Anders Hovland, a clinical psychologist at the University of Bergen in Norway.

But that knowledge has barely