What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

As a new report reveals the mental health benefits of just an hour’s physical activity a week, it seems there is nothing a workout can’t cure. Here is why we should all sit less and move more

Are you sitting comfortably? Bad idea. Stand up and walk around the house. Leave your desk and jog down the office stairs. Even better – jog up the stairs. If it’s lunchtime, go and join a yoga class or head for the shops on foot. What’s to lose? You are going to feel better and live longer.

Hardly a day goes by without a new piece of research flagging up the benefits to our physical and mental health of getting more active. On Tuesday, a study of 30,000 Norwegians by the brilliantly named Black Dog Institute in Australia found that even one or two hours’ exercise a week can help prevent depression. On Monday, the Wildlife Trust revealed that two-thirds of its volunteers, digging ditches and building bird tables in the open air, had better mental health within six weeks.

Related: Natural health service: wildlife volunteers get mental health boost

I don’t care how you get hot and sweaty for 10 minutes each day. I just want you doing it

Related: Get up, stand up: including exercise in everyday life healthier than gym, says study

Continue reading... October 03, 2017 at 10:21PM