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Areas › Your body › Moving your body
This is a useful way to think about it because it puts movement in the category of things that do something to you, rather than things you ought to do. It is not a substitute for medication anybody has prescribed you. It is one more thing available on a morning when you need to get your head straight and there is nothing else to hand.
Strike the rock with your staff, and twelve springs gushed out (Quran 2:60). Something was released by a physical act, which is close to how this works in the body.
البقرة
۞وَإِذِ ٱسۡتَسۡقَىٰ مُوسَىٰ لِقَوۡمِهِۦ فَقُلۡنَا ٱضۡرِب بِّعَصَاكَ ٱلۡحَجَرَۖ فَٱنفَجَرَتۡ مِنۡهُ ٱثۡنَتَا عَشۡرَةَ عَيۡنࣰ اۖ قَدۡ عَلِمَ كُلُّ أُنَاسࣲ مَّشۡرَبَهُمۡۖ كُلُواْ وَٱشۡرَبُواْ مِن رِّزۡقِ ٱللَّهِ وَلَا تَعۡثَوۡاْ فِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِ مُفۡسِدِينَ
Remember when Moses prayed for water for his people and We said to him, ‘Strike the rock with your staff.’ Twelve springs gushed out, and each group knew its drinking place. ‘Eat and drink the sustenance God has provided and do not cause corruption in the land.’
Qur’an 2:60read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Gathering the stronger meta-analyses together, physical activity had a small to moderate effect on depression and anxiety in adults with no clinical diagnosis. That is a measurable effect in ordinary people rather than only in patients. Small to moderate is also the size of it, so the comparison with a medicine should be held lightly.
Rebar AL, Stanton R, Geard D, Short C, Duncan MJ, Vandelanotte C. (2015). A meta-meta-analysis of the effect of physical activity on depression and anxiety in non-clinical adult populations.. Health psychology review doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Exertion shifts the same body chemistry that alertness and mood run on, which is why the change turns up so quickly.
This does not replace medication you have been prescribed, and stopping that to try exercise instead is a decision for your doctor.
The best exercise is whichever one you go back to. Something you enjoy, outdoors if you can, with other people if that helps, and above all something you will do again on Thursday.
Long goals need markers you can reach this month. Belts work because you get a visible, earned step every so often instead of one distant summit.
Move just before the difficult task, not after it as a reward. Five minutes of skipping, stairs or running on the spot, then sit down to the thing.