Exercise is important for our general health and it also part of effective strategy for dealing with depression.  For depression, exercise can release "feel good" endorphins, increase the blood supply to your brain and give you a feeling of self-mastery.  If you get some of your exercise outdoors you can have the added benefit of getting exposure to energizing sunlight.

In our recent poll on exercise obstacles we heard that a lack of energy was the most frequent issue - cited by 31% of respondents.  Nineteen percent said that "it's too hard to do anything on a regular basis" and 15% cited physical limitations.  All of these reasons might be rooted in thinking distortions about exercise.  For example we might think that we can’t exercise because if we expand any of the very small amount of energy we have we will be even more lethargic.  Or we may imagine that there is no form of exercise that we can do that would be worthwhile at our diminished energy level.

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It was surprising to see how people responded to our question about the biggest cause of their depression.  In my experience it seems popular for individuals to say that their depression is caused by a "chemical imbalance" in their brains.  The largest number of our respondents in our poll said that trauma, death of a loved one or stress brought it on.

Trauma is indeed a cause of depression.   The most severe version of can be Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  Stress or anxiety can lead to depression because of the dysfunctional or distorted thinking that often accompanies both.

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Television can be such a big part of our battle with depression.  About 60% of our survey respondents said they watched more TV when they were depressed because they couldn’t do much else, it's a form of escape or it lowers their stress.

TV has such seductive power.  It can entertain us rather thoroughly while requiring very little of us.  We can passively allow TV to keep our attention for hours at a stretch.

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Sunlight - such a powerful resource in our lives in so many ways and it is particularly helpful for combating depression.  Many of you who responded to our pool seemed to understand the value of sunlight.  At the most basic level, basking in sunlight for just a few minutes can bring on a feeling of well-being and lift our mood.

The reason that sunlight can so easily energize us is that most of us are sunlight deprived.  We spend a huge amount of our time indoors - not the environment we were meant to be in so much.

Indoors, in a brightly lit room, the amount of light we are exposed to is 100 times or more, less than what we get on just an average day outside.  Even an overcast day it is many times brighter outside than in.

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Anxiety and depression are certainly the terrible twosome.  They occur together about two-thirds of the time and almost 60% of our poll respondents said the same.

The research on depression and anxiety tells us that anxiety causes depression and that depression causes anxiety.  Both of these make sense from an experiential point of view.  When we get stressed out many people respond by slowing down.  When we get depressed we often get anxious about not being able to do very much.

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