Exercise Is An Effective Anti-depressant

Richmondchironeu • September 16, 2019

Hello again to everyone:

Do sleep problems, fatigue and physical inactivity lead to a depressed mood, or is it the other way around? The answer seems to be that it goes both ways: depression can lead to inactivity, or inactivity can lead to depression.

Please recall that depression is now viewed as an inflammatory disorder.

So if exercise calms depression, does that mean that exercise is an anti-inflammatory? Well, it appears that may be the case, sort of. Exercise causes the release of chemicals called myokines, cytokines and chemokines. Some of these are inflammatory, but that is needed to start the repair and building process after exercise. And some are anti-inflammatory, yet the overall net effect is anti-inflammatory. One reason is that exercise causes the release of Growth Hormone and Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF). Both of these improve brain function, growth and development.

There are most likely many things that exercise does that decrease inflammation and improve depression. This can be the calming of the sympathetic system, the reduction of cortisol, balancing blood sugar, reducing insulin resistance, improving blood flow and oxygenation to the brain, normalization of hormones, assistance to mitochondria, improved sleep and more.

Bottom Line:  If you are having issues with depression, it is important to consider exercise as one of your treatments. Along with reducing inflammation from all possible causes, and the use of therapy, prayer, medications, meditation, stress reduction, clean food, supplements as part of a comprehensive approach to brain health, make sure you add exercise. Contact a personal trainer to make sure you get started right or to upgrade or refresh your exercise plan.

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Health News Update: Pesticides, Cancer & Why Go Organic 6.29.26 Hello everyone: Slowly but surely, despite the health and food industries downplaying the risks, evidence is emerging that the long-term consumption of trace amounts of toxic chemicals can add up to some serious health consequences. “Our process-based model, encompassing 31 key pesticide active ingredients, together with an innovative stratification of cancer cases by developmental lineage, reveals a robust spatial association between environmental pesticide exposure risk and cancer incidence. In pesticide-associated cancer hotspots, exposomic profiling of liver tissue—a primary target of chemical carcinogens—uncovers a distinct transcriptomic signature of pesticide exposure, implicating a non-genotoxic mode of action that disrupts core regulatory circuitries sustaining cell identity. Collectively, these findings strongly support a mechanistic link between pesticide exposure and cancer, challenging assumptions of human non-carcinogenicity derived from reductionist experimental models. This study redefines the exposome as a lineage-conditioned, mechanistically tractable framework and shows how complex pesticide mixtures can contribute to carcinogenic trajectories, with profound and far-reaching implications for global health policy and socio-ecological equity.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s44360-026-00087-0 pesticide exposure & cancer risks Bottom Line: Whenever possible, purchase your food from organic sources including local farmers that use regenerative and organic practices. Not all foods need to be organic, and to decide which ones absolutely need to be, you can access the Environmental Working Group’s yearly list of the Dirty Dozen foods that are the highest in pesticide residues. This will also include the Clean 15 foods that do not need to be organic as they are usually grown without or with very low pesticide levels. https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/dirty-dozen.php dirty dozen food guide Additionally, high quality nutrients support the natural detox processes our bodies use to get rid of any and all toxins. When we consume the Standard American Diet or Westernized Diet, we are low in the nutrients and co-factors needed to support optimal detox cleansing. So always start with food upgrades as they will carry your upgrade the farthest. Remember that most chronic health conditions start 20 years before you even notice them creeping up or becoming diagnosed. What you do now is creating your future. It used to be said that you are what you eat. Another way to say that is we become what we eat…so please take good care and make sure you always put high grade fuel into your Temple.
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