How Regular Exercise Positively Influences Depression

James Hill:
Welcome to Weight Loss And, where we delve into the world of weight loss. I'm Jim Hill.

Holly Wyatt:
And I'm Holly Wyatt. We're both dedicated to helping you lose weight, keep it off, and live your best life while you're doing it.

James Hill:
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Holly Wyatt:
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James Hill:
Ready for the “And” factor?

Holly Wyatt:
Let's dive in.

James Hill:
Here we go.

Holly Wyatt:
We talk a lot on the show about what to eat or what you could eat and how much you should move. And we talk about it in relationship to your weight goals, to weight management. But today we're going somewhere a little different. We're asking, what does exercise actually do for your mental health, your mood, your brain?

James Hill:
Yeah, Holly, you know, I love our episodes on exercise. I just think it's so important. Not that food isn't, but exercise is. We've done episodes on exercise showing its effect on food intake. Big effects on food intake, big effects on metabolism. This one gets a little bit more into our third pillar, exercise and mind state, right?

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah, yeah.

James Hill:
So the timing on this one is perfect because a new Cochrane review just dropped in 2026. Now, the Cochrane folks actually go out and review scientific questions, and they go out and they review the literature, and they sort of put it all together and see what they can conclude. So what they looked at was exercise and depression, and they looked at 73 randomized controlled trials that reached about 5,000 people with depression. And so kind of the reason that I thought we should do this episode today is this is really the most comprehensive look we've ever had at exercise and depression.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah, that's a lot of data. That's a lot of people. And I think the findings are striking. Some of them may surprise some of our listeners.

James Hill:
I love those findings that surprise you. Those are the fun ones. So let's dig into what the evidence actually says, not the headlines and not the hype, because oftentimes the headlines sort of overplay what's really found. So we're actually going to dive into the real science. And as always, we'll talk about what it means for you, whether you're managing depression yourself, supporting someone who is, or just trying to better understand the mind-body connection.

Holly Wyatt:
Jim, I think that this conversation matters a lot because exercise is now being recommended in clinical guidelines across the world. It's being recommended as a treatment for depression.

James Hill:
Yeah, so this is no longer just nice advice, right?

Holly Wyatt:
Right. It's being positioned as medicine.

James Hill:
Okay, and when that happens, I love it. I think this is great, but like many of the topics we take, it's not always simple. And to really understand it, I think we have to ask better questions.

Holly Wyatt:
Yes, not just does it work, but how well does it work, for whom, under what conditions. It becomes a little bit more important to understand it better.

James Hill:
Yeah. So let's dive into some of the questions about what the science actually shows about exercise and depression.

Holly Wyatt:
Before you even get to the data, what do you think about 73 randomized control trials and nearly 5,000 people with depression? Is that a good data set?

James Hill:
So that is a good data set. 73 randomized trials is really pretty good. We actually review questions sometimes that have six, seven, eight, nine trials. 73 is great. Anytime you start looking at pulling things together, more is better. If you tell me you've got 73 controlled trials, I'm pretty impressed. 5,000 people, I'm pretty impressed. I'd be more impressed if it were 1,000 trials than 100,000 people. But you have to look at where it is. And I would say this is certainly better than average for having the information to examine a question.

Holly Wyatt:
Okay. I think that's important. And when people are listening to other people talk about studies, that's something to have in mind. 73 randomized control trials in over 5,000 patients. This is something that really has a lot of data.

James Hill:
Yes. I'm impressed with that amount of data.

Holly Wyatt:
Okay. If you're impressed, I'm impressed, Jim.

James Hill:
Good. Certainly a great data set to sort of conclude some things or at least some findings.

Holly Wyatt:
All right. I wrote down some questions that we could just start with. I think the first one is, does exercise actually work for depression? What did this review find?

James Hill:
Okay. So what it found is that with exercise compared to no treatment, you got a positive moderate reduction in depression, which, okay, moderate reduction in depression. You say, ah, moderate. It's actually pretty important, right? Here's exercise versus doing nothing. You can actually have a moderate effect on your depression. Is this, oh my gosh, you start exercising, your depression goes away. No. But consistently across 73 trials and 5,000 people, there was this consistent, moderate, positive effect of exercise.

Holly Wyatt:
And I think moderate means it's a clinically meaningful signal. It's not a weak finding. It's there.

James Hill:
In many cases, we can find a statistically significant difference between two groups. But you say, even though it's statistically significant, clinically, it doesn't mean anything. This is a real clinical meaningful signal.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. So there was a signal and there was this moderate reduction. How confident should we be in that effect? Because that's the other thing. You can see an effect. You can say, okay, it's moderate, but are we confident in it or, you know?

James Hill:
Yeah. These guys really do a great job on review. So 73 trials, right? Those probably vary a little bit in quality. There are some that you look at and you say, “Oh my gosh, I wish I'd designed that. That's fantastic.” Others you look at and say, “Yeah, I sort of see it, but there may be some problems.” So what they did is they actually went in and rated all the trials. And they said, “Okay, let's only look at the ones that are rated the highest quality.” What they found, they still found the signal. Wasn't quite as great, but it was there and clinically meaningful. Now, it doesn't mean those studies that weren't high quality doesn't mean they got it wrong. It's just that they're trying to cut the data in several ways to see, for example, if you only took the high quality studies and it went away, you would be suspicious.

Holly Wyatt:
So of the 73, only a portion of those were rated as the highest quality.

James Hill:
Right. So should we be confident? Yeah, I think we can be confident that there's a signal there. Should we be exactly confident of how much that signal is? No, that's where there's a little leeway. We can say, look, it's not going to cure your depression and it's not going to be nothing. It's somewhere in between. But again, when we look, Holly, at all the positives of exercise, everything else it does, just by exercising, you can help your depression. I think this is a clinically very meaningful finding.

Holly Wyatt:
Well, other treatments for depression may fall in this moderate category, too. I mean, the fact that this is real results. I mean, it's a real signal. It's a real result. It's not perfect, but I would say there's very few treatments that would kind of fit in that perfect lineup.

James Hill:
Exactly. And interestingly, they went on and they compared exercise to antidepressants.

Holly Wyatt:
Okay.

James Hill:
What did they find, Holly?

Holly Wyatt:
They found out that I think that it should belong in the conversation, that there were some similar outcomes to antidepressants.

James Hill:
In many trials, exercise improved depression as much as antidepressants. Now, it was a little variable. And trust me, we are not saying get rid of your antidepressants. What we're saying is you've got something that you don't have to go to the pharmacy to get and it's not costly: exercise. That can be a big, big positive in managed depression and probably in preventing depression.

Holly Wyatt:
Yes, they found this in some of the trials. There was wide variability. So let's make sure we say that. And so to me, what this says is it's not a replacement, but it's not optional either. It needs to be in the conversation.

James Hill:
Yes. See, that's the key. The key is everybody says, oh, yeah, we have all these medications for depression. Well, we have another treatment that seems to be, in many cases, just as effective. And that's exercise. So we've got to put exercise in the conversation of managing depression. And Holly, this fits so well with what we talk about is mind state, the importance of mind state. And we look at our three pillars, diet and exercise and mind state, and they all are so integrative. And this just is more evidence that we know exercise affects food intake and metabolism. Now it affects mind state probably in many ways, but one is to help manage depression.

Holly Wyatt:
Well, we put those as three separate pillars a lot of times when we talk about them, but this is a perfect example of how the two of the pillars are influencing each other. The activity is impacting the mind. And I do think your mind state probably impacts how much physical activity you get. So it's complex and they are all integrated. But this is another reason why exercise to me is a win-win-win.

James Hill:
Yeah. And I'm going to hit this a little later on when we sort of sum it up. But we need to think differently about, gee, you have a lifestyle and you add exercise. Exercising is the norm. That's what you ought to do. And we have a society where you're taking it away. So we have to think of being active as the normal situation, not the abnormal situation.

Holly Wyatt:
I remember something you said. This was a long time ago, but it really stuck with me. You said, “You should have to get a doctor's note not to exercise.”

James Hill:
Right.

Holly Wyatt:
A lot of times a doctor's note to be allowed to exercise for clinical trials or for certain, and it's like, wait a minute, shouldn't it be the opposite way? Why is the norm not to exercise? And then the exercises is the optional piece.

James Hill:
Yeah, absolutely. When you move your body, everything's better than when you don't move your body. Now, a caveat, there may be some medical conditions that you need to talk to your doctor about exercising. But for the majority of the population, you are jeopardizing your health by not exercising, not by exercising.

James Hill:
So it's an approach to mindset, Holly, that we need to change.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. We talk about sedentary being like smoking or having a risk, and yet that seems to be the norm.

James Hill:
Yes. And it's not. It's the abnormal state. Being sedentary is abnormal. Now, let's talk a little bit more about maybe some caveats. So what do we know, Holly, from the paper about how long these effects last?

Holly Wyatt:
Well, that's always the kicker in anything, is it's hard to get long-term data, to study things long term. And so there were high dropout rates. So I do think the long-term effects are uncertain. We don't know for sure. And once again, the problem may be, are people able to continue to exercise for a long period of time? Not does it work, but can they do it for the long period of time?

James Hill:
In a way, with exercise, it's like what we say about the GLP-1 meds. It only works if you take them. Exercise only works if you do it. And although we debate, there may be some very long-term effects of exercise. I think most of the benefits of exercise are while you're doing it. When you stop doing it, you lose most of those effects. Just like Holly, when you stop the GLP-1 meds, you lose all the effect of the GLP-1 meds. Again, the reason is to exercise. Do it chronically. Don't do it as a temporary treatment for depression.

James Hill:
Do it as a part of a healthy lifestyle.

Holly Wyatt:
But that's a hard thing, the question, do the benefits last? That's a hard thing to gather the information for.

James Hill:
Yeah, I guess you could go and look at the long-term exercisers and see if they have less depression, but they're probably doing other things too. It's hard to just tease out the exercise. They're probably living a healthy lifestyle otherwise. So again, this is not the end-all be-all. It's not the definitive answer, but it's an important step forward in understanding this relationship.

Holly Wyatt:
Yes, because if you just looked at the long-term exercisers, that would be an association study. And this review was randomized controlled trials. I want to make sure people understand this is not the association studies you hear so much about.

James Hill:
The most powerful kind for looking at cause and effect.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. So it's a different type of study where we're really looking at cause and effect versus when you go out there and you just say, okay, people who exercise a lot, what's their level of depression? Like you said, there's going to be lots of things that can co-found it And you can't really show causality with that.

James Hill:
Okay, let's dive a little deeper into some questions. What did the paper find in terms of is more better with exercise? The more you do, the better, or is the relationship not that simple?

Holly Wyatt:
That was a hard one. I think they thought there might be a sweet spot, but I'm not sure the data was real strong on this. So when I read it, I was like, okay, wait a minute. I'm not 100% I think I agree with this, but they tended to make maybe a little bit of a jump, in my opinion, and say there was maybe a sweet spot where it doesn't mean more is always better. I don't know how you interpreted those results.

James Hill:
I interpret the same way. But one thing to point out, this is not just an effect found in people that are doing a tremendous amount of exercise. These were people that were doing moderate amounts of exercise. So it's not of, oh my gosh, you've got to do two hours a day every week to get the effect. It was a sort of wide range of exercise. And it's not just the most vigorous people. They saw it in people that were doing amounts of exercise that are very feasible for people to incorporate into their day.

Holly Wyatt:
Which maybe kind of points to adherence mattering more than a large volume.

James Hill:
Exactly. And they also found a tendency that maybe less intense might actually be better than vigorous. But again, they're cutting the data in a lot of different ways. And the more you cut it, the less sort of confidence you have in this. But I think they sort of concluded from their analysis that pushing harder isn't always how you get the best effect. I wouldn't take this to the bank, but what I would take away is you certainly don't have to be sort of on the extremes of exercise to get the effect.

Holly Wyatt:
Wasn't that vigorous was bad, but that moderate would get you there.

James Hill:
Absolutely. Now, the paper also found, they looked at, is there a best kind of exercise? And really, they didn't find anything. They found any way to increase exercise is good. Now, again, did they have the power to look at all these things very, very carefully? Probably not. But I think it fits with what we've been saying all along, is any kind of moving your body helps. And maybe future studies will show one's a little better than the other one. But in this study, it didn't seem to matter whether you were doing aerobic, whether you were doing resistance, where you mixed it up. Didn't seem to be a single best exercise. It was if you did it, you got some effect.

Holly Wyatt:
So let's move a little bit to mechanism. And I don't think that this review was designed to show mechanism necessarily, but I do think they talked a little bit about it in the review in terms of what's happening. Why might we see this impact of exercise on depression?

James Hill:
Well, again, they're speculating a lot here. So take this with a grain of salt. But whenever we write a paper and find an effect, We want to at least speculate on why that effect might occur. And so you look at, like in the brain, Holly, we know that a lot of neurotransmitters are involved in mood and depression and so forth. So it's possible exercise could do that. It's possible now we know that kind of the American lifestyle is one that is conducive to low-grade inflammation. Maybe the exercise is helping through there. So there are some possible mechanisms, but we really don't have the final answer to this one.

Holly Wyatt:
But I think what they were trying to say is there could be some biology involved.

James Hill:
Absolutely.

Holly Wyatt:
So some changes in the physiology of the brain, of the signaling in the brain, which then makes you think about exercise more like a medicine.

James Hill:
Well, isn't that how the antidepressants work? They work on biology, right?

Holly Wyatt:
Right.

James Hill:
So maybe exercise is hitting those same pathways that the antidepressants hit.

Holly Wyatt:
But, I mean, isn't that cool to think about that?

James Hill:
I think it's totally cool. Because, again, back to the GLP-1s really showed us how important biology was. This shows that in depression, it is biology. Now, probably your behavior plays a role, your genetics plays a role, but biology plays a role because with the drugs, when we affect the biology, it gets better. With exercise, it gets better. So it's probably, my guess, it's working on some similar pathways.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. And that really is why you can think of it as a medication and study it that way. Think of it that way. Now, I think there's some things happening psychologically, too, that we talk about when we exercise. So I think both can be happening. Biological changes, physiological changes, and then some of this behavior that can impact you psychologically. Things like self-efficacy, we talk about a lot with that, or self-esteem, how a workout you feel when you accomplish something, that empowerment. So I think we could have both going on.

James Hill:
Yeah. And again, to maybe close out the paper, because it's important to look at the science. I love this paper, Holly. I think it's great. But there are some unanswered questions. We don't know the risk of bias. It could have been a sample that had some high bias, limited diversity, some forms of exercise.

Holly Wyatt:
Why do you say bias? Why could it have bias? Let's make sure the listeners understand. I mean, because why would you have bias in this paper?

James Hill:
Could be biased in the people that are recruited to these clinical trials might be different than sort of other groups of people.

Holly Wyatt:
And you can't blind it, I always say.

James Hill:
That's right.

Holly Wyatt:
Under like a medication where we can give a placebo and no one knows what you're getting.

James Hill:
What's the placebo for exercise?

Holly Wyatt:
You know if you're exercising.

James Hill:
People come over and move your arms and legs for you.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. To me, you can't blind this. And this really potentially gives you that bias that you have to keep in mind because people know, for instance, they're getting exercise and they expect it to work. It'll work sometimes if you expect it to work.

James Hill:
You love that placebo effect, don't you?

Holly Wyatt:
I do, because it's fascinating to me. I love that placebo effect.

James Hill:
And again, just to finish out, they didn't do every kind of exercise. So now a lot of people are looking at yoga and tai chi and so forth. And again, great study, not the final answer. And my hope is, Holly, this study will stimulate other people to look more closely at exercise and depression.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. So I like this data and I'm glad this is what we talk about on this show. But I want us to take it another step further and kind of the pie in the plate because I know what people tell me. It's like, “Okay, you've convinced me there's enough data. Exercise is good. And if I'm depressed, it could be a treatment.” We're not saying to replace your medicine, but we could be something that you add on. It needs to be in the conversation. But Holly, the last thing I want to do when I'm depressed is get up and go exercise.

James Hill:
Oh my gosh. This is our greatest challenge in general with exercise is getting people to do it. And we've talked about this a lot and we have chapters in our book where we talk about that. One of the things you've convinced me in all this is with behavior change, if it's too hard and too unpleasant, people won't do it. So how do you make it more acceptable, even fun? And I think that's the challenge, is getting people to see the positive, the value in doing exercise, not, oh my gosh, I'm going to put on my shoes and grit it out and go to the treadmill. That's not sustainable.

Holly Wyatt:
And so that's a person who isn't depressed. We experience that. This is even another layer. or why is it so hard? You know, when you need it the most, depression can actually even make it harder than it was when you weren't depressed. And I think if you think about it, depression affects the systems that drive behavior. So this is a hard one. You need it so you can impact those systems, but those systems are already in play and they're pushing you to not want to go to exercise because you have decreased in energy regulation. A lot of people who are depressed have no energy. They don't feel like they can get up and go do anything. And that's part of the clinical depression. We know when you're depressed, your motivation and reward signaling in your brain is impacted. The ability to concentrate effort and to be able to think about future benefit isn't there. So the depression itself can make the decision to use exercise as medicine very hard.

Holly Wyatt:
And so that's an interesting thing. How do you deal with that? It's not a willpower problem. It's really the depression can make things seem even harder.

James Hill:
Well, it seems like what you're saying, it's maybe hard to start. It's hard to even get motivated to go and do anything. So any advice for people if they're saying, God, I'd love to exercise, but I'm so depressed and I just have no energy. How can people sort of get over that and take an initial first step?

Holly Wyatt:
So always, I think it's important, it's don't blame yourself. You understand that depression doesn't just affect the mood. It's affecting energy and motivation. It's affecting your ability to feel reward. So the system that could help you is offline. So you recognize that it's offline and you think about ways that you could start to get it online. So I think what it means for me is you start smaller than you think it should be. It doesn't even have to be a whole workout, Jim. It could just be get up and see if you can do something for a few minutes.

James Hill:
It's not this idea of saying, oh, I'm depressed and I know exercise is going to help. I'm going to schedule a 90-minute workout. It's more, I'm going to take a walk. I'm going to go for a short walk or I'm going to call my friend to walk, etc.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. And shift the goal from an outcome. Okay, hey, I need 90 minutes or 30 minutes or this outcome to just getting it going. The initiation. Success is starting. It's not finishing.

James Hill:
I love that. It's starting. I think that's the hardest part, isn't it?

Holly Wyatt:
[26:02] Yes. Another thing I always think about, and we talk about this a lot in the book, because this works for whether you're depressed or not depressed, is to reduce the friction in the environment. So do make it as easy as possible. You don't have to think about it. Have your clothes out. Remove any barriers can be helpful.

James Hill:
Yep. Holly, when you start exercising, you don't have regular exercise routines. You have to build those. And it takes a while. So you aren't going to get started and say, oh, I got it. I'm going to every day at three o'clock. You've got to figure out those. But the goal is making this automatic. So much of our behavior is automatic rather than thinking, “Okay, tomorrow's Thursday. Am I going to exercise?” Get in the habit of saying, “Oh, on Thursdays, I go for a walk or on Fridays, I take a yoga class or something.” If you can get to the point where you can build those routines and make it automatic, that's when you win.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. And think about that mood's going to improve after the movement.

James Hill:
Right.

Holly Wyatt:
Not the other way around.

James Hill:
And when you start exercising, your depression's not going to go away. It's not, “Oh, I went to the gym and I'm not depressed anymore.”

James Hill:
It's a long-term effect of both the exercise benefits and the reduction in depression. And again, it's not the end all. But it's something you can do, which science has now said really clinically helps.

Holly Wyatt:
I think that the bottom line is to, you know, when you're depressed, the system isn't working. It's offline. That's kind of what depression is. You don't ask more of it. You ask less of it. You make it easier to start. You make even smaller bouts success. You start with baby steps. You kind of think of it a little bit differently than you might otherwise.

James Hill:
All right. You want to do some listener questions?

Holly Wyatt:
Let's do.

James Hill:
All right. This one is sort of what we've been talking about. I've been told exercise will help my depression, but when I'm really low, I can't even get off the couch.

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah.

James Hill:
How am I going to exercise? My therapist says to start small. What does small actually mean? A five minute walk, stretching? I don't even know where the floor is. What do you tell somebody like that?

Holly Wyatt:
That's a hard one. So I have something we use in Energized all the time. And I think it would work in this case, too. It's hard. It's called the 10-minute rule. And I use this when I'm not motivated at all or when maybe I'm slightly depressed. And I just I know that the exercise will make me feel better. But I do not feel like I have the energy or motivation to get off the couch at all. And I simply tell myself, “Holly, go walk, go do something, some form of movement, doesn't have to be super hard, but getting off the couch and moving for 10 minutes. And after 10 minutes, if you don't want to move anymore, you can stop.” And I promise myself that because that's the key for me getting off the couch is, is not the, you know, not to say, okay, you're going to trick yourself. No. I promise, Holly, if you don't feel better, if you don't want to move after 10 minutes, you can come back and get on the couch. A lot of times though, after 10 minutes, I want to do a little bit more or I do feel a little bit better. It removed that inertia, which was stuck on the couch. And it doesn't always work, but the 10-minute rule is something that can, I think, be helpful in this case.

James Hill:
And it's okay if you stop after 10 minutes.

Holly Wyatt:
You have to honor that.

James Hill:
You make your goal.

Holly Wyatt:
You have to honor that or it will stop working. And there have been times when it's like 10 minutes and I'm like, I'm done and I feel good about that. I don't beat myself up that I didn't do more. I did what I said. Sometimes I end up doing more. But the key is, yes, you have to really follow what you promise yourself.

James Hill:
Love it.

Holly Wyatt:
All right. Here's a question number two. I started working out consistently about three months ago, three times a week. Moderate intensity. What do we think about that, Jim? Sounds good to me.

James Hill:
Yeah.

Holly Wyatt:
My mood is definitely improved, but I'm scared to stop. Am I now dependent on exercise to feel okay? This is an interesting question. Is that a healthy relationship with movement or problematic one? Have I just switched? Am I now dependent on something else? Interesting.

James Hill:
So, again, I think here's somebody that figured out the right thing. Now, I would suggest the key is integrating that into the right kind of mind state. Okay. It's not thinking about, “Oh, my gosh, am I addicted to exercise? Do I have to stop?” It's thinking about now exercise is a part of my life. It's helped my depression. It's probably doing other kinds of things. It's one of those routines that I want to be able to maintain long-term. So it's how you think about it. I wouldn't think about, “Oh, am I addicted to it? Am I afraid to stop?” It's like I have figured out a behavior that I can sustain that has enriched my life. So I think it's just how you think about it from a mind state point of view.

Holly Wyatt:
Right. And I'm glad they've been doing it for three times a week, moderate intensity. So it doesn't sound like it's at a problematic level.

James Hill:
Right. No, it's not too much. It's not exercise addiction. It's exactly right. If this person can maintain that, they're probably going to maintain the positive effects on depression.

Holly Wyatt:
It feels like a healthy relationship. There's extremes, so it could go, but it sounds like In this case, this is a healthy relationship. That amount of movement or exercise, yes, could be helping the mood, but helps so many other things too.

James Hill:
It's a healthy relationship. Just think about it as that rather than something else. All right, Holly, here's a good one. I'm already on antidepressants and they're working well. My doctor suggested adding exercise. Does that make a meaningful difference? In other words, what about the combination of the two? If medication is already doing the job, is this more about general health or will it help my depression? I don't know the answer to this one, Holly.

Holly Wyatt:
Well, I would say I would add on the exercise. I wouldn't necessarily go off the antidepressant if the antidepressant's been working. You could talk about that with your doctor. But I like the idea of adding it on. It just gives you more options. Or maybe it will even improve mood even a little bit more. I don't know for sure if it'll make a meaningful difference if the medication's already doing its job, but it might.

Holly Wyatt:
And there's so much more. I mean, it was asking about general health. Yes, it's going to help some other things, and it could help your depression. And maybe in the future, with talking to your doctor, you might be able to lower your medication if you wanted to, not that you have to. So I think you want as many options as possible. I think this is a good option to add that could make things better for your depression, or maybe not, but could make other things better, too. So why not do this, might be what I would ask.

James Hill:
Agree totally and there's no downside. It might or might not make your depression better, but it's going to help you in so many other ways. It's going to help your metabolism. And I can't imagine everything from this article. We don't know for sure the combination, but the way they are probably both affecting biology, I would be surprised if there weren't some sort of extra benefit of exercise.

Holly Wyatt:
I agree. I agree with that. All right. Should we move to some vulnerability questions?

James Hill:
Let's do it.

Holly Wyatt:
All right. You ask me one. I'm going to go first.

James Hill:
All right. All right. So what would you say to someone who feels like exercise is just another thing they're failing at when they're depressed?

Holly Wyatt:
Yeah. First thing I would say is stop thinking about perfection. A lot of times you think, “Okay, I have to do it perfectly in order to be successful.” And so if they don't do it perfectly, then they feel like they're failing at it. And so that's one of the concepts I would try to, you know, change their mind state about that we would talk about. The other big one, and this is what I've used on a lot of people that have said this to me in some way, is treat it like an experiment. Then you don't fail. So you can say, “Okay, I'm going to start some exercise, and I'm going to just see and I'm going to be an experiment.” So there's not a failing to it. It's a open curious question experiment type piece to it and then you just have to really say there's not a there's no wrong way to do this. Just try to get out and get started moving more. Keep it open flexible with this you know i wonder what might happen not it's going to work or not work or fail that black white perfection thinking I think gets in the way sometimes. All right, Jim, if you could change one thing about how we talk about exercise and mental health in public, what would it be? Or to the public, maybe?

James Hill:
Yeah, I think it's putting exercise in the conversation. Right now, when people think about depression, they think about what medication should I be on? And that's okay. There are medications that are very effective. But I would like for exercise to be even in the discussion. You know, it's funny, you know, a physician, you know that someone to come in with high blood pressure, first thing physician would say is, well, how about changing your diet and exercise before you do medications? We don't really do that very often, but theoretically, it's an approach.

Holly Wyatt:
I don't know. Some doctors would just put them on a medication.

James Hill:
I know. And I think it's the same way with depression. But I would like for exercise to be in the conversation. So you come in to your doctor and you talk about your depression and the doctor mentions exercise. It doesn't mean you might not do the drugs, but to say, look, we have some medications that science suggests they can be effective. Science also suggests that increasing your exercise can be effective. Just put it in the conversation as an option.

Holly Wyatt:
I agree. I agree. And as an adjunct, too.

James Hill:
Yes. We're not saying stop your medication. The medication's working great. Add exercise. There's no downside and a lot of positive sides.

James Hill:
All right, Holly, you put the pie on the plate for this one.

Holly Wyatt:
Oh, Jim, you're so good at it.

James Hill:
No, you got to do it. I need a break.

Holly Wyatt:
All right. Pie on the plate. Let's see. The science, I would say, is real. This is a review that we can feel good about. We talked about it. It's a lot of trials. There's a lot of people. And I think that shows us that exercise can reduce the symptoms of depression, that it can help, that we have good evidence to support that. It's not a cure. And it's not just as simple as telling people to move more. So we know that it works, but we also need to spend more time on the fact that depression changes the very system that makes behavior possible. And so we have to figure out then if this is a tool, if this is a medicine, how do we get people to do it? When they're depressed, it's even harder to do this. And so to me, that's the missing piece. I believe that exercise is good for depression. So to me, the missing piece we need more data on is how do you get someone who's depressed to do more activity? I think telling them just to do it or push harder isn't really gonna work. So we really need to spend more time on that.

James Hill:
Love it, love it. Well, this was a great episode. Again, so many reasons to make regular exercise a part of your life. And a good one is it may help with depression.

Holly Wyatt:
All right, one more. Just one more thing to add.

James Hill:
Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next time on Weight Loss And.

Holly Wyatt:
See you. Bye.

James Hill:
And that's a wrap for today's episode of Weight Loss And. We hope you enjoy diving into the world of weight loss with us.

Holly Wyatt:
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James Hill:
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Holly Wyatt:
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