If you’ve ever been told to ‘take a walk’ during a heated situation, you’d probably, albeit begrudgingly, agree that a couple of steps can help you cool off. But what if that’s just a tiny sample of what walking can do for your mood?
“A lot of people come to me with mood concerns, and many of them are surprised when I tell them to make sure they’re exercising,” says Elizabeth Kera, PhD, a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist at Hackensack University Medical Center. “I tell them that it’s just like taking an antidepressant medication.”
Turns out, whether you suffer from clinically diagnosed depression or just feel kind of down, walking might actually beone of the best things you can do to turn your mood around. But how long—and how often— would you need to walk for it to actually make a difference?
How walking fights depression
While the research is clear that moving your body can mitigate the symptoms of depression, scientists are still working to understand exactly how this happens. “The beauty of physical activity is that it really affects every organ system that we know of,” says Dr. Erickson. “Scientifically, however, that creates a lot of challenges, because there’s so much that happens with even modest amounts of physical activity that it’s difficult to pinpoint the molecular pathways that are driving the benefits.”
“Exercise helps mood through several pathways at once,” says Dr. Khan. “It increases blood flow to the brain and supports chemicals involved in mood regulation, including serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, and brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, which helps the brain adapt and form healthier connections.”
“It also affects the brain through peripheral pathways,” adds Dr. Erickson. “
Muscles release chemicals called
myokines”—small signaling proteins, or
peptides—“that can cross the blood-brain barrier and induce a cascade of different events in the brain that result in a reduction in depressive symptoms.”
Click here to read what experts say is the optimal number of steps per day to reduce depression.
