Exercise

[Luc]

According to many recent studies, physical exercise can prove very helpful in treating depression and anxieties;


“A review of studies stretching back to 1981 concluded that regular exercise can improve mood in people with mild to moderate depression. It also may play a supporting role in treating severe depression.”

[…]

“Besides lifting your mood, regular exercise offers other health benefits, such as lowering blood pressure, protecting against heart disease and cancer, and boosting self-esteem. How often or intensely you need to exercise to alleviate depression is not clear, but for general health, experts advise getting half an hour to an hour of moderate exercise, such as brisk walking, on all or most days of the week.”

http://www.health.harvard.edu/newswe...rt-excerpt.htm


Also, lots of data points to the fact that exercise may facilitate brain neuroplasticity;

"As little as three hours a week of brisk walking has been shown to halt, and even reverse, the brain atrophy (shrinkage) that starts in a person’s forties, especially in the regions responsible for memory and higher cognition. Exercise increases the brain’s volume of gray matter (actual neurons) and white matter (connections between neurons)."

http://www.sharpbrains.com/resources...uroplasticity/

The definition of "neuroplasticity";

“Neuroplasticity (from neural - pertaining to the nerves and/or brain and plastic - moldable or changeable in structure) refers to changes in neural pathways and synapses which are due to changes in behavior, environment and neural processes, as well as changes resulting from bodily injury. Neuroplasticity has replaced the formerly-held position that the brain is a physiologically static organ, and explores how - and in which ways - the brain changes throughout life.” (Wikipedia)


…thus helping the brain heal itself after the use of psychoactive drugs. Exercise may also help fend off the deterioration of muscles, bones, tendons, etc. caused by the prolonged WD.

The question remains though, how our bodies react to the exercise when we are in WD, and when even a tiny change in our daily routine may worsen the disautonomia? What volume and intensity of exercise are you able to tolerate? Do you experience any temporary worsening of the symptoms after the exercise? If so, does it happen during the exercise, just after it, or two or more days down the line?

[Sheila]

Exercise is even better for the brain than we thought

http://antidepressantwithdrawal.info...han-we-thought

[Sheila]

Exercising mice release fractalkine & get smarter

http://antidepressantwithdrawal.info...mp-get-smarter

[Iggy131313]

ok, so are waves healing or damage? that is the big question...

if exercise brings on waves of symptoms how do we know that that is not a good thing? and it means further and more aggressive healing is taking place...but if waves were healing then things like suppliments which make our condition worse would be healing but we know they are not...

its very difficult to tell what the hell is going on

is this a CNS injury thus we need to sedate the cns as much as possible, or do we need to refashion the nerve endings like healy sayshere

There is no clear understanding of what happens in the brain to trigger such problems but it may be that with extended exposure to an antidepressant, some sensitive individuals lose receptors from the ends of their nerve terminals as part of an adaptive mechanism and when the drug is removed these receptors do not simply return to normal.

If the explanation offered above is even partly correct, it implies that with time the condition should resolve but this resolution may take months or years. It would seem intuitively sensible to suggest that activity, which helps to refashion nerve endings, would help and those affected should therefore be encouraged to be physically active and in general to live life as fully as possible and avoid shutting down or withdrawing from activities.

Activities such as walking or swimming may be helpful especially if undertaken in a graded programme that ensures there is daily activity and over time builds the activity levels up.

[Luc]

is this a CNS injury thus we need to sedate the cns as much as possible, or do we need to refashion the nerve endings like healy sayshere

That's the big question, Iggy. So far, I think, we know this; at some point of WD, when a very gentle, then more intense physical exercise, do not bring the worsening of the symptoms, or the worsening is tolerable, going the exercise route may be really worth trying. Three main reasons;

1. It helps with neurogenesis

2. Fends off the secondary ailments caused by WD

3. Produces endorphines helping with the WD-induced depression

Though it still needs to be implemented so slooolwly...

The more data we will be collecting, the more we will be able to come up with some more complete protocol. That is why sharing the personal experience of all of us here is so important.

[Sheila]

These are, indeed, good questions Iggy, and I don't think we fully know the answers. One possible way of looking at it is that 1) yes, we need neuro-rehabilitation, and any wholesome experience is good for growing new neural networks, but 2) we have a dysregulated autonomic nervous system and it can't "digest" certain experiences.

For example, too much exercise too early on doesn't help most people (although there may have been a couple of exceptions), because it just triggers autonomic chaos and a stress response.

You see this with chronic fatigue syndrome, too -- they can't just push themselves; it literally causes measurable exhaustion symptoms that take a long time to clear.

On the other hand, there are people with other types of neurological damage who seem to respond well to stringent physical therapies.

So, the answer may be a balanced, moderate approach to neuro-rehabilitation, when there is dysautonomia present.

[stan]

exercise would be a very good thing to heal better and faster, but it depends on what systems are messed, what organs , what nerves, what muscles etc
so for me, it is not possible, only walking and not too much or it is too harmful

[Luc]

In the General Diet/supplements thread I mentioned the importance of remembering that "Quite often, when we are sensitive to some type of foods/ingredients/vitamins, it takes time to figure it out for the simple reason of our bodies reacting to those sometimes even 48-72 hours later. That is why it is so difficult to draw any correlation (and causation) between the food *and* the impact it has on our bodies."

The exact same is with physical exercises. Yes, you may feel the worsening just after the exercise, or during it, but, very often, it may feel like you are getting better during it *and* some time after it (more oxygen, clearer thinking, endorphines), and then experience severe aggreviation of symptoms only some days after it.

Learning how your body reacts to stimuli may thus help alleviate the symptoms.

[Needinghelp]

What exersizes would you guys suggest?

[Luc]

Only very very mild stuff, Needinghelp. You don't want to stir up your dysautonomia, even if temporarily. Try a bit of walking (start with a tiny tiny bit), some stretching perhaps. But through all that time listen to your body. If you feel that it has worsened - after the exercise, or *even* some days later, go back to the dose of exertion your body tolerates. Never ever push yourself over the limit.