美国国家公共电台 NPR A New Prescription For Depression: Join A Team And Get Sweaty

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

All right. Millions of Americans suffer from depression and anxiety. Research shows regular exercise can ease conditions like panic attacks, mood swings, sleep disorders 1. And a recent study shows that the type of exercise really makes a difference. Sasa Woodruff reports.

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SASA WOODRUFF, BYLINE 2: Ryan China McCarney has played sports his entire life, in college and as a professional baseball player. But now he sometimes has to force himself to play pickup 3 soccer with his friends.

RYAN MCCARNEY: I'm dreading 4, and I'm anticipating the worst, but I do it anyway.

WOODRUFF: McCarney was 22 when he had his first panic attack. It took him six years to get professional support. He still struggles with depression and social anxiety. He often feels claustrophobic and panicked before social gatherings 5. But sports are a different ballgame.

MCCARNEY: It's a euphoric sensation when you're done with it because you end up having a great time, and all of those negative catastrophic thoughts that you were anticipating - or events or situations, they never come true.

WOODRUFF: A recent study in the medical journal Lancet Psychiatry 6 looked at 1.2 million adults and how exercise type effects anxiety and depression. The scientists found team sports had a slight edge over other forms of physical activity. One of the authors, Adam Chekroud, is an assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine. He says mental illness hits biological, cognitive 7 and social systems.

ADAM CHEKROUD: Some sports might just be hitting on more of those elements than other sports. So if you go out and all you do is run on a treadmill 8, for example, it's clear that you're getting that biological stimulation 9, but perhaps there are other elements of depression that you're not going to be tapping into.

WOODRUFF: Social isolation 10 is a big part of depression. Psychiatrist 11 Antonia Baum says physically 12 interacting with others could target that specific symptom.

ANTONIA BAUM: The social glue that occurs with team sports can be tremendously important to someone whose depression is exacerbated 13 by isolation.

WOODRUFF: In the study, the patients self-reported their symptoms, which Dr. Baum says, is a weakness because people don't always accurately 14 report how they're doing. Additionally, sticking with any exercise can be a challenge.

BAUM: When you have a depressed 15 patient, motivation is often lacking.

WOODRUFF: Without motivation, Chekroud says people often stop doing many of the things that are helping 16 their mental health.

CHEKROUD: It's not just exercises that people stop doing. They also stop taking medications. They stop showing up for therapy. And so, you know, adherence 17 is a big problem in health care right now.

WOODRUFF: A problem researchers think social interaction could help solve. Jack 18 Raglin is a professor in the School of Public Health at Indiana University, Bloomington. He studies how physical exercise affects mood and anxiety.

JACK RAGLIN: We did a study a number of years ago where, in an adult fitness program, married couples who joined together had about 10 percent dropout 19 after a year versus 20 married individuals who joined on their own had about a 50 percent. So very simple forms of social support can be beneficial.

WOODRUFF: He says accountability to others might be a motivating factor. For McCarney, he says team sports help him deal with his symptoms.

MCCARNEY: It just gets you around people, which I think is another huge thing when you're trying to maybe break out of a depressive cycle.

WOODRUFF: And he says it's much easier to break that cycle if you're not doing it alone. For NPR News, I'm Sasa Woodruff.