It is nice to see such a large study really show the holes in the tendency for us to infer causation from correlation just because it "seems" right. It is kind of a jolt to suddenly doubt the seemingly obvious conclusion that exercise helps elevate mood, but this study really catches the attention.

That said, I personally feel the effects of elevated mood after and during exercise. But if I were depressed, it would be kind of begging the question to ask whether exercise lifted my depression or whether the lifting of my depression helped me have the will to get out there and exercise!

I doubt that exercise is as great a prescription as the correlational studies seem to suggest. It helps you feel better, as long as you feel better enough already to do it! But suggesting exercise as something that may help is a good idea, because it might help, and if you're already on the way up, it might help lift you higher. It does that for me.

I find that anger is reduced by exercise. When I am upset I have this overwhelming urge to do something physical. I usually go running and literally run out my anger. My heart is already beating fast and so it usually is a short spurt of intense energy that burns out quickly. After doing some sprints I am too exhausted to feel angry anymore. Anger takes effort and the emotional effort is linked directly to the physical exhaustion.

I am a fairly optimistic person, but I have battled with depression a couple of times in my life. I later realized that my depressed state was a response to feeling powerless in particular situations. The way I overcame depression was to find the means to take control over my life, even if I couldn't control the situation itself. Exercise is very helpful in making me feel that I have power--but it is only one way.

All exercise probably does for depressives is keep them heathy and living longer in their delusional world. Exercise is probably most helpful for the melancholics and those with ADD,which is why i do so. Medicine is the only thing that alters emotional delusion (when it works). It's all they have to keep them human, in my observational opinion.

This is not the first time I've heard of studies that contradict the idea that exercising counteracts mood disorders.

There have been times during my life when I exercised quite regularly. Sometimes my depressive episodes overlapped with the exercising periods. In fact, one of the worst episodes I ever had coincided with my being in the best physical shape of my life.

When I'm not depressed, exercise makes me feel good. When I'm depressed, it doesn't make me feel any worse, but it doesn't make me feel any better, either.

..."People inclined to exercise are also people protected from mood disruption; unknown “common genetic factors” may underly both tendencies."...

There is every reason to try exercise as a treatment for depression, given its undeniable health benefits (as opposed to the almost inevitable negative side effects of drug treatments - even successful ones).

But there are so many symptoms of mental illness that inhibit or prevent exercise. I am referring not only to feelings of hopelessness, lack of initiative, or inability to feel pleasure. For this sort of symptom, it's arguable that summoning up the gumption to start an exercise programme will in itself begin to address the problem.

But I'm thinking also of the following types of symtoms, which aren't as clearly related to problems of will or emotional expression:

extreme vulnerability to social stress, ranging from shyness to hypersensitivity to open paranoia

agoraphobia related to a fear of panic attacks, to difficulty processing visual, aural, or tactile stimulation, or to who knows what else

psychosomatic or stress-related pains and weakness

All of these things would inhibit - if not render impossible - a programme of exercise (yes, you could exercise at home, but paranoid tendencies can undermine even strictly private activities).

People whose psychological makeup contains this sort of element will probably always have been deeply disinclined to work out or participate in sports, while at the same time being strongly at risk for depression. In other words, these traits, while not being identified as depressive per se, could contribute both to depression and to inability to exercise. Hence the results of the Dutch study?

Returning to the question of treatment, a psychiatric patient will not be able to benefit from exercise until these problems have been addressed.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Katherine