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MENTAL HEALTH AND LAW SCHOOL: GET ON YOUR BIKE!

27/4/2015

 
Anxiety, depression, and its various manifestations such as anorexia, bulimia, alcoholism and drug addiction, are all at their heart, issues that revolve around an individual’s psyche. For those who have experienced, or know someone who has experienced these or other mental health issues, you’ll know firsthand that absolutely nothing about the scenario is redeeming.
Having an issue mentioned above in no way makes you a person less deserving of respect, love or attention. But, they are dirty places to be. Depression is like trying to walk shoulder-deep upstream through a raging current, and it’s hard to fight because it lives within you and makes you fight yourself. Alcoholism or any other drug addiction will only ever be a temporary crutch, as biological constitutions can only be modified for so long. Moreover, they’re expensive, unhealthy and even illegal – all crosses to bear if only to feel a little better about oneself.

First things first: If you’re having any of these issues, talk to someone. Talk to a friend, your parents, a Unimelb counsellor, or a psychologist you might track down elsewhere. Nothing matters so much as when you’re thinking about it; and our minds are like cauldrons when it comes to stuff like this. We boil and boil and boil the mix trying to solve the issue, but there is no easy resolution. The thing gnawing inside you can’t be extracted through stubbornness or pride. Rather, it’s much better to share the burden with someone willing to help you talk the issue through – even if you don’t come to any conclusion, at least you’re not alone anymore, and that’s a great start.

Secondly: the greatest secret never told by the pharmaceutical industry is that exercise is singularly better for treating depression, anxiety, addictions and other mental health issues than any prescribed anti-depressant medication ever created. Studies over the past thirty-five years have demonstrated higher overall recovery rates and significantly lower rates of relapse, with only marginally slower recovery times.

It’s true that Escitalopram, Sertraline, Effexor, Prozac, Paxil are as effective in the short-term as exercise, but they’re also some of the most perplexing medications ever invented. Case in point is that, in my experience, not a single doctor, psychologist or psychiatrist seems to know how the hell they actually work beyond vague notions of ‘restoring chemical imbalances’. It could logically be the case, but shouldn’t there be more information out there?

You ask a doctor why paracetamol or ibuprofen or an anti-histamine works and they can tell you straight up. For anti-D’s, it’s justified as a leap of faith. ‘It works on some people, on others it did nothing’, is about as much clarity as any of them can provide. Which in itself doesn’t sound so bad if it wasn’t qualified by the standard ‘side effects may include’ list which includes bruxism, hyperhidrosis and impotency.

You consider that in light of the prescription rates in the US - 33 million people on Zoloft, 28 million on Celexa, 24 million on Prozac, 23 million on Lexapro and roughly another 100 million on various other drugs such as Wellbutrin, Pristiq, Paxil, Remeron, Cymbalta and Desyrel – and you get the feeling that something sinister is going on.

But I digress.

Exercise works so well because it is its own form of drug addiction, but it’s all-natural, and the only side-effects are potential injuries. After twenty minutes of moderate to heavy cardiovascular exercise, your brain starts to release endorphins – know what endorphins actually are? It’s a portmanteau of endogenous morphine. Yep. You were born with the ability to make your own opiates.

In order to produce an amount necessary to combat mental health problems, or sustain a healthy state of mind, start with 20-30 minutes of 50-80% intensity cardiovascular exercise three times a week, and work towards getting to 30-45 minutes, four or five times a week at the same intensity. This exercise could be jogging, cycling, or swimming for those who stick to traditional methods of exercise.

For the more adventurous, Yoga in its various manifestations is fantastic, not least for its added social element but also because it’s free at the Law School. Martial arts are also excellent ways to exercise and the path has already been trodden by some great legal minds (Justice Gaegler on the High Court has a black belt in Taekwondo).

Any of these avenues, and the many that have been left out, ultimately achieves the same goal. Their benefit over drugs is that you’re also learning and another skill (stimulating the mind) and in many case meeting new people (stimulating the soul).

Whatever the case, mental health is a serious issue for which there exist serious and viable solutions. Stay in touch with your friends and family, talk to people, see a counsellor if you need to, eat and sleep as best you can, and exercise regularly! Before you know it, you’ll be craving the next endorphin hit from a good 10 kilometre jog. Now, get out there and get bloody going!


Mitchell Holman is a first-year JD student.

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Timothy
28/4/2015 11:21:53 am

I can appreciate the sentiment of this article. But it's also unbelievably reductive about anxiety and depression, 'and all their various manifestations'. Telling people to go for a jog is all very well, and you're right, often extremely beneficial, but a couple of quick points:

1) Many people have issues with depression and anxiety that extend far beyond 'fixing' with exercise, and suggesting that their medication is potentially dangerous and is simply flogged to them by pharmaceutical companies is a bit lowbrow and insulting. Correct me if I'm wrong but you seem to suggest at one point you've had issues with depression and/or anxiety yourself ('..in my experience'), and I don't doubt you have. I also don't doubt that you, like others, felt the benefit of doing exercise. But don't speak to everyone or for everyone. Just because you were depressed for a couple of years doesn't mean you're the leading authority on these illnesses or on their treatment. I'm unfortunately not a subscriber to the 'everyone deserves their two cents' view, and I'm not sure you necessarily do on this issue, irrespective of your personal experiences.

2) Medication is actually a really practical way of dealing with anxiety and depression. It allows you to function and when appropriately prescribed (and taken in correct dosages) it can drastically improve people's lives and functioning.

3) I think this article trivialises mental illness a bit by suggesting it's a problem that can be fixed by a jog around the block. At points it seems to imply that if they can't, or choose not to do exercise, they are lazy or at fault. Did it ever strike you while writing this that it can actually be reasonably difficult for a person with anxiety or depression or anorexia or alcoholism to go for a run, or do yoga, or go for a cycle in the morning, or a swim after uni. Don't put the onus on those people to follow your miracle cure and expect to be fine. I agree that exercise is an important part of the equation, but it is often just a part, and sadly, it's not always possible for people to do. I'll come back to this later but if someone is experiencing mild symptoms, I think your argument is more valid. If people are undergoing more severe symptoms, then it's really not the solution.

4) I don't love your analogy of depression, 'like trying to walk shoulder-deep upstream through a raging current'. In your defense, most analogies I have heard suck.

5) You can't possibly have talked to many good doctors or psychiatrists if the most any of them have ever told you is that drugs for anxiety and depression 'restore chemical imbalances'. I suspect that is a piece of hyperbole used to justify your poorly guised subtext that drug companies are 'sinister' and exercise will fix your depression whoever you are. For example, in layman's terms: serotonin is a neurotransmitter, which shoots from neuron to neuron across your synapses (the gap between the neurons). An SSRI stops that particular neurotransmitter from being reabsorbed by the original neuron it was coming from, which means it remains in the synapse. It does this by inhibiting the mechanism of the protein that causes serotonin to be reabsorbed. The concentration of serotonin in your synapse is therefore increased and this helps to maintain, as we all know, levels of happiness.

6) Moreover, the drugs you rattle off throughout the article, whether by chemical or trade names, are SSRIs, SNRIs and NaSSAs. They all work sightly differently, and to lump them into one category - 'bad' - is just ignorant. I'm sure there are thousands of drugs to treat physical illness that have shocking side effects and, to the extent that doctors and psychiatrists don't know exactly what is going on with ADs (which I would argue is rarely the case), some of these drugs are in comparison, not understood one bit. I doubt you would ever write an article dismissing those drugs and advocating the benefits of exercise, or clean eating as preferable alternatives to fix these ailments. By suggesting that anxiety and depression are not things requiring medical attention in the form of medication, you characterise them as less important, or at least fundamentally 'different', than physical illnesses which do. Anxiety and depression kill many people, and sometimes kill more young people than physical illnesses do. I'm sure someone like you - who bothered to write an article like this in the first place - would not want to be construed that way. But I couldn't help it. Sorry. Maybe you should think about changing that part.

6) I'm not sure why you expected a psychologist to know how an anti-depressant works.

7) Is teeth-grinding really one of the worst side-effects of anti-depressants in your opinion? Or did you just like the sound of the word bruxism.

Look, I appreciate you trying to get the conversation going about this sort of thing but I just think you've gone about it the completely wrong way. I'm glad that exercise really

Timothy
28/4/2015 11:23:55 am

Continued from Above

... does it for you, but I think it's misguided to suggest that it's fix-all solution for everyone. I think for anyone experiencing mild depression or anxiety you make a great point. But I think that this article really misses the target for anyone suffering moderate to severe anxiety or depression or any of their manifestations.

Mitchell Holman
28/4/2015 01:36:03 pm

First things first:

Take nothing I say personally.

Preamble:
- There's only so much you can fit in 843 words, inevitably it is going to be a reduction.
- Neither of our points are quick, and they shouldn't be.

1)
- Nowhere in the article is the word 'fix', 'fixing' or 'cure' used. Nowhere do I claim that these issues can be fixed or cured. All mental health issues can only be managed.
- When the top five pharmaceutical manufacturers globally have all been repeatedly litigated against for a veritable bevy of corporate crimes and ethical violations, I can't help but be sceptical.
- I don't claim to speak for everyone, nor is my experience exhaustive.
- Invariably I have, yes, and I'm sure you have also had your own experience of these issues.

2)
- While I argue against medication, nowhere do I disagree with the point that it CAN help people.
- My challenge (yes, much reduced) was against medication as a SINGULAR solution.

3)
- You've made the inference once again that I claim to know how to 'fix' mental illness. Again, nowhere do I state this.
- Believe me, I know how hard it is when you're drowning in your self. But, no matter how hard it is, you ALWAYS have a choice, and anyone who denies that is a victim of their own self-deception. I don't judge them for it and never will. As I said, I've been there.
- 'miracle cure'... once again... not my words.
- 'exercise is an important part of the equation' - now there's this entire article in a nutshell.

4)
- Cheers, I don't love it either.

5)
- That is still a theoretical debate. That explains why anti-depressants work for SOME people. It does not explain why they fail for SOME people.
- Invariably I find myself trusting an evolutionary solution ~5000 years old rather than anything Man has come up with. But that's just me.
- Serotonin levels do not translate into happiness. That, in itself, is a reduction of an issue fit for people far more qualified than either of us.

6)
- Again, I express only scepticism, not outright dismissal.
- Nowhere do I state that no-one should ever require any medication.
- Nowhere do I suggest that mental illness is unalike in any sense of importance to physical illnesses. I completely agree they are of equal significance.

6(2)
- Maybe it was because he had a doctorate in pharmacology as well as psychologist qualifications.

7)
- I have had dental reconstructions because of bruxism.
- This was a low blow, mate.

Epilogue:
- This article was an exercise in scepticism. Nowhere do I assert that it fixes or cures any mental health ailment.

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