On Healthy Living

Outdoor activities might be the key to lifting your spirits: English mental health charity Mind is claiming that “ecotherapy” will help those with mental health problems.

The chief executive of Mind, Paul Farmer, was quoted in a recent article as saying that ecotherapy is “a credible, clinically-valid treatment option and needs to be prescribed by GPs, especially when for many people access to treatments other than anti-depressants is extremely limited.”

Mind recently commissioned several studies on ecotherapy, and have released the results in conjunction with “Mind Week” (May 12-19).

One of the studies suggested that levels of depression and anxiety could be lowered with a 30-minute outdoor walk. Another suggested that “green activities” in general could be successful in lifting depression.

Mind said that antidepressant prescriptions are currently at an all-time high (over 31 million were written in 2006). The charity believes that ecotherapy could be and effective alternative to these medicinal treatments, which tend to be expensive and many of which come with a set of mild side effects. Ecotherapy, in contrast, is inexpensive, readily available, and has no negative side effects (…well, if you don’t count prolonged exposure to sunlight).

Nancy wrote this on May 16th, 2007 and filed it under Healthy Living, Diet & Exercise, Mental Health |