Читать книгу The Mood Cure: Take Charge of Your Emotions in 24 Hours Using Food and Supplements - Julia Ross - Страница 36

Ever notice that you feel better after you’ve been hiking, cycling, or working out? Exercise can definitely raise your serotonin levels. Even brief and moderate workouts will do it for most of us. You may already have developed exercise routines that you can count on to keep you going moodwise. You can probably feel the difference when you don’t get to the gym or out for a brisk walk or a swim, as your serotonin levels quickly sag again. Or are you one of those who don’t exercise much at all and miss out on this healthy, natural antidepressant activity? If so, see chapter 4 on how to increase your energy so you can get out there and enjoy it.

Here’s how exercise can increase your serotonin stores: When your muscles get to working, even during moderate exercise, they put in a routine call for amino acids for muscle repair. Your bloodstream always carries an assortment of amino acids for just such contingencies and delivers them quickly to the muscles in need. That’s true for all aminos except one—tryptophan—the only one that can be used by your brain to make serotonin. While the other aminos are being diverted, tryptophan gets a free ride right through the blood-brain barrier! Once through, it quickly converts into enough 5-HTP and then serotonin so that in half an hour or so you can go humming out of the gym, smiling out of the pool, or floating off the dance floor.

Exercise also helps raise serotonin by increasing your intake of oxygen, which is critical to the formation of serotonin from amino acids. All that huffing and puffing really pays off! (That’s probably one of the reasons why taking deep breaths when you’re angry or upset is so helpful, too.)

Exercise diminishes depression just as well as light therapy, so why not do both? Get outside and walk or jog in the sunlight whenever you can. On a clear day, even the winter outdoor light is often brighter than a therapeutic lamp and, combined with exercise, can really improve your mood. By the way, both exercise and light raise oxygen levels in the brain.¹⁰

Unfortunately, exercise-stimulated serotonin works only in the short term. (The same is true for light therapy.) You may have come to depend on exercise to keep your mood up, but you can lose this thin edge if you can’t exercise enough to keep your serotonin levels high—if you’re too tired, or too busy, or break your leg, or get sick. Fortunately, as you’ll soon see, there are other, even better ways to build and guard your serotonin stores. But if you can, get exercise outdoors during the day at least three times a week.