Read How Come They're Happy and I'm Not? for Free Online Page A

minutes of aerobic activity on a stationary bike, treadmill, stair climber, or elliptical trainer
4–10 minutes of cool down and stretching
Is Exercise Better than Drugs?
    To compare the benefits of exercise versus medication, researchers assigned 156 adults with major depression aerobic exercise or Zoloft, or a combination of both. After four months, patients in all three groups exhibited improvement, but after ten months, the exercise group had significantly lower relapse rates than the medication group. Additionally, patients who exercised on their own during the follow-up period were less likely to experience depression again. A second study of 156 patients at least fifty years old were prescribed exercise or antidepressants. Initially, the antidepressant groupdisplayed a quicker improvement. But after sixteen weeks, exercise was equally effective as drugs in reducing depression.
What to Do to Get Your Body Going
Level 1:
    If you have not exercised before, start with gentle walking outdoors for thirty minutes every day—and you can add more if you like. Walking outside in the morning sun is especially beneficial, for you absorb sunlight, training your biorhythms to help you have more energy during the day and better sleep at night. Exercising outdoors also supports vitamin D levels.
Level 2:
    If you have exercised before and would like a stronger plan, you can start the “Beginner's Guide to Growing Your Brain's Hippocampus” regimen (see page 32).
Level 3:
    If you are already using the Beginner's Guide and would like more, start a resistance program using free weights and resistance machines two days a week. One day you can exercise your chest, back, biceps, thighs, and abdominals. The second day, you can work out your shoulders, triceps, hamstrings, calves, and again, abdominals. If it's at all possible, I highly recommend working with a trainer for at least a few sessions to teach you proper techniques and the best exercises for your body. You can work out following the Beginner's Guide four days a week, your resistance workout two days a week, and take a day off to relax.

    * * *

    You may be thinking, I am stuck. What kind of exercise can I do? Even if you have physical ailments that do not allow you to walk outside, there are still ways you can exercise. One sixty-year-oldpatient, “Marge,” came into my office on two diabetes medications, and her blood sugar level was still around 300 (normal range is between 70 and 100). She was experiencing depression, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Supported and balanced by her husband, she walked, inch by inch, into my office.
    She had come because her quality of life was reduced to nothing—she was too dizzy to walk more than a few steps. It stopped her from visiting friends and family, and doing anything that made life enjoyable. We decreased Marge's carb intake and increased her water intake. Of course, I recommended exercise and gave her some naturopathic herbs and nutrients for the diabetes issues. Knowing her severe physical limitation for exercise, I recommended she purchase a tabletop arm/leg cycle and exercise her arms for ten minutes twice a day. Over the course of a few months, we included some leg movement with that. That transitioned into walking outside a little bit and then to walking outside more and doing some indoor light resistance work.
    Today, Marge is on a low dose of one diabetes medication, has normal blood sugar, and can take full walks outside, visit her friends, and even can go out and “cheat” on occasion when enjoying a nice restaurant with her husband. If someone is in a wheelchair, there are even versions of these cycles that a wheelchair can pull up to. No matter the situation, if there's a body part that can move, there's a way to start exercising and feeling better.
    Please note that if you are ready to start exercising but have not really exercised before, it's always a good idea to check with your physician. More than likely,