Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Exercise in the Management of Mental and Physical Health Problems.

The review by Stathopoulou, Powers, Berry, Smits, and Otto (2006) provides important evidence that exercise interventions have beneficial effects on depression, and perhaps other psychological disorders. Exercise is also useful in the management of a wide variety of medical disorders that often co-occur with depression and related emotional conditions. Hence, exercise may be particularly useful in managing such emotional–physical comorbidities. Their review also raises important issues for future research, practice, and policy, such as the value of exercise in preventing both emotional and physical disorders, common mechanisms underlying the emotional and physical benefits of exercise, and the range of strategies that might be useful for exercise promotion in the service of optimizing interrelated aspects of emotional and physical health.