Depression & Anxiety

It is common knowledge that anxiety and depression both affect children. According to the nonprofit child advocacy group "zero to three", the prevalence of emotional disturbance is approximately the same rate as the adult population. This is not a good statistic because having an emotional diagnosis as a child correlates highly in a positive direction with mental illness as an adult. As you might know by now, one of my major prescriptions for better health is exercise.

Within the past few days, I came across an article that suggests "exergames"(which requires physical movement, and help youngsters sweat) can be enough to be equated with moderate to physical activity. So of course, just equip the school's with games and forgot about sports, gym etc. Are you kidding me? Is this what you want for your children? Do you want your children to play inside and not to experience the joy of being outdoors with all it's benefits?

Today, Tony joined me for our trail run. It rained Sunday, Monday and is still raining. The temperature might be 50 and the trail filled with puddles of water. Two choices -either to deal with the elements or stay inside a warm dry house. Guess what we did? Yep, we ran in the wet, cold, and sloppy trail. Did we initially feel thrilled about going out for our run? If you decide to run based on feelings, more than likely you won't. The decision has to be made rationally thinking through the benefits. Of course after the run today, I felt great. Was I cold, were my shoes wet ? You know the answer. It didn't matter. I felt better after the run than I did before the run. This is not the first time and won't be the last time. The moral of the story is don't always do things based on how you feel.