a cure for cancer. So if everybody could now stop telling mentally ill people to pull themselves together and get out for a nice long run, that would be absolutely lovely. Exercise is great, and maybe it does help fight depression. Claims are largely anecdotal, so we can't be sure. Something that should be remembered is that the very nature of depression makes exercising very difficult, since it just destroys motivation, saps energy, wrecks sleeping patterns, and can even cause fatigue. Not helpful to just tell a depressed person "Go for a jog". Thanks for this article Simon. Like many of the other commentators I use running to keep depression at bay. Whilst running on a treadmill does nothing for me, running with other people in the local park as part of Parkrun or on the beach really quietens my head down and keeps me calm. I'd be interested to know what kind of exercise they patients were participating in. Doing aerobics indoors, in the winter, while some inane music booms in the background, makes me feel dramatically worse. But running outdoors, especially in nature (a park or a forest) does calm me and give me a sense of perspective. It slows things down when my brain has managed to jumble itself up. Even if the day is a damp and dreary one, it still works its magic. Even a walk in a park can do this. It's the being outside that seems to have the desired effect. Of course