feb 2015

GUY TALK
By Mark Bohm
EXERCISE YOUR
STRESS AWAY
Producing “happy chemicals”
I play fantasy football. Been in the same
league, with mostly the same group of
guys, since circa 1998. Haven’t won it since
that first year, and before this past season,
hadn’t even sniffed the playoffs for a long
time. So, with three weeks remaining in
my league’s regular season, as I proudly
admired my team sitting atop the standings
in first place, I was afforded a feeling
of fantasy league satisfaction I hadn’t felt in
years. Eleven weeks down, only three left in
the regular season, and I figured that probably
even one win, in any of the remaining
weeks 12, 13 or 14, would clinch my team
a playoff spot.
I never got that one win. In week 14, the
final week of the regular season, with nearly
a forty point lead going into Monday night,
I sat helplessly as the Packers and Falcons
got into a shootout at Lambeau, and my
opponents, Aaron Rodgers and Steven
Jackson, combined their efforts to nail my
team’s coffin shut. My first legitimate shot
in years for a title was dashed, and I was
down. I hadn’t taken my fantasy participation
very seriously for a long time, but for
whatever reason, this past season I thought
I had the right team and I wanted it.
Tuesday morning, with the disappointment
still lingering, I set out for my first
jog in several days. I don’t listen to music
when I run. Instead, I let my mind wander,
I just think. And as I ran that morning,
despite at times revisiting the football
week that was, including the could-haves
and should-haves of my fantasy team mismanagement,
with every passing mile (and
there were only about three in total), the
gloom steadily dissipated. After a stop at
the gym for a quick weight exercise circuit,
I returned home feeling myself again.
The phenomenon of exercise lifting my
mood is one I’ve noticed for years. There
is no doubt in my mind that, for me, prolonged
periods without working out causes
my mood to lean more towards irritable.
I even used to half-jokingly tell my wife
before leaving for the gym that I’m off to
produce some happy chemicals in my brain.
A recent scientific study seems to explain
that my experience is no joke at all. A
study conducted at Karolinska Institutet
in Sweden, and published in the journal
Cell, showed that exercise helped to protect
against depression induced by stress.
Principal investigator Jorge Ruas, PhD,
and his team, found that mice with high
levels of a certain protein in their skeletal
muscle – a protein produced by exercise –
did not exhibit depressive symptoms when
exposed to stressors. This was in contrast to
normal mice which did demonstrate signs
of depression. The study further revealed
that the mice with more of the protein
had higher amounts of an enzyme which
protects against a substance formed during
stress.
This month the Parklander is highlighting
men’s health issues. Although we might
typically think of men’s health as a subject
related to our reproductive parts, our
mental health is just as integral, if not
more so, to feeling good. According to the
American Psychiatric Association’s website,
www.psychiatry.org, over six million
men suffer from depression each year. It’s
a serious condition that should be diagnosed
and treated by a professional. I’m no
mental health professional. But I do know
that for this guy, getting in my regular
workouts helps me keep a more positive
state of mind.
If and when I’m feeling glum, I’ll try to
remember to move my lazy self off the sofa
and get some exercise. And as for fantasy
football, I’ll get them next year. P
92
FEBRUARY 2015