Cardiologist Daniel López Rosetti, a specialist in stress medicine, has reignited the debate on the relationship between body and mind. In an interview, the doctor stated bluntly that «movement is a medicine.» According to him, physical activity not only improves physical condition but also acts directly on the brain, combating depression and anxiety.
«One of my favorite phrases is: ‘We are not rational beings; we are emotional beings who reason.’ First we are emotional, and reasoning comes later,» López Rosetti fired off, making it clear that emotions rule. And he added: «Biologically, we have experienced emotions and feelings long before we could rationalize the empirical facts that happened to us.»
The specialist detailed that the benefits of exercise on mental health are not immediate, but they appear faster than many believe. «Between one and two months. Published studies show that the benefit is not immediate, but it is almost immediate for someone with depression: between four and eight weeks, the benefits are noticeable,» he explained.
According to López Rosetti, the type of exercise matters less than consistency. «Published studies refer to aerobic physical activity — walking, brisk walking, jogging — and weights, that is, resistance exercise. Strength training has the same effect as aerobic physical exercise in terms of treating depression,» he stated.
And he gave concrete numbers: «The dosage is the one usually recommended by the World Health Organization: 150 minutes per week of brisk walking. If you walk briskly, non-stop, for 30 minutes, five times a week, that is a sufficient dose.» He also emphasized the importance of maintaining muscle tone: «It is always good to do strength training to increase muscle tone. That would be the dose of the medication.»
But the doctor went further and differentiated between clinical depression and the depressed mood that many people experience due to daily stress. «In the days we live in, a depressed mood due to frustrations, emotional life experiences, stress itself, whose symptomatic manifestation is often sadness, lethargy, the inability to smile, the inability to enjoy, is increasingly common,» he described.
And in those cases, exercise is even more effective and faster. «In those cases, physical activity also has very positive effects, but much faster than in the case of depression. A person with a depressed mood — and I want to separate a stable and diagnosed clinical depression, which is a disease — but the emotional or depressed mood is extremely common; well, even in a depressed mood, physical activity improves the person in a few days. Movement is a medicine,» he concluded.
With this statement, López Rosetti puts on the table a simple but powerful prescription: move the body to heal the mind. In a country where stress and anxiety are commonplace, his words sound like a wake-up call. Are we willing to take the medicine?
Para mí este López Rosetti es un vendido del sistema. El movimiento medicamento? Todo financiado con nuestros impuestos. La salud mental se cura laburando de verdad, no yendo al gym como chetos. Dejense de joder, la única receta es trabajar y dejar de llorar. Firmado: El Gaucho del Asfalto.
Para mí, López Rosetti la pegó, pero es obvio: el movimiento es medicina, pero para los que laburan, no para los chetos que se la pasan en el country. La salud mental se cura con ejercicio, no con pastillas que te recetan los mismos que nos quieren dopados. ¡Mové el culo, burgués de mierda! Firmado: El Che.