February 7, 2002
Simple measures can cure ‘body blues’
| Pam Sowers |
| HS News & Community Relations |
Amy is sure there is something wrong with her. She’s tired, irritable, stressed out and crabby too often, and she eats too much, especially in the second half of the day. Amy’s been having trouble sleeping, too. The whole mess is interfering with her relationships with her husband and kids.
Dr. Marie-Annette Brown, a professor in the UW School of Nursing, says Amy may have what Brown calls the “body blues” — a problem Amy can cure herself, without taking prescription drugs.
In her book, When Your Body Gets the Blues: The Clinically Proven Program for Women Who Feel Tired and Stressed and Eat Too Much, Brown says that you don’t have to be depressed to feel depressed. Most of the symptoms seem to involve the body more than the mind, she says. Brown explains that the most common symptoms of the body blues are low energy, eating too much, gaining weight and having sleep problems.
“Women are more likely to have these symptoms than men,” Brown says. “Women are at much higher risk of the body blues than men because of fluctuating hormones. Also, we tend to suffer from daytime light deprivation year round, along with a sedentary lifestyle. Chronic stress is another contributing factor.”
Brown conducted an eight-week clinical trial, called the LEVITY program, which stands for Light, Exercise and Vitamin Intervention Therapy, and found the women who participated in the program had more energy, fewer eating and weight concerns and less confusion, anxiety and anger. Once a group of volunteers at the UW had been screened for thyroid problems and anemia, they were able to show that the body blues can be reduced significantly by a simple three-part program. The first part is light.
“Increase your exposure to bright light, especially daylight,” Brown says. “Most people in our culture are light-deprived. Simply getting more light exposure has been shown to relieve depression.” Natural daylight is more effective than indoor light, even in the gray weather of winter.
The second component is brisk exercise, preferably outdoor walking for 20 minutes five times a week at 60 per cent of your maximum heart rate. You don’t have to run or jog to relieve the body blues.
The third component of the program is a daily dose of vitamins B1, B2, B6 and D3, along with folic acid and selenium, in amounts that are slightly higher than in the typical multivitamin. Brown says that these have been shown to increase levels of serotonin, one of the key “feel-good” brain hormones that the body produces.
Although LEVITY was not designed as a weight-loss program, 25 per cent of the study participants did lose small amounts of weight. Brown says the combination of light exercise and vitamins helped decrease their appetites.
“We had a remarkable level of adherence to the program during the eight weeks of the study,” Brown says. “There were no meetings or group walks after the initial orientation. The women just went home and did it. It’s a very natural, normal thing they were able to integrate into their lives. They kept with it because they were feeling so much better.”
For many women, getting those results without prescription medications may be just what they they’re looking for.
When Your Body Gets the Blues: The Clinically Proven Program for Women Who Feel Tired and Stressed and Eat Too Much, $22.95, Rodale, co-author Jo Robinson, is available at many bookstores.
