In his humorous yet insightful book "I had a black dog", author Matthew Johnstone speaks of the black dog (depression) being fat and lazy! He states the black dog would rather you lie around and stay in bed all day feeling sorry for yourself.  Black dog HATES exercise because it makes you feel better.  When you feel like moving the least is when you should move the most.  Matthew suggests going for a walk or a run and leaving the mutt behind!!!  (FYI Black Dog books are available in the bookstore!)

<p>Exercise does have very positive effects on mood, however being able to follow through and actually do it is often sabotaged by very low motivation energy which many people who have depression experience. The trick sometimes is to begin to trickle feul into the motivational energy feul tank through little achievable self care activities. To discern what our motivational energy is eg if you get upset over sometihing and feel drained, drained what of? It is this inner feul tank of motivational energy. Feuling up in self care can be a little different for all of us, things such as talking with a friend, reading a book, soaking in a bath etc. It doesn't take a scientific test to figure out if the self care helped feul up, it usually feels like, 'that feels a little better'. With a little feul in the tank we are more able to follow through on eg taking a walk and in turn feel better for it. <br /> It is important to be kind to ourselves, I wonder that if we have a goal, don't follow through, beat ourselves up, the beating ourselves up seems to leak away more precious motivational energy..... Being kind, supporting ourselves in our own thoughts can help feul ourselves up.</p>