Depression: Martial Arts as a Cure

How Martial Arts Come to Your Aid Against Depression

Written by: Master McCorry

It is estimated that around 121 million people around the world suffer from depression. According to the data by Healthline, US and India top the depression charts with 30 to 36% of reported depression incidents. An estimated 121 million people around the world currently suffer from some form of depression. It is calculated that one in every ten Americans encounter depression at least once in their lives. As these unhappy stats indicate, the modern life has contributed more to stress than to well-being.

No depression phase passes on without leaving its imprints on your body and mind. Consequences of depression range from sleeplessness to increased chances of cardiac arrest, stroke and suicidal tendency. Sometimes, depression is the aftereffect of a specific event – the death of a relative, or losing your job, for instance. However, depression can also happen without any particular trigger. In either cases, it is important to realize that what the victim undergoes in not ’just sadness’ but clinical depression.

Recognizing Depression: Symptoms and Warnings

In order to recognize depression, you may ask yourself the following questions:

* Do you feel helpless and lost most of the time?
* Have you lost interest in what happens around you?
* Have you noticed a sudden change in your appetite, weight or sleep pattern?
* Do you feel uncontrollable anger or tiredness?
* Do you hate yourself at times?

If your response to most of these questions is yes, you may suspect that you might have clinical depression. If you are still doubtful, you can take the advise of a physician.

Clinical Depression: Martial Arts as a Cure
Many experts agree that physical activity can help people with depression. Often, engaging physical activities like martial arts gives you a sense of control and decisiveness that you can surpass the obstacles in your life. With this psychology at work, martial arts can help you to overcome depression. Even if your doctor suggests medication, martial arts can go hand in hand with the treatment because it adds to the healing process.

Here is how martial arts come to your aid against depression:

* Life skills: Martial arts teaches you many lessons about life. You can develop the ability to deal with the problems of life through martial arts.

* Being happy: Martial arts quicken the healing process by teaching you how to recover and be happy. Studies show that martial arts have been instrumental for many people in recovering from the trauma of abuse, dysfunctional families and eating disorders.

* Self-confidence: The sense of achievement that you gain from martial arts is unmatched. It is not just for health and fitness - it imparts the ethics, self-awareness and mental strength to be confident.

* Discipline: Discipline, in the context of martial arts, means that it tempers excessive emotions and helps you to restrain yourself. If you want to get out of depression, you need to learn to control emotions.

* Strength: Martial arts also makes you stronger – both in your body and mind. This enables you to face the problems of life effectively.

Martial Arts at Bruce McCorry’s Martial Arts Academy
The ultimate aim of anything that we do is to live with insight and be happy. The martial art lessons at Bruce McCorry’s Academy (Peabody, MA) is a constructive program that helps you to equip yourself for the difficulties in your life. Martial arts at Bruce McCorry’s has helped many to recover and come back to life from states of depression and stress. At Bruce McCorry’s you can experience martial arts with insight and live a longer, happier life.