As a trainer and fitness coach at a large health club in Atl, one of my specialties is working with clients with depression, a specialty that i didn't choose, but chose me in 1998.

I have found that exercise and nutrition are amazingly helpful in controlling my own and my clients' symptoms, but there is a line between enough and too much.

Persons with depression need to effectively manage their training schedule and avoid overtrainining. The stress/recovery cycle is even more crucial to the depressed person, to maintain proper serotonin and cortisol levels in the body. Depressed persons are more sensitive to diet than non-depressed as well.

As the body tolerates higher volumes/intensities of training, the depression symptoms abate, which seems to be because of an increased stress hardiness and sense of self-mastery.

And interestingly, benefits have been found with my clients regardless of the mode of exercise. Strength training has helped my clients equally as endurance training, though likely for different reasons. It seems that regular movement of the body is the most important thing, the mode isn't ultimately the most important factor.

My top ten tips for managing depression:

1. Get moving today. Do not allow your body to remain motionless for very long, even if it means simply getting up and walking to the mailbox and back. The more the better.

2. Do not isolate yourself. Depression is much higher among those with limited social interaction. Talk therapy is an essential start, but you need to be around people and not stuck in a dark corner of your house.

3. Sleep, but don't sleep too much. Go to bed at the same time and rise at the same time each day.

4. Get some sunshine, as much as you can reasonably, especially in the winter.

5. Watch your carbohydrate intake, and pay even more attention to getting your carbs through non-grain sources such as fruit, beans and veggies.

6. Take a quality mulitvitamin every day, and fish oil for brain health.

7. Do not spend all your time with other depressed people. Sharing and learning is fine, but some people cling to their depression and never get healthy, and you need to be around healthy people too.

8. Memorize the serenity prayer. Say it to yourself as many times as you need to, every day, until it is part of your mental tapestry.

9. Laugh. A lot. Even if you have nothing to laugh at, practice a giggle or two anyway periodically to stimulate positive hormones (careful of where/when so they don't haul you off to the looney bin!) Find as many opportunities to make yourself laugh as you can!

10. Perhaps my favorite and most effective tip: Create GOALS for yourself that are challenging, but doable. They can be completing a triathlon/marathon, building a garden, or volunteering for a Special Olympics event in your community. Have some goals that are selfish and all about YOU, but also set goals that are about OTHERS, that put you outside of yourself. Even better, goals that that put you as part of something bigger than yourself and makes you part of something positive and world-changing can be very powerful and perspective-changing.

I do so enjoy arising early on Sunday morning....Cheers::

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"Whether you believe you can or you can't, you are right."