Saudi Gazette
BY: ASMAA ALSAYED JEDDAH -- More than 20 people took part in a 42.49 km-marathon at the Waterfront here, with the event beginning at 6 p.m. and ending at 12 a.m. "One of the best marathons for the atmosphere and support. It was tough because of the humidity but Asmaa Alsayed, Mohammed AlSanea, Abdulaziz Ismael, and Ahmed Nasser, made it easy and fun," said Nick Butter as he finished his 168th marathon around the world. Nick Butter, an ultra runner, endurance athlete, adventurer and charity fundraiser, who started in 2018 and will be running a marathon in every country in the world. There are currently 196 official countries. He started in London, UK, and made his way around the globe, documenting everything from race prep, the people he meets, and the incredible culture he experiences. He will set a world record for the fastest time to run a marathon sovereign states on earth. He will also link up with other runners all over the world to form a global community. His goal is to raise £250,000 (pounds) and loads of awareness for prostate cancer and inspire young people to live their dream and make a difference. He believes that we all have a chance to leave the world better than we found it, and this is his way of making a mark. The even was supported by Asmaa Alsayed, an English trainer in Jeddah and a member of Jeddah Running Community, Abdulaziz and Ahmed Nasser and Mohammed AlSanea, the founder of Jeddah Runners, who provided financial and logistical support. — SG
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Jeddah Runners is a non-profit running club for all abilities in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. We practice for a healthier lifestyle, and we believe that running connects us all to exercise, socialise and share the same spirit. Jeddah Runners is an egalitarian sports club that is literally for everyone: young and old, male and female, runners and walkers, professionals and hobbyists. There is never a boundary or limit for promoting your own health.
The running club founder, Mohammed AlSanea, is actually a swimmer who runs a lot. He is a medical student at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah. Sports has been an essential part of Mohammed’s life since childhood and thus he considers it an important element for the integrity of one’s overall wellbeing. His love for sports began when he started practicing swimming at 10 years old. Mohammed then joined the Seahawks Swim Team and showed his vital participation in regional and international swim meets and competitions. Mohammed Alsanea is now a professional swimmer and a member of King Abdulaziz’s University National Swim Team. He occasionally does some other kinds of sports, but his focus is primarily on swimming and running. Jeddah Runners Club has 12 organisers with different roles who represent the committee of the club. The committee members meet up with the public and exercise all together once, twice or thrice every week. The group usually tends to do a 5 to 8 kilometers run which takes about 45 minutes to one hour; however, Some of the runners take the extended route to finish a 10 to 12 kilometers run. Sometimes, the group gathers to share drinks and snacks after the run. The club also arranges a variety of other sports events and outdoor activities. Health is a holistic approach to life. Rather than focusing on illness or specific parts of the body, this ancient approach considers the whole person and how he or she interacts with his or her environment. Holistic health emphasises the connection of the mind, body, and soul. The lifestyle of the Saudi community is a big health challenge. Studies have approved that there is a high percentage of association between major health problems and the sedentary way of living in the Saudi community. It is also quite important to mention that it is a preventable major cause of death. According to the World Health Organization, Saudi Arabia ranks 14 on the Prevalence of Obesity 2016 list with a percentage of 35.4.3% of Saudi citizens being overweight (BMI>25). Two important aims of Jeddah Runners Club is to take action in solving such a major health conflict by making individuals of the community engaged in physical activity and to clarify the correlation between sports and academics by making a research study based on data from the club members and the Saudi community. To read more about the research, please click here. We believe that we have a responsibility to everyone in our community. We need to encourage them to adopt lifestyles that will promote their health and help them avoid health problems in the future. This aspect of our club – promoting health – is considered central to health care. Health promotion isn’t about lecturing or hectoring, or about pushing people into making huge changes in their lives. It’s about working with the individuals in partnership towards making agreed changes, and taking things one small step at a time. The club has made more than 1400 people run or walk on regular basis since it officially started in 2017. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Is this feeling of euphoria the real deal? More importantly, is it enough to get you across the finish line?
With endorphins largely out of the picture, researchers have looked at other types of neurotransmitters that might have a role in affecting a person's mood. "Norepinephrine secretion, dopamine, and serotonin have all been shown to help to reduce depression," says Bryant. "These neurotransmitters also tend to be released and produced in higher concentrations during exercise, so people think that it may be some of these other biochemical substances, aside from the endorphins, that might be responsible for this effect." Another theory that is tossed around in attempting to define runner's high relates to body temperature. "Some people think it just might be the elevation in body temperature that is associated with these longer- duration activities, and it may be through the hypothalamus, which is closely linked to temperature regulation mechanisms," says Bryant. "The theory is that the increase in body temperature might in some way indirectly affect mood." More High, Less Low While runner's high might be more short-term, it's well-known that regular exercise also offers long-term benefits, on both the mind and the body. "On average, you tend to see people who are runners and habitual exercisers having better moods, suffering from less depression and less anxiety, and more general feelings of well-being," says Bryant. "For people who are physically active on a regular basis, they have active relaxation - kind of by moving the body and focusing on the sensation of moving your body and getting into the rhythmic activity and motion, it produces this relaxation response, and that I think contributes significantly to the feelings of psychological well-being." While marathon running can take its toll on the body, it does offer significant benefits as well. "Clearly, there are many health benefits of running at this level," says Rick Hall, MS, a registered dietitian and advisory board member of the Arizona Governor's Council on Health, Physical Fitness, and Sports. "A smart marathon runner has put in many hours of training for many weeks or months, before the event, and the health benefits of sustained aerobic exercise are well documented: improved circulation, reduced body fat, lowered blood cholesterol, and better self-esteem." "Wessab Campaign focuses on promoting the importance of mental health and changing its presumed stereotype in the Saudi culture as everyone in the community deserves the absolute right to have a psychological consultation once needed and feel unabashed about it at the same time." In this era of exponential growth of the “metabolic syndrome” and obesity, lifestyle modifications could be a cost-effective way to improve health and quality of life. Lifestyle modifications can assume especially great importance in individuals with serious mental illness. Many of these individuals are at a high risk of chronic diseases associated with sedentary behavior and medication side effects, including diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and cardiovascular disease.1 An essential component of lifestyle modification is exercise. The importance of exercise is not adequately understood or appreciated by patients and mental health professionals alike. Evidence has suggested that exercise may be an often- neglected intervention in mental health care.2
Aerobic exercises, including jogging, swimming, cycling, walking, gardening, and dancing, have been proved to reduce anxiety and depression.3 These improvements in mood are proposed to be caused by exercise-induced increase in blood circulation to the brain and by an influence on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and, thus, on the physiologic reactivity to stress.3 This physiologic influence is probably mediated by the communication of the HPA axis with several regions of the brain, including the limbic system, which controls motivation and mood; the amygdala, which generates fear in response to stress; and the hippocampus, which plays an important part in memory formation as well as in mood and motivation. Other hypotheses that have been proposed to explain the beneficial effects of physical activity on mental health include distraction, self-efficacy, and social inter- action.4 While structured group programs can be effective for individuals with serious mental illness, lifestyle changes that focus on the accumulation and increase of moderate-intensity activity throughout the day may be the most appropriate for most patients.1 Interestingly, adherence to physical activity interventions in psychiatric patients appears to be comparable to that in the general population. Exercise improves mental health by reducing anxiety, depression, and negative mood and by improving self-esteem and cognitive function.2 Exercise has also been found to alleviate symptoms such as low self-esteem and social withdrawal.3 Exercise is especially important in patients with schizophrenia since these patients are already vulnerable to obesity and also because of the additional risk of weight gain associated with antipsychotic treatment, especially with the atypical antipsychotics. Patients suffering from schizophrenia who participated in a 3-month physical conditioning program showed improvements in weight control and reported increased fitness levels, exercise tolerance, reduced blood pressure levels, increased perceived energy levels, and increased upper body and hand grip strength levels.5 Thirty minutes of exercise of moderate intensity, such as brisk walking for 3 days a week, is sufficient for these health benefits. Moreover, these 30 minutes need not to be continuous; three 10-minute walks are believed to be as equally useful as one 30-minute walk. Health benefits from regular exercise that should be emphasized and reinforced by every mental health professional to their patients include the following:
REFERENCES 1. Richardson CR, Faulkner G, McDevitt J, et al. Integrating physical activity into mental health services for persons with serious mental illness. Psychiatr Serv 2005;56:324–331 2. Callaghan P. Exercise: a neglected intervention in mental health care? J Psychiatr Ment Health Nurs 2004;11:476–483 3. Guszkowska M. Effects of exercise on anxiety, depression and mood [in Polish]. Psychiatr Pol 2004;38:611–620 4. Peluso MA, Andrade LH. Physical activity and mental health: the association between exercise and mood. Clinics 2005;60: 61–70 5. Fogarty M, Happell B, Pinikahana J. The benefits of an exercise program for people with schizophrenia: a pilot study. Psychiatr Rehabil J 2004;28:173–176 Ashish Sharma, M.D. University of Nebraska Medical Center Vishal Madaan, M.D. Creighton University/ University of Nebraska Medical Center Frederick D. Petty, M.D., Ph.D. Omaha VA Medical Center Omaha, Nebraska This leaflet is for anyone who wants to know:
Introduction: Exercise keeps our hearts and bodies healthy. But how? We often talk about the mind and body as though they are completely separate – but they aren't. The mind can’t function unless your body is working properly – but it also works the other way. The state of your mind affects your body. So – if you feel low or anxious, you may do less and become less active – which can make you feel worse. You can get caught in a harmful cycle: Why bother with exercise? To work properly, your body needs regular exercise - and most of us feel good when we are active. Until the last 100 years or so, you had to be quite active to just live your everyday life. Now, in modern Western societies, so much of what we used to do is done by machines. We drive cars, so we walk less, vacuum cleaners make cleaning easy, and washing is done by a machine. At work we may not even have to move around in the office - it’s enough to sit at the computer. It doesn’t help that modern high-energy foods make us put on too much weight – or that, (in the West at least), food has never been cheaper or easier to buy. So how can you start to get more active, day to day? You may be turned off by the word ‘exercise’ because:
What happens if you don’t do very much? Some people can get away with doing very little and live to a ripe old age – but most of us can’t. Broadly speaking, the less you do, the more likely you are to end up with:
If you keep active, you are:
So - don’t worry about not doing enough – get started by building a bit more physical activity into your daily life now. Even a small change can boost your morale, give you a sense of achievement and help you to feel better in yourself. What might work for me? Activity should:
Why does exercise work? We are not yet exactly sure. There are several possibilities:
How much exercise is enough for me?
When should I exercise? As regularly as you can. There will be days when you just don’t feel like exercise – you may feel tired or be too busy or anxious about something. If you keep to your routine and exercise at times like this, you will almost certainly feel better. Why? If you are tired, exercise tends to give you energy. If you are worried, it can take your mind off your concerns for a while. Even if you can’t 'exercise', a 15 minute walk can help you to clear your mind and relax. You may find it helpful to listen to music at the same time. It’s best not to do too much in the evening. Being active will generally help you to sleep but, if you exercise late in the evening, you may find it difficult to settle. Eating and energy levels Caffeine and high energy snacks will boost your energy quickly - but after an hour or so you will probably feel more tired than you did before. A short walk will boost your energy level for much longer. Exercise and Coping If you are active you will probably find it easier to deal with life’s problems and challenges. So - if those problems stop you from regularly exercising, it’s worth remembering that finding time for exercise may well help you to deal with such problems. Exercise can also help you to cope better by improving how you feel about yourself and getting you together with other people. How well does exercise work for depression? For mild depression, physical activity can be as good as antidepressants or psychological treatments like cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). It can certainly be harder to get active when you are depressed. But being active lifts your mood and gives you a sense of being in control and in touch with other people. In some areas in the kingdom, GPs (family doctors) can prescribe exercise. What's the downside? Not much. If you are normally very active, you may get depressed if, for any length of time, you can't exercise because of an injury. If this does happen, you can carry on with exercises using those parts of your body that are not injured. This will help you to keep fit, feel more in control and keep in touch with other people. It can help to set yourself targets – both for the next few days and longer, for the next weeks or months. Some people with eating disorders use exercise to lose too much weight. Some athletes (such as those in weight-related sports like horse racing, boxing and gymnastics) are more likely to develop eating disorders. Physical exercise can cause injuries and some health problems – but you are much more likely to get ill if you don't keep active. If in doubt, ask your doctor. Getting down to it: Any physical activity needs to be something that you can do regularly. But lots of things can stop you, especially if you feel depressed. You may feel that you:
Some things aren't expensive – walking is free and jogging just needs a pair of trainers (cheap ones are fine). If you have a bike already, try cycling to work (or for any regular journey) – you may even save some money.
Whatever you choose to do, start with something easy – like walking round the block. Build your level up gradually, perhaps by just doing a minute or two more – or a few metres more - each day. Try to do something most days, even if you feel tired. Start by working out how much you do already – you can use a pedometer to show you how many steps you take every day. Or you could keep a diary for a few days of how long you spend doing active things. Then set yourself some goals. Make sure they are: S – Specific (clear) M – Measurable – you will know when you’ve achieved them A – Achievable – you can achieve them R – Relevant – they mean something to you T - Time-based – you set yourself a time limit to achieve your goals. They need to be things you can see yourself doing – and take pride in, so you feel good about yourself. You may be able to do it on your own, or with some help from others. Nobody’s perfect. You will have setbacks when you can’t meet a short term goal, or just feel too tired to do anything. Recognise it when it happens, but don’t worry about it. Tomorrow is another day and short term setbacks don’t matter in the bigger picture of your longer-term goals. And, if you need to, do ask someone else to give you a hand. References:
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