Dance first, think later

The number-one most-read article at the moment in the Finnish Medical Journal (Lääkärilehti) is a new column by NeuWrite Nordic board member Jussi Valtonen, award-winning novelist and a researcher in psychology at the University of Helsinki. Valtonen poses some very pointed questions for the medical establishment as he considers the results of a recent meta-analysis published in the British Medical Journal. The meta-analysis indicates that among treatments for depression, the huge resources put into therapy and medication might be much more effectively reallocated, with the focus instead put on simple exercise. Valtonen writes:

I often wonder if I am naive when I think that scientific evidence is worth listening to. We like to call lay people anti-science who don't bow to our articles of faith. What if we ourselves were to think otherwise?

By far the most effective way to beat depression, according to the analysis, turns out to be ... dance. Valtonen concludes:

Perhaps we should, as Beckett's play suggests, dance first and think later?

Valtonen's article is available in Finnish here and English machine translation here.

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