One 10-Minute Exercise Can Reduce Depression, Even a Month Later

A thoughtfully designed 10-minute online exercise can prompt modest reductions in depression.

That is the central result of a paper my colleagues and I published in Nature Human Behaviour.

A common assumption is that beginning to recover from depression requires a therapist, medication, or a dramatic shift in one’s surroundings. Our findings suggest something more immediately accessible: taking small, practical steps to learn usable skills can produce measurable improvements in depressive symptoms.

How we tested 12 single-session interventions for depression

In 2024, my team and I went on social media with a challenge for the mental health community: if you had the chance to hold the attention of 500 people experiencing depression for only 10 minutes, what would you do with that time?

We received 66 submissions from across the world, sent in by a wide mix of contributors-scientists, mental health app developers, well-known YouTubers, and students.

From these, we selected what we judged to be the 12 most promising ideas and turned them into interventions that we could build and evaluate properly, in one of the largest randomised controlled trials of mental health interventions ever carried out.

These 12 single-session interventions varied considerably. Some adapted evidence-informed techniques originally developed for face-to-face psychotherapy, while others were completely new.

One intervention used a generative artificial intelligence-based expressive writing exercise. Another reframed an inspirational Thai Life Insurance ad to illustrate how small acts of helping others can increase a sense of meaning in everyday life. Each programme was fully self-guided and took under 10 minutes to complete.

Trial design and results: Interactive Cognitive Reappraisal and Finding Focus

For the study, we randomly allocated 7,505 adults in the United States to complete either one of the 12 single-session interventions or a control condition in which they learned about trout.

Participants answered questions about their wellbeing immediately after finishing the intervention (or control activity) and again one month later. Each person completed their assigned activity only once.

Straight after completion, nearly every intervention left people feeling more hopeful and more motivated to make positive changes. However, at the one-month follow-up, only two programmes-Interactive Cognitive Reappraisal and Finding Focus-produced meaningful reductions in depression.

On average, the month-long improvements were modest: roughly a 4% greater reduction on a standard depression measure for the two strongest exercises compared with the control condition. Even so, small average effects can matter, particularly because these tools are free, brief, and therefore unusually capable of reaching people at a global scale.

It is also worth keeping expectations realistic. A short, self-guided exercise is not designed to resolve every cause of depression on its own, and different people will respond to different approaches. Where possible, these resources are best seen as a practical first step-especially for those who cannot access longer-term support straight away.

Another important consideration is implementation. Because these interventions are delivered online, issues such as accessibility, digital literacy, and privacy can influence who benefits most. Designing brief programmes that are inclusive, secure, and easy to use is crucial if they are to help the people who face the greatest barriers to care.

Why it matters

Depression places a serious burden on the 332 million people it affects worldwide each year. Although evidence-based options such as psychotherapy can be effective, ongoing professional care is out of reach for many because of obstacles including limited access, cost, and stigma.

Our work is the first to show that single-session interventions can deliver month-long reductions in depression in adults.

Our aim in studying single-session interventions is straightforward: if we can distil key elements of effective psychological treatments into short, user-friendly formats, far more people will be able to access science-backed support at the moment they need it.

The intention is not to replace therapists or psychiatrists. Rather, it is to provide a dependable option for people who might otherwise receive no support at all. These single-session interventions can also complement traditional care-for example, offering support to people who are on a waiting list to see a therapist.

What’s next

Now that we have identified effective single-session interventions for overcoming depression, our main priority is to make sure people know that these evidence-based, brief mental health resources exist online and are available free of charge.

For instance, Koko-the group behind the most impactful intervention in our study-has produced free five- to 10-minute interventions for a range of mental health difficulties.

You can also try all 12 of the single-session interventions we evaluated. Our published paper provides additional detail on the effectiveness of each one.

My team is continuing to investigate single-session interventions and how best to implement them in different settings, including social media, schools, and therapy waiting lists. Our collaborators are also examining how AI might make single-session interventions more engaging and better tailored to individuals’ needs.

For many people, depression can make it feel impossible to regain control of thoughts and emotions. This study indicates that spending just 10 minutes learning evidence-based skills can be a useful first step towards longer-term improvement.

Benjamin Kaveladze, Postdoctoral Fellow in Mental Health Resources, Dartmouth College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.