In the story “10 Days in a Mad House” we see the unfair treatment and use of confinement on women in insane asylums. Researchers claim that outdoor exposure and exercise can affect the patient or prisoner in a positive way. I agree with this claim.. Prisoners of whatever it may be, such as penitentiaries or in this case mental asylums, should have the right to a social environment and exercise to help better their current state of mind. 

The effects of solitary confinement can be utterly brutal. In the early 20th century, also the time that this story was written, patients would be “thrown in the hole” or locked up all alone for days to weeks at a time. Not only does this have an effect on one’s physical conditions, but also their mental conditions. Researchers found that in prisons, which were very similar (conditions wise) to mental asylums, that “…Prisoners showed various psychological disorders after being confined like this” (Alone, in “the hole” Par. 12) which means that being put in these types of conditions only left them worse off than how they started. It can cause social anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses. 

The use of confinement causes a very negative effect on the prisoner. So in order to prevent this, the use of exercise and social tactics is used. Exercise has so many positive outcomes on our body. Most people only think about the physical changes and benefits to exercise, which it is true there are many, but what most people don’t think about is all the mental health benefits that come with exercise. It “reduces immune system chemicals that can worsen depression and increase body temperature, which can calm down a person in an anxious or uncomfortable state.” (Depression and Anxiety: Exercise eases symptoms) which would clearly be helpful to mental health patients that experience a great deal of mental breakdowns and or anxiety attacks. This is why current mental patients who suffer with depression and anxiety are recommended to participate in physical activity. For example, Jennifer Carter, PhD, suggests her “patients to walk as they talk to her” (The Exercise Effect) to help patients feel more relaxed and be able to open up more to her.

A lot of times when people are having a bad day or a long day at work, they usually spend a couple of hours at the gym to relieve themselves of stress or “blow off some steam”. This is because when you exercise, your body release serotonin, which is its own natural anti-depressant.

 In “10 Days in a Madhouse” Nellie Bly explains how everything outside of the building and grounds was so beautiful, but once you enter the asylum it became cold and lonely. You don’t have to suffer from the effects of confinement just by being locked up in a room by yourself. Nellie talks about the asylum describing it as “… a bare room, with bare yellow benches encircling it… they would hold five people, almost in every instance six were crowded…barred windows and bare white walls.” All of these things are enough to make someone go mad. Some of these women were in fact mentally ill, but a lot of these women were brought because they didn’t meet the female standard according to their husbands, fathers, or brothers. So with that being said, these women that were coming in perfectly healthy and were driven mad by their own surroundings. Everybody has had a dream that could easily be argued as a nightmare, of being in an all-white existence all alone and with nothing around you. It is one that you wake up sweating to. So imagine how these patients felt. Day after day they are locked up doing the same routine, in the same place, eating the foods, looking at the same people. With the knowledge we have today it is easily understandable as to how these women became so distraught and unhappy in the situations they were put in.

It is clear to anyone that active people usually tend to live a happier life. Why wouldn’t they incorporate this into the treatment of people who are suffering with a constant dissatisfaction of life and everything around them! Although psychologists and researchers have much more research and studies to conduct in this area of mental health, it is obvious that there is a positive correlation between exercise and a happier and more effective state of mind in people tormented by their mental health issues.