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, which makes complete sense. Prisoners of facilities 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 Bly wrote this story, patients would be “thrown in the hole”(Daily News, “The hellish cruelty of being thrown in “the hole”) or locked up all alone for days to weeks at a time. Not only does this influence 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 when 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, to prevent this, the use of exercise and social tactics are applied. Exercise has so many positive outcomes on our body. Most people only think about the physical changes and benefits to exercise because there are so 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. Therefore, 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 relax more and get the feeling that they can 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 their stress or help take their minds of certain situations. 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.” These things are enough to make someone go mad. Some of these women were in fact mentally ill, but a majority were brought because they didn’t meet the female standard according to their husbands, fathers, or brothers. To sum things up, women who were coming in perfectly healthy ended up being driven mad because of the environment that they were put in. it is easily assumed that most people have had the same particular “nightmare” before. It may have varied from person to person, but it still has the same concept. It’s the nightmare of being in an all-white existence, all alone, 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. If a patient could be around people, they were already at an advantage mentally. It was helpful to them to be able to talk with other patients, especially if they both felt that their mental health was far too good to be locked up in an asylum. It was almost a coping mechanism. With the knowledge we have today, we know have a better understanding as to why these women became so distraught and unhappy due to the situations they were put in.

Research has proven that one of the benefits of an active lifestyle, is a happier lifestyle. 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.