Multiple sclerosis (MS) patient advocate Dominic Shadbolt, of the U.K., was diagnosed with MS in 1994. Leaning on three decades of experience, he shares what strategy, aside from treatments, has made his disease management more effective.

Kind of by accident I found this out: All the research, if you look at it, on things like [exercise and] diet, has been pretty poor until about four or five years ago. But exercise, I was always an active person. I did things before MS. I think it’s a lot harder if you weren’t active and then you’re thinking, gosh, I need to get active. But in my case, I cycled. I mean, you know, I’ve had MS 31 years but yesterday I did a 20-mile bike ride.

For me, that’s a big step down. But for some people, I don’t know. But I feel better after it. I don’t feel destroyed. It hasn’t ruined my MS. And it’s not a one-off. You’ve got to just be active. Because I think it’s a case you use it or lose it to a certain extent. And if I’m fortunate enough to be able to use it, and I know not everybody can, then I’m going to use it as much as I can until I can’t.

And that has had a mental health effects: Exercise really helps your mental health doing stuff like that. It’s been proven. It’s not solely my theory. And so it’s kind of by accident that — I’m going to say — “discovered it.” I’d always done it but if somebody wasn’t active, I’d say, look, I know that it’s really hard, but you really owe it to yourself.