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What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

theguardian.com

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Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#71

Post by legulere »

xj9 wrote: post #69
pjc50 wrote: post #64

Just to avoid confusion, not all clinical depression is fully treatable by exercise; I've known several people who were severely depressed while also being non-car-owning regular cyclists. Sometimes antidepressants are required. Sometimes therapy is required. Please avoid turning this into "why don't you just exercise".

"why don't you exercise?" is always a valid question tho; unless you are physically incapable of doing so, you should, and you're unquestionably damaging your health if you don't.

Being depressed might prevent you from exercising.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#73

Post by throwaway0255 »

pjc50 wrote: post #64

Just to avoid confusion, not all clinical depression is fully treatable by exercise; I've known several people who were severely depressed while also being non-car-owning regular cyclists. Sometimes antidepressants are required. Sometimes therapy is required. Please avoid turning this into "why don't you just exercise".

You can see this if you just look at the last few hundred years of human history. Humans used to have to engage in hours of labor every day just to survive. If the sun was up you were exercising. Were they so much happier and healthier?

There are people in the world who still have to do that labor. They're not happier or healthier or longer-lived than the western world. In fact, the overall high-level trend appears to be that happiness is correlated with being sedentary.

Correlation doesn't mean causation of course, but as long as articles like this one are going to imply that it does, I might as well point out that I can make the exact same argument in the opposite direction.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#74

Post by pnutjam »

WalterBright wrote: post #54
randallsquared wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm willing to grant that this must be true for some people. However, I don't think it's true for everyone, or maybe even most people. In the early 90s I was in the US Army for a couple years, and exercise never got better: it was always a struggle: boring, painful, and stressful. I suppose one good thing about it was that it was very rare that anything worse happened to me later in the day... :) Looking around at th…

I've never been able to reach a point where weight training is anything but boring and painful. The trouble is it requires mental focus, and I cannot think about other things while lifting. I try to mitigate the boredom by watching a movie while doing it.

I listen to headphones, music, podcasts, ebooks. I find it a very stimulating time and I feel better about it at a gym, even though I don't socialize much.

Just seeing the same people every day makes me feel like a community member and helps me stay motivated and connected.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#75

Post by seizethecheese »

purplethinking wrote: post #72
seizethecheese wrote: post #58

For those still unconvinced, I'll add another anecdote to this thread. Morning exercise completely cured my intractable insomnia.

Morning exercise specifically? How about lunch?

Lunch works too, but the earlier and the harder the better.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#76

Post by tomjen3 »

jedrek wrote: post #21

I think it's amazing the way we've completely sidelined physical activity - not exercise per se, but any physical activity - in our western lives. Unless you live without a car, there is no requirement for you to walk more than 1000 steps during the day. Wake up, drive to work, sit at your desk, drive to a restaurant for dinner, drive home, plop down on your couch. Rinse, repeat. Even if you do decide to work out, it…

I wear a fitbit. Tuesday I was home sick from work, and all I did was move a little bit to grap a soda, use the bathroom, etc. Even so I went over 1k steps.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#77

Post by oligopoly »

jdc wrote: post #44
dennis_jeeves wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exercise is probably over rated is my opinion. Moderate activity like not being a couch potato, and walking around is probably good enough for most people rather than vigorous exercise. Also correlation is confused with causation. The person who is is not active is not necessarily lazy. It the the probably obesity and ill health that makes him/her inactive. Personally I'm on a ketogenic ( about 60 %to 90% calories fr…

Would you say it's just a matter of calories in minus calories out?

What's crucial is how it raises your insulin level. So No.

Start by eating homemade food and don't eat take-out or processed foods. Avoid Snacking.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#78

Post by DanBC »

dyarosla wrote: post #43
throwaway0255 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the same track as you, I've lost about 80lbs so far and I've done zero exercise. I've found that when I tell people this, they worry about my health even more than they did when I was 80lbs heavier. It's bizarre. Never mind the fact that my blood pressure is now a pristine 110 over 70, all my pre-diabetic symptoms have disappeared, my sleep apnea is cured, my gastroesophageal reflux disease is completely gone,…

Just wanted to point out- 350 cal/hour is inaccurately low for even light exercise, and exceptionally low if you are overweight. Properly doing exercise and keeping at it won't result in joint pains or aches, and may also uplift your mood due to endorphins+more. IMO your reasoning for avoiding exercise should be revisited.

> and may also uplift your mood due to endorphins+more.

there's very little evidence for this, other than a very short lasting boost.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#79

Post by DanBC »

hellofunk wrote: post #48
throwaway0255 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the same track as you, I've lost about 80lbs so far and I've done zero exercise. I've found that when I tell people this, they worry about my health even more than they did when I was 80lbs heavier. It's bizarre. Never mind the fact that my blood pressure is now a pristine 110 over 70, all my pre-diabetic symptoms have disappeared, my sleep apnea is cured, my gastroesophageal reflux disease is completely gone,…

> I want to start doing some physical activities soon, but that's not going to cause me to be less depressed How do you know? I think you are being unfair to yourself to so easily dismiss what exercise can do for your moods. When I'm feeling down, getting my heart rate up for 45 minutes totally turns around the day. I don't know the exact reason, maybe all the rapid blood flow or found energy, whatever it is, it is n…

> How do you know?

Because researchers keep failing to find evidence of effectiveness.

Re: What's the ultimate way to defy depression, disease and early death? Exercise

#80

Post by szemet »

throwaway0255 wrote: post #67
szemet wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=male+80+kg+1+hour+runn... = 1050 calories

15 years of being very overweight and trying to lose weight through exercise = 1050 calories/hour only if I exercise at a level of intensity that risks injury and causes me to be practically bedridden for a week even without injury. Your calculation is for a person who weighs 80kg, which is someone who doesn't need to lose any weight. People who have a lot of weight to lose aren't capable of running for an hour.

Ok, but if you plan to do something(not just excercise) regularly, maybe it is better not to calculate with the initial costs/benefits but with the long term averages...

There are plenty of activities in life that initially only have costs and zero benfits - excercise at least consumes calories from day 1...

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