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A new study looks at how exercise can help alleviate anxiety and depression

greatergood.berkeley.edu

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Re: A new study looks at how exercise can help alleviate anxiety and depression

#101

Post by c0nsumer »

hinkley wrote: post #54
hisnameisjimmy wrote: post #3

A key unlock for me was doing exercise where at some point I was trying so hard and breathing so aggressively that I couldn't really think anymore, I could only focus on the task at hand. For me, that's been biking up steep hills. I like biking because I get to see a bunch of cool stuff and if I go up hills I get a dope view. I joke that doing these rides feels like I'm re-boring my arteries because my heart pumps so…

When I was trying to integrate a definition of “flow” that covered my many experiences, it wasn’t biking up hills per se, it was those moments where bad shit almost happened and I saw a way through and just did it. Riding through gravel, loose dogs, when the “fast guy” tried to drop the pack and found me on his wheel. I think I agree with you that these experiences are pivotal, because they are moments when you just…

This is what mountain biking does for me. It's not hard, and it's pretty safe, but maintaining decent speed while navigating trails... it's a flow state.

Heck, a week ago I did a 100 mile MTB race, with the goal of finishing and being happy. While bits and pieces are there, some chatting with folks and things I saw along the trail, but I honestly do not remember most of the ~9 hours I was riding. It was just a thing I was doing, disconnected from most of the rest of the world, and content doing it.

(Note, I'm talking about XC/cross-country mountain biking, and to some extent trail biking. NOT the big downhill/jump/whatever stuff that comes up most often in media when sees mountain biking. It's still quite exciting, but far safer because it's really just riding bikes on hiking-ish trails.)

Re: A new study looks at how exercise can help alleviate anxiety and depression

#102

Post by jahewson »

mudita wrote: post #37
hinkley wrote: post #2

I don’t know if this has changed for younger generations, but a lot of people, particularly those in intellectual pursuits, suffer to one degree or another from thinking of themselves as a brain being carried around as a meat sack. We are learning more about mind body connections and this is very not true (the ways the vagus nerve can totally fuck with your mental state is terrifying, and there are people with dysfun…

The thing that made me transition from a mindset of “I have a body” to “I am a body”, was actually Zen meditation. This was surprising to me. Before I tried it, I thought of meditation as a purely mental thing, I didn’t expect that the first really noticeable effect of regular meditation would be a changed relationship to my body, Much later I discovered contemporary dance, quit my phd in machine learning and became…

Wow! Good for you.

Re: A new study looks at how exercise can help alleviate anxiety and depression

#103

Post by c0nsumer »

hinkley wrote: post #77
wakefulsales wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

stronger than diminishing returns - negative returns Depression Four reviews42 44 57 58 presented analyses by weekly session duration (68 component RCTs, >5016 participants, online supplemental eFigure 12). The median SMD for ≤150 min/week and >150 min/week was –0.58 (IQR=–0.77 to –0.30) and –0.29 (IQR=–0.40 to –0.07), respectively. Anxiety One review58 provided analyses by weekly session duration (17 component RCTs,…

I am inclined to agree with them. Things really started looking up for me when I was doing about 90 minutes of one exercise and 2-3 hours a week of a second. I definitely got the impression that this was working better than when I rode 15-25 hours a week, and there were definite diminishing returns with walking for distance. Not unlike how the first few bites of a candy bar are most of your experience and then at the…

15-25 hours a week? What the heck were you doing? The cumulative fatigue had to be insane, and if you were chasing a goal, it'd be easy for that to get in your head.

For me I find ~3 hours a week are what I need to feel good. As things ramp up (like they tend to in the summer) I tend to need those big rides, but if I do have to back off (say, winter) then as long as I don't go below an hour every other day, I'm good.

Re: A new study looks at how exercise can help alleviate anxiety and depression

#105

Post by mlyle »

formerly_proven wrote: post #8

Any exercise is much much better than sitting around for hours researching and reading articles about which exercise would be best. According to reader mode this article is about 10 minutes long so instead of reading it, go for a walk.

> Any exercise is much much better than sitting around for hours researching and reading articles about which exercise would be best.

This is true if you're going to exercise once. On the other hand, finding an exercise that's good for you and that you can keep with might be worth investing some time, because you can use this knowledge for years. Even a 10 hour research project is only .75 minutes per workout when amortized over 2 years of 4x per week workouts.

Re: A new study looks at how exercise can help alleviate anxiety and depression

#106

Post by NovaDudely »

mudita wrote: post #37
hinkley wrote: post #2

I don’t know if this has changed for younger generations, but a lot of people, particularly those in intellectual pursuits, suffer to one degree or another from thinking of themselves as a brain being carried around as a meat sack. We are learning more about mind body connections and this is very not true (the ways the vagus nerve can totally fuck with your mental state is terrifying, and there are people with dysfun…

The thing that made me transition from a mindset of “I have a body” to “I am a body”, was actually Zen meditation. This was surprising to me. Before I tried it, I thought of meditation as a purely mental thing, I didn’t expect that the first really noticeable effect of regular meditation would be a changed relationship to my body, Much later I discovered contemporary dance, quit my phd in machine learning and became…

"The thing that made me transition from a mindset of “I have a body” to “I am a body”, was actually Zen meditation."

Checks username... yeah that checks out. ;)

Something that struck me years ago was in the documentary about Philip Glass - Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts. He did a weekly physical class that is meant to tie mind and body together (I forgot the name, I watched this like 15 years ago). As he said he did it for like 5 years and felt like he got nothing out of it but did it regardless, until one day it just all synced up and he 'got it'.

A similar thing happen with me over the years, the more I got out and moving, the less I found myself involved in the realms of high intellect. Not in an 'ignorance is bliss' kind of way, but not identifying with it as much. It went from "why dance, lift, walk etc - it achieves nothing" to, that is it. It is the flow of the world. It doesn't achieve anything because it doesn't have to, it is a happening, like all life and the universe itself is but an happening. I have had a very similar experience to you with these conferences, it just feels kind of dead in a way, or more you can sense the lack of potential.

That disconnect between the bring and the body is something I have seen many times with those that partake in Buddhism and its many flavors. It was Ajahn Brahm said when he was in university and beginning his path, that one day he was talking with other students and professors and suddenly realized that he did not want to be like these people and that the same path as them, to be a brain and nothing more. He is now a Theravada Buddhist in Western Australia.

Re: A new study looks at how exercise can help alleviate anxiety and depression

#107

Post by jcpsimmons »

sgtcodeboy wrote: post #21

Certainly can't speak for everyone, but the most effective form of exercise that I have found is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Couple of reasons. First: The deeper you get into it the more you learn its primarily an intellectual pursuit - its just hidden in a very physical endeavor. When I'm doing Jiu Jitsu, I have to actively think, engage my problem solving skills, I can't go on auto pilot as I do in other things - rowing m…

This seems to be all the rage right now but there is a significant risk of CTE with BJJ. Concussions are normalized to an alarming degree among all BJJ practitioners I’ve spoken with.

Re: A new study looks at how exercise can help alleviate anxiety and depression

#109

Post by haswell »

joker_minmax wrote: post #70
haswell wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people feel like “they” are somewhere inside their head. They look out at the world through eyes that are windows. The world is out there, “I” am in here. In this undefined black hole of “me”, mysterious, but definitely separate from the world and what’s “out there” past one’s eyes. They feel like their bodies are just the mechanical thing that carries them around. They don’t think of the systemic impact of…

From my perspective, the belief that the soul and the body are totally separate and that the body is lesser is not actually a Christian belief, but rather a Gnostic one. Unfortunately a lot of the Christianity of America has a twinge of Gnosticism present. The "C.S. Lewis" quote that gets thrown around, "You don't have a soul; you are a soul. You have a body," was never actually said by C.S. Lewis. I actually got a b…

Whatever its origins, it’s what the baptists who raised me believed, and it was a view of self and body that was prevalent in the Christian circles of my childhood.

And to your point, it has permeated Christianity more broadly, and arguably western thinking even broader still. I left the church in my teens. My conception of self didn’t shift until decades later after many years of intentional deconstruction. It’s a powerful illusion.

Re: A new study looks at how exercise can help alleviate anxiety and depression

#110

Post by NovaDudely »

haswell wrote: post #39
jalino23 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t get it. what do you mean by “ brain being carried around as a meat sack”? >> Any exercise where you think about your body as “you” what does it mean to think of my body as me? and can you provide examples of these exercises? thank you!

A lot of people feel like “they” are somewhere inside their head. They look out at the world through eyes that are windows. The world is out there, “I” am in here. In this undefined black hole of “me”, mysterious, but definitely separate from the world and what’s “out there” past one’s eyes. They feel like their bodies are just the mechanical thing that carries them around. They don’t think of the systemic impact of…

One really cool question for people is, where do you feel 'you' are - where the core of you are physically. For many people 'you' is like a tension point in your head just behind the eyes.

For me it is more in the middle of my chest. This is considered odd in the western world but it is not unheard of. I am not my mind, I am not my ego, I am but a wave in the universe, it comes - it goes it will pass - enjoy it for a while.

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