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Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

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Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#101

Post by nineteen999 »

Simulacra wrote: post #46

I found this to be contradictory with my mental health period even after losing nearly 100 pounds, and going from zero to walking 8 to 10 miles a day, my mental health did not improve. It felt good to accomplish goals, two life-changing goals, really, but my overall disposition and deep depression did not change. I have no explanation for this.

It may be worth looking into childhood trauma if that's something that may be applicable. I had a similar experience, after losing 35kg over 3 years I felt and looked great on the onsite, even having to overcome back surgery during that period as well, felt like I'd conquerered the world. I thought I'd "done enough work", but as I found out, sometimes there is work to be done on the inside as well.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#102

Post by taeric »

filchermcurr wrote: post #77
taeric wrote: post #63

I would assume that "doing something" is the key here? Successfully doing exercise probably has add on benefits that you can more successfully do other things afterward. But successfully reading a book can help me get out of depression. Successfully cleaning the kitchen. Really, just successfully doing anything is a huge cure against depression.

I'm not sure this is the type of depression being talked about here. It's unfortunate that we have conflated periods of being sad / down with clinical depression. I have no doubt that reading a book or cleaning the kitchen or accomplishing a goal can help with feeling down or general sadness, but clinical depression is a whole separate beast without such easy a fix.

Who said these were "easy" fixes, though? I am emphatically not claiming that "just doing something" will work. Though, fair that what I put there can seem that way.

I am more trying to claim that "just doing something" has an annoying track record of looking like "it" is what worked. I would fully believe that, in reality, the thing that worked was already at play before the success started happening. That is, fully depressed people don't succeed at any of these things.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#103

Post by heavyset_go »

burningChrome wrote: post #73
heavyset_go wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a non-competitive athlete, and yes exercise can help depression, but no, it will not be sufficient for anything but your mild to average case of it. Exercise is a crucial part of dealing with it, but it is not a panacea.

>> I'm a non-competitive athlete Honest question, but what do you mean by this? I've played competitive team sports my whole life and have a very competitive drive. If its not team sports, its rock climbing where I feel like I'm competing against myself or my brain trying to solve a route. If I'm hiking, I'm competing against the clock or how far I can go. If I'm lifting weights, its about how many sets I can do and…

I'm not competing against anyone but myself, I'm not trying to meet any specific weight/size/etc cutoff for competition, the point is exercise and improvement and not any official or unofficial competition.

Someone might train for marathons, body building, etc. I don't.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#104

Post by shevy-java »

This kind of makes sense. Most forms of depression have to do with not wanting to do something or lacking motivation to do so. Whereas in sports, people get busy usually, they do something, even if it may just be soccer playing. Exercise is also usually good for one's physical well-being, blood circulation increases, muscles may improve, pain may go away (depends on the exercise, but usually say, two days after some heavy work out, most people may feel better than before, unless it was some extreme exercise that caused injury).

I don't think this works for all type of depression though.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#105

Post by wombatpm »

stuffn wrote: post #34
PaulHoule wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that depression kills and optimal therapy is: anti-depressants, exercise AND talking therapy and the time to start is NOW. I wouldn't knock the effectiveness of any of them with the caveats that: (1) you can get anti-depressants from you primary care doc, the best practice is to start on something, ramp up your dose and try something different if it is not working or you don't like the sides. I really thoug…

Or avoid medication for anything but treatment resistant depression. SSRIs are not well understood. Their side effects are not great. Getting off them is miserable. I had them. I felt dead inside. Mission accomplished. Depression was gone, so was my desire to eat, have sex, or do anything else. I wasn’t depressed, I was a zombie. 8 adjustments and medications later I got off them and realized they’re yet another pill…

Medication is the fastest way to make some positive progress before you completely spiral and majorly fuck up your life.

Would you rather take a pill and keep working while you sort things out or would you try to rebuild everything after you burn it all down? Talk therapy and exercise may be just as effective or more so long term, but may not be effective enough in the short term.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#106

Post by iamacyborg »

cheald wrote: post #2

This is a finding that keeps coming up, and I've certainly found it true in my life, but there's a significant chicken-and-egg problem in that depression frequently precludes the motivation to exercise, and if you don't already have a deeply-disciplined routine to overcome the lack of motivation, people won't do it. Exhortation to develop those good habits in the good times, I suppose.

Motivation generally follows action, not the other way around.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#107

Post by cj »

shevy-java wrote: post #104

This kind of makes sense. Most forms of depression have to do with not wanting to do something or lacking motivation to do so. Whereas in sports, people get busy usually, they do something, even if it may just be soccer playing. Exercise is also usually good for one's physical well-being, blood circulation increases, muscles may improve, pain may go away (depends on the exercise, but usually say, two days after some…

I wonder if there’s some survivorship bias. E.g. did they only study people who started and maintained a routine vs. everyone who started a routine but couldn’t stick with it due to depression symptoms

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#108

Post by ebiester »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #7

I take this to mean therapy for depression (particularly for men) is barely effective at all and exercise is not quite as barely effective at all. If therapy for depression were a pill, I'm not sure it'd demonstrate enough efficacy to get approved.

I think the major problem we have is we are lumping depression and anxiety into the same category.

Some people probably do have issues quickly resolved by SSRIs. Others are magically fixed by bupropion while it spikes anxiety in others. Others have major trauma that they have to work through and many therapies (like internal family systems therapy, as one example) are great at handling that. Others are stuck in cognitive distortions and merely learning about them and handling them (through cognitive behavioral therapy) can be life changing.

But if you have major trauma in your past, exercise is probably not going to do much. If you are heavily overwhelmed and your body is stuck in perpetual flight or fight) exercise and meditation might be a giant help.

But right now the practitioners are aware of this, but it's really hard to double blind test these divisions until people can do the analysis first. And at that point, you've basically already started therapy.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#109

Post by bluerooibos »

smeej wrote: post #87
yomismoaqui wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motivation is fleeting but routine persists. When there is something that you want to do regularly (exercise, doing the final boring part of some sideproject, cleaning the house...) you remove willpower from the equation and set a day and a time. For example, everyday from 18 to 19 I work on my sideprojects, or saturdays from 16 to 18 is house cleaning time. There is no question if I want to do it, it is set at that…

> There is no question if I want to do it, it is set at that time and I have to do it, period. Gosh it must be nice to have at least an ordinary amount of executive function skills. Is it really this easy for neurotypical people to build routines? That's really all it takes? I don't see how this removes willpower at all. It just determines what time you have to use it.

All you need to do is go to sleep before 12 every single night and wake up at 7am without fail, hit the gym and crank out a few sets of squats, hit the pool and the sauna, read a chapter of that book, and then cook yourself an amazing breakfast, all before 9am.

If you're a real go-getter, though, you'd wake up at 6am and do some vibe coding for an hour on that side hustle.

Super simple.

Re: Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

#110

Post by eastbound »

shevy-java wrote: post #104

This kind of makes sense. Most forms of depression have to do with not wanting to do something or lacking motivation to do so. Whereas in sports, people get busy usually, they do something, even if it may just be soccer playing. Exercise is also usually good for one's physical well-being, blood circulation increases, muscles may improve, pain may go away (depends on the exercise, but usually say, two days after some…

Observation bias. Those who succeed to drive themselves to do an effort, are already out of the depression. Try doing 7hrs sports a week and falling into depression: You won’t have the energy. It’s not sports that gets you out of depression, but sure it’s a stage on the way back and you gotta constantly give it a chance.
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