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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

#131

Post by claytongulick »

It surprises me that this is "new".

When I was active duty in the navy through the 90's I specialized in psychiatry and worked at an inpatient psych ward.

One of the things we did for all patients was force them to go to the gym every day.

Yes, force.

Military psych wards were a bit different than civilian. You could give orders.

In this case, it was necessary - the last thing you'll willingly do when you're suicidally depressed is exercise.

Getting a nearly catatonically depressed patient out of bed was a huge challenge, getting them to the gym even harder.

But we did it. Every day.

In my experience, this was more effective treatment for depression than any meds or psychotherapy. It worked wonders, way faster than SSRIs.

Not so great for the psychotic disorders though. We had some "interesting" incidents at the gym.

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

#133

Post by zachkatz »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #63
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…

> We are learning more about mind body connections and this is very not true... We are RE-learning. Look at all the "new science" on psychedelics. Or gut bacteria. Etc. I'm not sure what the bottleneck is...we did not evolve to sit all day, inside, at desk, gazing into screens. It really is *that* simple. p.s. While nothing revolutionary new per se "The Comfort Crisis" by Michael Easter goes a solid job making the ca…

> we did not evolve to sit all day, inside, at desk, gazing into screens

What I love about Apple Vision Pro is that it has the potential to solve this!

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

#134

Post by hinkley »

c0nsumer wrote: post #103
hinkley wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Endurance exercise baby. The hours roll by. Probably closer to 16 during the high season. 25 was event weeks.

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

#135

Post by mensetmanusman »

When I was less wise, I remember suggesting exercise to someone suffering from depression.

Didn't go so well.

You reach an unfortunate point when depressed that makes it difficult to listen to actually useful advice. It's an unfortunate state of mind to say the least.

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

#136

Post by haswell »

zdragnar wrote: post #93
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…

Another +1 here for that argument being distinctly not Judeo-Christian. Orthodox Christians in particular are of the belief that you worship with your whole self- mind, body and soul.

As a child of fundamental baptists, all of the circles I grew up in saw their bodies as temporary shells.

They also saw their bodies as created by god, and thoughts/emotions as having metaphysical sources and consequences. Setting aside any specific doctrinal positions, the broader claims and beliefs of the church push one to think of themselves in some rather odd ways.

If certain thoughts and feelings are temptations from the devil, actually believing this explanation short circuits the systemic explanations for those thoughts/feelings, and leaves one to conclude that the body must not have anything to do with it.

I believe the Christian worldview involving a creator god more broadly points people in this direction not necessarily because of specific claims, but as a downstream effect of the broader philosophy.

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

#137

Post by jingw222 »

formerly_proven wrote: post #9
comfypotato wrote: post #4

I’d never seen “an overview of systematic reviews” before — I would have thought this was already common sense, but it should be now more than ever. I was a little confused about the “less is better” part of the article. I think it just meant diminishing returns with more exercise, but it says that less is actually better.

WHO recommends at least an hour of moderate+ activity per day which virtually nobody with an office job in the 1st world manages to do. The notion that you could accidentally do too much exercise is ridiculous unless you go all-in-gym-bro.

I force myself to commute to work by bike. That is about 30 minutes one way. But I can not do it under bad weather conditions. Also not in freezing winter or hot summer.

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

#138

Post by kickbutt22 »

Graduated high school almost at the bottom of my class, nearly didn't graduate. Working out changed my life. I recently graduated summa cum laude with my degree in data science while working multiple jobs, taking on a minimum of 18 credits each semester. Some of my best semesters were when I was extra consistent with my workout routine.

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

#139

Post by [deleted] »

paulpauper wrote: post #95
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…

not really a fan of overly strenuous cardio. I am not sure how it makes you better. i tried it and it never did much for me. it doesn't even help for weight loss due to metabolic adaptation and increased appetite.

[deleted]

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

#140

Post by abhaynayar »

I never liked the gym, but I do three things in terms of exercise regularly: yoga, walk, and tennis. I like playing tennis way more than doing yoga and walk, and I look forward to it so much. But I'm only able to do yoga and walk daily, playing tennis has way more friction, so I can only do it a few times per week.
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