Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious

#21

Post by San » Thu, Nov 19, 2009, 12:33 AM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #18

A recent Ask HN seemed to reveal there are a lot of people here with bipolar disorder (or bipolar tendencies, at least). For those of you who are bipolar, have you found exercise to be a cure-all or to work in combo with lithium/medication, or...? Basically looking for anecdotal advice here. (FWIW, I have bipolar II.) This article just reminded me I wanted to raise the question here, but I don't think it warrants its…

For me, the most important thing is to stick to my daily schedule. Every single day of the week.

Once I skip one or two meals, work long hours, or stay up late, my life starts spiraling out of control. So I live on a fixed schedule now, which includes three hours of exercise per day:

* One hour of swimming at 7AM; this forces me to get out of bed on time, and makes me hungry for breakfast.

* One hour of rowing at 5PM; this forces me to stop working, and makes me hungry for dinner.

* One hour of running at 11PM; this forces me to stop whatever I am doing that evening, and gets me tired for bed.

(In addition I have hundreds of small rules: never go shopping alone, the bed is only for sex and sleeping, dinner must take at least fifteen minutes to prepare, ...)

It does take a lot of time and self discipline (and monitoring by others), but it sure helps me to keep my life under control.

Re: Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious

#22

Post by gcheong » Thu, Nov 19, 2009, 1:39 AM UTC

uuilly wrote: post #6

It seems like an odd test to me. Swimming in cold water would test fitness more than ability to handle stress. And since some rats did not exercise they became less fit and would not handle the cold water test as well. Am I missing something?

My guess is that they didn't push them beyond the level where fitness mattered. Sort of like having a group of people run a couple of laps around a track - which even sedentary people could probably manage without much stress on their bodies. In the article it was stated that rats do not like swimming in cold water and so they are apparently testing the affects of that kind of stress rather than just the stress of physical fitness.

Re: Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious

#23

Post by bigiain » Thu, Nov 19, 2009, 5:39 AM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #2

Would driving a race car or something like that for 20 minutes a day give some of the same benefits as actually exercising? I have this theory that anxiety and depression are most commonly caused by sensory deprivation, which is obviously counter-intuitive, but it seems to match with both the clinical data and also with anecdotal evidence about how people self-medicate.

A common catchphrase amongst some of my motorcycling friends is "You never see a bike parked outside a psychiatrist's office..."

Re: Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious

#24

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 19, 2009, 7:50 AM UTC

anonjon wrote: post #3

I always assumed that this was because my brain is part of my body, and doing stuff that is good for my body would be the same stuff that is good for my brain. For some reason we draw this weird metaphysical distinction between the brain and the other organs in the body that make results like this seem strange, when they clearly are not. The idea that healthy people think better should not shock us. (Think better in…

[deleted]

Re: Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious

#25

Post by fauigerzigerk » Thu, Nov 19, 2009, 8:06 AM UTC

gcheong wrote: post #22

uuilly wrote: post #6

It seems like an odd test to me. Swimming in cold water would test fitness more than ability to handle stress. And since some rats did not exercise they became less fit and would not handle the cold water test as well. Am I missing something?

My guess is that they didn't push them beyond the level where fitness mattered. Sort of like having a group of people run a couple of laps around a track - which even sedentary people could probably manage without much stress on their bodies. In the article it was stated that rats do not like swimming in cold water and so they are apparently testing the affects of that kind of stress rather than just the stress of ph…

I'm not sure how they can separate stress caused by fear from stress caused by the physical challenge alone. I don't think this is a good experiment.

Re: Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious

#26

Post by leecho0 » Thu, Nov 19, 2009, 12:48 PM UTC

So the rats were more stressed out from cold water than getting killed and getting their brains examined? interesting.

Re: Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious

#27

Post by kirse » Thu, Nov 19, 2009, 4:09 PM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #18

A recent Ask HN seemed to reveal there are a lot of people here with bipolar disorder (or bipolar tendencies, at least). For those of you who are bipolar, have you found exercise to be a cure-all or to work in combo with lithium/medication, or...? Basically looking for anecdotal advice here. (FWIW, I have bipolar II.) This article just reminded me I wanted to raise the question here, but I don't think it warrants its…

I don't have bipolar disorder, but I do know on particularly stressful days that the best thing exercise does is get you out of your own head - so the only thing you can possibly do is focus on is moving faster, pushing that weight harder, swimming faster, etc.

Personally, if I'm exercising and can keep an internal thought dialogue, I'm not exercising hard enough. Then again, I've been a runner all my life, and we runners take great pleasure in feeling pain and finding that point where we just can't mentally take it anymore.

Bottom line though, exercise is bar none the single best thing you can do for personal health and sanity (after a good night's rest of course)