Exercise, therapy, and antidepressants have all been shown to have similar effect sizes for depression. It seems like some people take that to mean that therapy and antidepressants are pointless but unless there's some reason to think that the effects are mutually exclusive, a more reasonable interpretation is probably that it's good to try to do all of these things if possible if you are depressed.
Exercise has 'similar effect' to therapy, study on depression shows
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Re: Exercise has 'similar effect' to therapy, study on depression shows
#32lets get concrete with "Exercise": what is one unit of exercise? like exactly what type of movement, at what intensity and duration should be performed how frequently to be as effective as therapy? like should i run every day at 160bmp for 20 minutes? whats the minimum effective dose?
"what is one unit of exercise"
Based on my own recent experience I would suggest the "dog".
Re: Exercise has 'similar effect' to therapy, study on depression shows
#33How to solve most cases of depression, make sure to get all these (if you can): - good diet with no junk food, alcohol, drugs and stimulants - regular exercise and outdoor time - good sleep hygiene - regular healthy social interactions - eliminate environmental stressors (job/financial stress, relationship stress, noise pollution, etc) Of course, not everyone can have everything and some of those aren't 100% under yo…
The trouble is, this reads like "Just don't be depressed", since this is almost effectively a list of (anti-) symptoms of depression.
This is always what leaps out at me with this kind of “live better be happier” article. Yeah, if you’re sleeping well, eating well, working out regularly, spending quality time with friends, and have a healthy work life balance, you probably aren’t depressed. Might there be some possibility, perchance, that this is because any single one of those factors is almost impossible when in the pit of despair, let alone all of them at once? It’s like saying glasses cause short sightedness because hey, you almost never see someone with good eyesight wearing glasses.
Re: Exercise has 'similar effect' to therapy, study on depression shows
#34I've seen the exact same post on HN maybe a dozen times. The psychology of people posting this sort of advice is more interesting to me than the advice itself.
Re: Exercise has 'similar effect' to therapy, study on depression shows
#35How to solve most cases of depression, make sure to get all these (if you can): - good diet with no junk food, alcohol, drugs and stimulants - regular exercise and outdoor time - good sleep hygiene - regular healthy social interactions - eliminate environmental stressors (job/financial stress, relationship stress, noise pollution, etc) Of course, not everyone can have everything and some of those aren't 100% under yo…
AKA "just don't be depressed"
Re: Exercise has 'similar effect' to therapy, study on depression shows
#36lets get concrete with "Exercise": what is one unit of exercise? like exactly what type of movement, at what intensity and duration should be performed how frequently to be as effective as therapy? like should i run every day at 160bmp for 20 minutes? whats the minimum effective dose?
"what is one unit of exercise" Based on my own recent experience I would suggest the "dog".
Addendum: if not a dog person, may I suggest ‘motorcycle’ as an alternative?
Re: Exercise has 'similar effect' to therapy, study on depression shows
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it isn't like "Just don't be depressed", I know it's very difficult for people to get all of those combined, that's what I said you should strive to get all of them if you want to cure your depression. SSRIs or exercise won't make your financial or relationship issues go away so you'll still be depressed unless you can fix all the issues bothering you.
The problem is that depression by definition makes it 100x harder to do any of those things.
In my case it wasn't that they were hard to do, it was more that I just didn't have the motivation to do them.
The change needed was to actually have a reason to start doing any of them. For me, that started with being honest with myself. Deep down inside I knew the reason for my depression, I "just" had to be honest about it to be able to take control over it.
Once I did that I gained some motivation to do those things on that list, and so I started doing them. And slowly but surely I got out of my hole.
Every now and then I notice I'm halfway back down a hole. I stopped doing those things. Again I have to be honest with myself about why, and with that I can start the climb back out, starting exercising again, eating better etc.
Re: Exercise has 'similar effect' to therapy, study on depression shows
#38lets get concrete with "Exercise": what is one unit of exercise? like exactly what type of movement, at what intensity and duration should be performed how frequently to be as effective as therapy? like should i run every day at 160bmp for 20 minutes? whats the minimum effective dose?
If you take a "brisk" 20 minute walk every day, you'll meet the recommended weekly amount of aerobic exercise for Americans. (I think people should do more.)
The actual amount you need to exercise, or the intensity, is not very big. The good thing with exercise is also that once you make it a habit to walk, say, 20 minutes a day, then walking 25 minutes a day becomes pretty trivial, and so on.
Re: Exercise has 'similar effect' to therapy, study on depression shows
#39How to solve most cases of depression, make sure to get all these (if you can): - good diet with no junk food, alcohol, drugs and stimulants - regular exercise and outdoor time - good sleep hygiene - regular healthy social interactions - eliminate environmental stressors (job/financial stress, relationship stress, noise pollution, etc) Of course, not everyone can have everything and some of those aren't 100% under yo…
I think this is true, but oof that's a heavy list. For one thing, food, alcohol, drugs, and stimulants, all have addictive properties that are almost certainly comorbid with depression. Dropping those is rough. Exercise is perhaps one of the easier ones but, personally, I've found it incredible to reflect on how absolutely bad my childhood "gym" classes were. At no point did we actually... go to a gym. That was never…
Our entire economic system is built on inducing financial stress.
Re: Exercise has 'similar effect' to therapy, study on depression shows
#40How to solve most cases of depression, make sure to get all these (if you can): - good diet with no junk food, alcohol, drugs and stimulants - regular exercise and outdoor time - good sleep hygiene - regular healthy social interactions - eliminate environmental stressors (job/financial stress, relationship stress, noise pollution, etc) Of course, not everyone can have everything and some of those aren't 100% under yo…
- lower your expectations
If you set your goal too high you will be sad all the time. Choose a goal that you would be happy with but make sure it's a realistic goal!