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Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

sciencedaily.com

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

#371

Post by machomaster »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #338
machomaster wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't suggesting using willpower to power through the problems. I was suggesting setting up a system, that would fit you and would enable you to live a better and more efficient life. Willpower is useful in setting up the system, to learn it. Not to operate it. Please watch this fundamental video: https://youtu.be/bcKthx5LTbI On a surface it is about dieting, but the lessons can be applied to the rest of the life.…

Let me try again. I shouldn't have mentioned willpower. Let me restate the problem. I try to do something and I have the physical sensation of hitting a wall that shouldn't be there. Thoughts never stop at that part of the brain. I'm talking about a fundamentally different mechanism than thinking something is too hard. It's a hardware interruption that I have no control over. I've spent my entire life working around…

Let't imagine that you have a task, that you started doing, but then hit the hardware wall. How physically/emotionally/intellectually tired are you at that point?

What will happen if you just rest? Sleep, eat, exercise/go on a walk, lay down. No phone, no social media, no doom scrolling, no tv, no netflix, no gaming. Just 100% effort of resting and recovering, without any distractions.

Would you not get bored at some point and will decide that it's better to complete the task rather than continue this boredom while fully rested

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

#372

Post by artyom »

May rampant depression everywhere be caused by not the lack of exercise, but because of life becoming overly sedentary?

30 years ago moving your body wasn't going to the gym, it was part of everyday life. Staying 2 hours nonstop in front on the screen was to watch a movie, and maybe done a couple times a week, tops.

Now we just deliver 3 tomatoes to our doorstep to avoid going out.

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

#373

Post by Forgeties79 »

nradov wrote: post #367
fastasucan wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dicipline and the ability to build good habits is out of the window for a lot of people due to different illnesses. You come across as trying to sell snake oil to people with a heart attack.

If you try hard enough you can always find a plausible sounding excuse for failure. Discipline and good habits are the most effective way to prevent heart attacks in the first place. While there are a tiny fraction of people with serious mental health conditions or developmental disabilities which prevent them from making progress, that hardly applies to anyone on HN.

No one is arguing efficacy. We’re talking about how overly simplistic “just do it” is. Life isn’t a Nike commercial.

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

#374

Post by smeej »

recursive wrote: post #239
paulryanrogers wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The list of things I must do is large and growing. Much of it outside my control. Yes, I could sell the house but rent is quite high. Yes, I could divorce the wife but that actually makes for more work. Yes, I could abandon the children but I've grown attached; and that's only legal after finding someone else willing to adopt them and a judge willing to approve it. Yes, I could deny any help with the elderly parents…

I mean, yes. That's true for everyone. Different people have different life circumstances. It's equally important not to decide to do things that one can't realistically do, for whatever reasons there may be. I'm not sure what your point is. Don't sell your house if you don't have a realistic place to live lined up. Don't divorce your wife if it's not worth the work. I'm not saying everyone can or should be grindset…

You're hitting on exactly what I meant, though. You're generalizing from "it works for me" in a way that implies it's equally possible for everyone, that everyone's brain has the ability to look at something they decided to do earlier, and then just do it, without sending them through a spiraling decision matrix that factors in all the other things that have reemerged as possibilities since whenever they made the first decision.

It's so cool that your brain has this "decision persistence" feature. And it does seem to be common enough that it's treated as "typical."

It's just not remotely universal. Not all of our brains have this.

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

#375

Post by smeej »

nradov wrote: post #336
Forgeties79 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your prior comment makes it sound like you assume it’s generally just about willpower and that external factors aren’t generally an issue. Is that accurate?

No, is generally about discipline and building good habits. Willpower or lack thereof is largely irrelevant. I'm not convinced that willpower is even a real thing.

What do you think discipline is if not willpower? This might explain why we're talking past each other.

I can do the exact same thing a hundred days in a row as long as the circumstances happen to be the same. And I can try to make them as similar as I possibly can. My lights come on at the same time. I eat the same food. My clothes are in the same place.

But the second something happens that I can't control, the night the wind howls all night, or a cough wakes me up, or for some damn reason, I wake up hungrier than normal, it doesn't matter how many times I've done it. None of it is automatic. It's all new now. All of it requires decisions. It's like it was never there. And that's why, frankly, I don't ever get to 100 identical days.

Your brain does something different with whatever you mean by "discipline and good habits" than my brain does. And that's really cool. It sounds awesome to have a brain that does that.

It also sounds way easier and like it's not something you actually deserve any credit for, in the same way that my learning how to speak before I was a year old or read before I was 3 is just "a cool thing about my brain" and not something I deserve credit for.

The difference is that because your cool thing about your brain is common, people who don't have it are considered "less than" by people who do, whereas my cool thing about my brain is uncommon, so people looked at me as "more than" other people. Both are baseless. You and I have no more control over having these advantages in our brains than we do over our height or the color of our eyes.

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

#376

Post by javier123454321 »

BeetleB wrote: post #122
javier123454321 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jim Carey had the best way to think about this: “I believe depression is legitimate. But I also believe that if you don’t exercise, eat nutritious food, get sunlight, get enough sleep, consume positive material, surround yourself with support, then you aren’t giving yourself a fighting chance.”

If you say that to a depressed person, they are going to sink deeper into despair. Most people (even those who are not depressed), are not meeting that bar. Always remember, being true is not the same as being helpful.

Id rather we start with some variant of that rather than to default to dope so we don't offend people with the truth.

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

#377

Post by fastasucan »

machomaster wrote: post #368
fastasucan wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ADHD people should be MORE vigilant regarding the correct behavior, rules, habits. Yes, but that doesn't make the ADHD fully go away. >actually solvable with typical means without reinventing the wheel. Yes, and they are defined by medical science, not your "think deeper". >The fact that life is harder to organize and manage for ADHD people only means that they should pay EXTRA attention to doing right things the co…

> Yes, but that doesn't make the ADHD fully go away. Not an argument. > Wow great insight, a bit hillarious with the part of asking adhd people pay extra attention. Should the guy with a neurological problem just pay extra attention to moving his leg, and he will soon run as fast as the rest? Yes, if you have problems with inattentiveness, then you can't just eyeball the size of the fabric and cut. You actually need…

This is still not enough to get rid of adhd symptoms for many.

Keeping a knowledge management system is uttainable, I bet many with adhd have tried them all (and constantly try new ones instead of doing work)

you can only block so much. Some people suffer so much that days can get lost by doing virtuelly nothing. Its not like its so easy to sit around being unable to work, and still not check the web or whatever. Also even though you block, many people experience that they get contacted regardless, and loose the flow.

What you propose are great ideas for someone having a hard time concentrating, but that is something completely else from those suffering under a diagnosis.

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

#378

Post by fastasucan »

bunnybomb2 wrote: post #366
fastasucan wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>t helped me to have a life goal that was bigger than life, ego, or energy. Maybe you havent found it yet. If you have, I apologize if I sound cocky! You are incredibly cocky, and naive and have very little insight on other peoples situation. You are reducing peoples various illnesses to something that can be solved if they just tried a bit harder not to be sick. If only it was so easy.

Its funny, because thats exactly how it works... I've had severe mental illness and I suffer from it daily. You still arent special. Im not lacking some unique viewpoint just because you are mentally ill. Try harder. Stop being weak. Unless its schizophrenia/bipolar, then take ur meds

The fact that you say "stop being weak" without having any insight tells me that you have much growing to do.

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

#379

Post by fastasucan »

nradov wrote: post #367
fastasucan wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dicipline and the ability to build good habits is out of the window for a lot of people due to different illnesses. You come across as trying to sell snake oil to people with a heart attack.

If you try hard enough you can always find a plausible sounding excuse for failure. Discipline and good habits are the most effective way to prevent heart attacks in the first place. While there are a tiny fraction of people with serious mental health conditions or developmental disabilities which prevent them from making progress, that hardly applies to anyone on HN.

Yes, prevents heart attack, but if you are in the middle of one?

>that hardly applies to anyone on HN.

Sweet summer child.

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

#380

Post by kayo_20211030 »

yousif_123123 wrote: post #197
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #162

This leads to a fairly obvious conjecture : That since for 100,000 years humans were roaming the landscape gathering or hunting, and for 10,000 years engaged in heavy agricultural work, is the modern day rise in depression not just correlated but caused by the modern day reduction in daily heavy exercise? It’s such an obvious idea I am wondering if folks know of any research / studies on it?

Don't underestimate the meaning and relationships people had in those times, hunting together to feed your family, farming with your community and interacting with animals etc. I think physical activity, even just going on walks makes one feel change is possible. If something sucks and I sit home all day on YouTube, then it continues to suck. If I can change my environment, do things outside, see new people and find…

Yeah. I think the communitarian point is valid, and valuable. Also, even if you only do that 1 machine thing in the basement, you can regard it as an achievement that's worth something. At least I did that thing. It makes me feel kinda ok too, or just better.
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