51–60 of 109 posts
I don't get what's new ? It's a known fact that exercise and good lifestyle are good for the mental health. But isn't the inability to maintain a good lifestyle one of the first symptoms of depression ?
How 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…
What absurdly thoughtless, shallow nonsense. What, specifically, is your background in depression research, that leads you to believe you've completed solved it for everyone? I'll wait. I'm sure it's fucking extensive.
How 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…
This is exactly the kind of list that is both not true (solving depression is not a checklist) and COMPLETELY unhelpful to anyone actually dealing with depression. It's like saying "just make more money" to someone with financial struggles.
First of all exercise should be seen as one of the first lines of defense against not only depression but chronic health problems (which also lead to depression). So you shouldn't wait until you are depressed to start exercising - ideally it is something you do all the time. Secondly - someone who's depressed is not keen on most things - including talking to a therapist , yet we still encourage them to do it. If you have the will power to pay hundreds of dollars a session to talk to a complete stranger, in theory you may have the willpower to walk birskly for 150 minutes a week. As a society we should simply encourage everyone no matter what age or state of mind to do that.
If I'm sweating already and warmed up, I might as well take a walk to cool down. If I'm already walking and a good song comes on, I might as well jog. If I'm feeling sore already, I might as well lift some weights to gain some strength. To boost this all, I might as well eat more protein. If moving around is kinda making me feel nauseous sometimes, it's probably a vitamin thing so I go for more veggies. Hey veggies are slowly replacing bread and other empty carbs! Then my nerd brain kicked in and developed an obsession with cooking.
On the other end of this, I was doing more housework because I was inviting people over more often and otherwise working from home. The mess became harder to avoid. I think we all did a little of that because of the cultural shift in the first half of this decade. That also meant entertaining more which meant trying to put out better food.
All the incentives aligned to break me out of a cycle of bad habits for long enough that I genuinely can't go back. My life is objectively way better and I know exactly how it got that way, so there's nothing intimidating about it anymore. The level of effort also went down as all the new habits were streamlined into a coherent lifestyle.
At the risk of sounding condescending, I think most of this is really just a matter of growing up anyway (I entered my 30s during this time period). I just wanted to share how it happened to me.
How 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that depression by definition makes it 100x harder to do any of those things.
Well yeah, but you gotta start somewhere, and it's not gonna get better if you drink cola, beer everyday and stay up until 2AM watching netflix.
Wait, I thought those things solved depression? Why are you hedging now? Did your initial analysis suck, and you're just now realizing it? Are you figuring out that maybe this is slightly more complex than "just be happy" and that maybe you're not the only person on the planet who's ever thought about this?
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.
Mens sana in corpore sano Taking the antidepressant has become the dominant go to approach as it is more commercially profitable for the seller and easier to commit to for the taker.
Cite?
How 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…
> How to solve most cases of depression Tread carefully friend, I agree this is a good list to _prevent_ the most common forms of depression, but some will think you are framing major clinical depression as a personal failing. Some people slide into a hole of their own making. Others get thrown into the abyss by external factors. Grief, trauma, abuse, crises of repressed identity, poverty and poor prospects. Life can…
Yes, true, a lot of the times it is from external factors (ask me how I know), but what people miss is that even in that case, it's still on you to get yourself out since SSRIs and therapy session won't fix the situation you fell into, nor will anyone else come to get you out, unless maybe you're lucky enough to have an incredible family, community or support network.
It's still your responsibility to get yourself out even when your situation is not your fault. That's the sad truth about life, you have to play the hand you're dealt, instead of being depressed you've been dealt a bad hand. It's not fair, but that's how it works.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The trouble is, this reads like "Just don't be depressed", since this is almost effectively a list of (anti-) symptoms of depression.
And the ones that aren't simply "don't be depressed" are a lottery for anyone, even those not suffering depression. In the US, current projections are for 300 new jobs per state per month this year. Even accounting for retirees and deaths, last I looked at the numbers, there have been 2M more new additions to the workforce (people turning 18) than there are new jobs for those new additions, all competing with the lar…