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Association between physical exercise and mental health: a cross-sectional study

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Re: Association between physical exercise and mental health: a cross-sectional study

#61

Post by collyw »

themodelplumber wrote: post #52
121789 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. And exercise immediately cures it. I wonder why OP is physically exhausted so much

Don't limit it to "physically", just imagine a person who pushes themselves really hard in all aspects of life. That pretty much describes who I was. Beyond a productive person, more like a natural stress-bringer.

Personally I find physical exhaustion, from a long hike for example, a lot more pleasant than mental exhaustion. The first feels positive (helps me sleep well), the second feels negative.

Re: Association between physical exercise and mental health: a cross-sectional study

#62

Post by always_good »

prophesi wrote: post #21
taneq wrote: post #12

I'm interested to see how VR affects overall mental health among gamers. There seems to be some crossover between heavy duty gamers and mental health struggles (just from my own observation) and VR is starting to be a natural progression for gaming. And VR gaming is often a real work-out, focusing on a lot of movement as well as physical dexterity.

I'm interested in this as well. I had a friend play Beat Saber for 3 hours straight, burning literally thousands of calories. He said he felt amazing for the rest of the day. On the flip-side, I personally experienced some serious post-binge depression after playing Talos Principle VR for a few hours. It's not very physically engaging, with a somber atmosphere throughout. I felt so weird taking off the headset and ju…

Let's be honest, though. He didn't burn thousands of calories. You are underestimating how efficient the human body is.

Re: Association between physical exercise and mental health: a cross-sectional study

#63

Post by Boles001 »

hi41 wrote: post #53

For many months now I have been bad at paying bills, filing tax etc due to anxiety and depression. It is like paralysis. But reality does not wait for you. There are consequences like fines and court orders. How have you overcome this? I feel I will be happier if I can manage my duties better.

I've found that in times where I can't seem to shake "the blues" that it's best to get out of my head and get into my body by doing something physical. Whether it's a jog, lifting at the gym, or playing a sport...focusing on these activities allows my concentration to shift and seemingly my mind to reset

Re: Association between physical exercise and mental health: a cross-sectional study

#64

Post by 0x62c1b43e »

jessriedel wrote: post #4

This was a cross-sectional study. Here's an opposing result for anxiety and depression: > Testing Causality in the Association Between Regular Exercise and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression > Context: In the population at large, regular exercise is associated with reduced anxious and depressive symptoms. Results of experimental studies in clinical populations suggest a causal effect of exercise on anxiety and depres…

They have a section discussing why this paper might seem to contradict other studies showing a causal link:

> This outcome seems at odds with findings from randomized controlled trials in clinical and population samples indicating that regular exercise can relieve symptoms in subclinical individuals and in patients diagnosed as having an anxiety or depressive disorder. To understand the different outcomes of both types of study, it is crucial to make a distinction between the effects of prescribed and externally monitored exercise in selected subgroups and the effects of voluntary leisure-time exercise at the population level. Only voluntary leisure-time exercise is influenced by genetic factors, whereas the other type of exercise is environment driven. The absence of causal effects of voluntary exercise on symptoms of anxiety and depression does not imply that manipulation of exercise cannot be used to change such symptoms. It means that a population association, cross-sectional or longitudinal, cannot be used to justify exercise as a treatment without an actual randomized controlled trial. The possible difference in the antidepressant effects of prescribed vs voluntary exercise is consistent with findings from a recent study suggesting that the therapeutic effects of exercise are nonspecific to exercise. The antidepressant effects of exercise may only occur if the exercise is monitored and part of a therapeutic program.

So it sounds like among twins, if one twin naturally exercises more by their own volition, that twin doesn't in general show less depression/anxiety than the other twin, which is evidence against exercise causally reducing depression/anxiety. However it sounds like it may still be that prescribed exercise as an intervention, beyond what an individual would naturally choose to do, and maybe only in conjunction with therapy, could still benefit an individual (and perhaps then only individuals with clinical symptoms).

This study also does help by showing how the associative inverse relationship between exercise and depression in the general population seems to be from genetics influencing exercise, and not the other way around, and the important of a randomized control trial on exercise as an intervention.

Re: Association between physical exercise and mental health: a cross-sectional study

#65

Post by vanderZwan »

jessriedel wrote: post #4

This was a cross-sectional study. Here's an opposing result for anxiety and depression: > Testing Causality in the Association Between Regular Exercise and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression > Context: In the population at large, regular exercise is associated with reduced anxious and depressive symptoms. Results of experimental studies in clinical populations suggest a causal effect of exercise on anxiety and depres…

The thing is, since a few we actually know now how exercise helps: it builds resilience against depression[0][1]. The press release from the Karolinska Instituted website[2] explains it fairly well, but in short: when you're stressed, you produce kynurenine. How kynurenine works precisely is unknown, but what is clear is that having chronically elevated levels of it can induce all kinds of mental illnesses. Skeletal muscle creates kynurenine aminotransferase (KAT), an enzyme which breaks it down.

The subtlety here is that this building resilience is not the same as fixing the causes of depression[3].

(I'm a bit surprised this research isn't mentioned in these papers)

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6349/eaaf9794

[0] Skeletal Muscle PGC-1α1 Modulates Kynurenine Metabolism and Mediates Resilience to Stress-Induced Depression, https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(14)01049-6?cod...

[1] Kynurenines: Tryptophan’s metabolites in exercise, inflammation, and mental health, http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6349/eaaf9794

[2] https://ki.se/en/news/how-physical-exercise-protects-the-bra...

[3] http://pbfcomics.com/comics/treatment/

Re: Association between physical exercise and mental health: a cross-sectional study

#66

Post by kranner »

hi41 wrote: post #53

For many months now I have been bad at paying bills, filing tax etc due to anxiety and depression. It is like paralysis. But reality does not wait for you. There are consequences like fines and court orders. How have you overcome this? I feel I will be happier if I can manage my duties better.

I’ve noticed this pattern in myself that I like to call Automatic Pointless Resistance which is especially active when I’m anxious. I overcome it by completely ignoring my feelings and getting started on tasks regardless of how little I want to do them, or how much I think I’m going to screw them up. Sometimes the disconnect is profound, my brain just doesn’t want to do something but my body knows what to do. Even if it’s something mentally involving like filing taxes, I just ignore any thoughts that say I must be doing it wrong, I should stop and plan it better, etc. And before I know it, the task is well underway and I’m often even enjoying it.

Re: Association between physical exercise and mental health: a cross-sectional study

#67

Post by posterboy »

jpmoyn wrote: post #59
ec109685 wrote: post #5

How does a study like this control for the fact that if you are depressed, you might not want to exercise that day? And thus it’s mental health that drives how much you exercise, not the other way around?

The study itself addresses that they didn't prove causality between exercise and reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression

They are not very careful to avoid implying the expected outcome, though, which should be understandable as it refers to common wisdom. e.g. "more is not always better" is part of the interpretation, nevertheless they don't imply any causative effects (on the landing page, at least; didn't read the paper).

In that sense, if feeling too depressed for extreme sport, maybe a walk ever now and then should at least not be neglected.

Re: Association between physical exercise and mental health: a cross-sectional study

#68

Post by devilshaircut »

phakding wrote: post #44
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, this is some of my own problem. I personally despise going for a walk for the sake of going for a walk. The same for a bike ride. The only times I've enjoyed such things is when part of my unhappiness was at home and it was one of the few escapes available. I don't find these fun at all. Doing actual exercise sounds dreadful and embarrassing. Not to mention that finding basic gear is expensive and hard to find (…

I totally agree with you. I go to gym and weight train 3 days a week and I spend one day running as far as I possibly can (8-10 mile range). If someone asked me to go for a walk, I would just slouch down in my sofa and ignore them. I hate walking without purpose and as an exercise it does pretty much nothing.

Personally, I hate exercising but I do about 90 minutes of high intensity cardio every day (with no end goal like grocery shopping; just for the sake of exercise). It's masochistic and I wish I were the type of person who actually enjoyed it.

For me, it just took having the self-control to commit to an exercise regime. Eventually it became easier because I track my exercise and having a break in it (even if I am traveling or on vacation) feels really bad.

I doubt it would work for everyone, but I think it was necessary for me because I live in a city and even if I walked everywhere (which I do), I would never get enough exercise to offset 8-hour days of sitting at a computer desk writing software.

Re: Association between physical exercise and mental health: a cross-sectional study

#69

Post by Tactic »

hi41 wrote: post #53

For many months now I have been bad at paying bills, filing tax etc due to anxiety and depression. It is like paralysis. But reality does not wait for you. There are consequences like fines and court orders. How have you overcome this? I feel I will be happier if I can manage my duties better.

I have found setting a routine and scheduled time to do it helps. Put it in your calendar and treat it as you would work.

However, if you are finding this to be a consistent and long term issue please see a councilor. They can help and diagnose far better than you will find here. If you find that gets put off as well, ask a friend or family member to help you make and keep the initial appointments. You may be surprised by the number of people that are willing to help free of judgement if you will let them.

Re: Association between physical exercise and mental health: a cross-sectional study

#70

Post by taneq »

always_good wrote: post #62
prophesi wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in this as well. I had a friend play Beat Saber for 3 hours straight, burning literally thousands of calories. He said he felt amazing for the rest of the day. On the flip-side, I personally experienced some serious post-binge depression after playing Talos Principle VR for a few hours. It's not very physically engaging, with a somber atmosphere throughout. I felt so weird taking off the headset and ju…

Let's be honest, though. He didn't burn thousands of calories. You are underestimating how efficient the human body is.

Actually I think this is really important. I don't have any science to back this up but I feel like the human body actually changes its tradeoff between efficiency and instantaneous performance based on some so-far-undescribed factor.
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