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Exercise can be nearly as effective as therapy for depression

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

#61

Post by PeterStuer »

CrossVR wrote: post #53
LorenPechtel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, which is why diets fail. People who are fat generally do not have enough available willpower to lose weight.

This has more to do with hunger requiring a tremendous amount of willpower to ignore rather than fat people having less willpower than people of average weight.

It feels very different. Depressed people lack the motivation/energy to start exercise, fat people seem more in line with addiction in not being inclined to overcome short term craving for more feed.

While at a certain level of abstraction you can reduce both to A -> !B -> C, that generalization seems to obfuscate specific important differences that impact pathways to treatment. Craving is not the same as lacking energy. Craving, while subversive, energizes, depression does not.

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

#62

Post by 46Bit »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #48
boplicity wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a certain amount of "willpower" that can overcome motivational barriers. This willpower is limited, though. It's very helpful to have clear guidance on where to allocate this very limited resources, especially in situations where people are otherwise struggling. All of which is to say -- these exhortations can play a useful role. :)

Yup, which is why diets fail. People who are fat generally do not have enough available willpower to lose weight.

Overeating is often a coping mechanism. It’s really hard to displace unless your life is going fantastic. Even with GLPs.

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

#63

Post by taeric »

I would assume that "doing something" is the key here? Successfully doing exercise probably has add on benefits that you can more successfully do other things afterward. But successfully reading a book can help me get out of depression. Successfully cleaning the kitchen. Really, just successfully doing anything is a huge cure against depression.

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

#64

Post by hu3 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #57
cheald wrote: post #2

This is a finding that keeps coming up, and I've certainly found it true in my life, but there's a significant chicken-and-egg problem in that depression frequently precludes the motivation to exercise, and if you don't already have a deeply-disciplined routine to overcome the lack of motivation, people won't do it. Exhortation to develop those good habits in the good times, I suppose.

> Exhortation to develop those good habits in the good times, I suppose. This is what medication for more severe cases of things like depression is supposed to offer: an opportunity to learn, usually through therapy, to cope with the condition in a healthy way.

Yup!

Same thing for ADHD.

Medication helps having willpower/focus to develop better habits and realize you are not a useless dumb human. It's just that your brain is a little finicky to get going sometimes.

In fact the few diagnosed ADHD people I know are wicked smart. It's just that their brain overclocks to unproductive levels without medication.

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

#65

Post by [deleted] »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #48
boplicity wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a certain amount of "willpower" that can overcome motivational barriers. This willpower is limited, though. It's very helpful to have clear guidance on where to allocate this very limited resources, especially in situations where people are otherwise struggling. All of which is to say -- these exhortations can play a useful role. :)

Yup, which is why diets fail. People who are fat generally do not have enough available willpower to lose weight.

[deleted]

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

#66

Post by yoyoma1234 »

taeric wrote: post #63

I would assume that "doing something" is the key here? Successfully doing exercise probably has add on benefits that you can more successfully do other things afterward. But successfully reading a book can help me get out of depression. Successfully cleaning the kitchen. Really, just successfully doing anything is a huge cure against depression.

No, it’s more specific - doing something physical.

Cleaning dishes yes, reading a book no

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

#67

Post by PeterStuer »

stormed wrote: post #27

I decided to go unmedicated from SSRIs/mood stabilizers in 2024 and it changed my life for the better. Prior to stopping, I thought I was physically unhealthy until I found out excessive overheating & exhaustion was a common side effect of Zoloft. Since then, I've lost around 40 pounds and have been able to regularly exercise without issues. My mental health also improved with forcing myself to get vitamin D outside.…

Did you get the "brain zaps" when coming off the SSRIs? How long did it take?

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

#68

Post by yomismoaqui »

cheald wrote: post #2

This is a finding that keeps coming up, and I've certainly found it true in my life, but there's a significant chicken-and-egg problem in that depression frequently precludes the motivation to exercise, and if you don't already have a deeply-disciplined routine to overcome the lack of motivation, people won't do it. Exhortation to develop those good habits in the good times, I suppose.

Motivation is fleeting but routine persists.

When there is something that you want to do regularly (exercise, doing the final boring part of some sideproject, cleaning the house...) you remove willpower from the equation and set a day and a time.

For example, everyday from 18 to 19 I work on my sideprojects, or saturdays from 16 to 18 is house cleaning time. There is no question if I want to do it, it is set at that time and I have to do it, period.

The nice thing about routine is that the first times it is hard, but after some repetitions your mind (and body) begin to get used and it transforms into a routine and then it's like it's written in stone. That time period of that day X is for Y and it is what it is.

Routine can be used for bad things but also for good things.

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

#69

Post by ToucanLoucan »

boplicity wrote: post #10
cheald wrote: post #2

This is a finding that keeps coming up, and I've certainly found it true in my life, but there's a significant chicken-and-egg problem in that depression frequently precludes the motivation to exercise, and if you don't already have a deeply-disciplined routine to overcome the lack of motivation, people won't do it. Exhortation to develop those good habits in the good times, I suppose.

We have a certain amount of "willpower" that can overcome motivational barriers. This willpower is limited, though. It's very helpful to have clear guidance on where to allocate this very limited resources, especially in situations where people are otherwise struggling. All of which is to say -- these exhortations can play a useful role. :)

It's also worth noting that willpower in general is constantly being whittled down by how stressful and, for lack of better term, fucking annoying modern life is. I'm reminded of a quote from my favorite article from Ed Zitron:

> In plain terms, everybody is being fucked with constantly in tiny little ways by most apps and services, and I believe that billions of people being fucked with at once in all of these ways has profound psychological and social consequences that we’re not meaningfully discussing.

And I think one of those psycho-social consequences we're not discussing is everyone is just... fucking annoyed now, constantly, about shit that it doesn't feel right to really complain about. Like, you plus or minus live on your phone, and I'm very much including myself in that statement. Every time you get logged out of an app you use every day to, for example, board your morning train, or park your car, or have to reset a password to pay your power bill, just like, all of that? Every time your day is interrupted with stupid bullshit from Modern Life takes a tiny bit of that energy, and I dunno about everyone reading this, I have a quite well managed and streamlined life, and I still have just... dozens of these. Every single day. I can't fathom being one of the folks who ISN'T as well versed in tech as I am, existing for them must be utter HELL.

And that's the essentials, that's not even going into how most tech products now are constantly begging for your attention, for your engagement, trying to pluck the strings of your psyche into making you angry, or horny, or whatever. Engage with platforms, buy these products, watch 9 TV shows so you're not out of the loop, you've been added to an SMS spam group, and everyone is replying to it saying they're not interested, on and on and on.

Sorry this turned into more of a rant than I really envisioned but yeah. I can easily comprehend a day where I try and go to my gym, and the fucking app doesn't work right and I can't get in, and I just quit because I've already solved 20 fucking captchas today and I simply lack the energy to do another, to help train some goddamned AI, for a company I don't know, you know?

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

#70

Post by gehsty »

javier123454321 wrote: post #52
gehsty wrote: post #19

If it helps anyone I take antidepressants and have had a positive experience with them. Depression can be caused by a chemical imbalance and no amount of exercise or talking about it will fix it. One of the most frustrating things when your really low is people giving advice like do exercise to feel better - please don’t do this.

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.”

I wonder what his thoughts are on post natal depression? Of course those things help but there can be factors outside of people’s control that can lead them down this path…
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