Quite. The whole thing with (bad) depression is that it makes you unable to get up and do the very things that help fight it: exercise, create, see friends.
Doctors literally do recommend exercise as a first port-of-call, but that only works if you're suffering in a fairly minor way.
More serious depression makes getting up and exercising impossible. When I was dealing with it, some days it was a mountainous struggle just to get up and put some food in the microwave. It took all of my energy, for the whole day, to do just a simple task like that. The idea that I could have got up and gone for a run or do something else like that is absolutely laughable.
SSRIs gave me back the energy that depression took from me. Only when I started taking them could I start being sociable again, start going out more, start exercising again.
Totally! What kicked my ass out of deep depression was 1) I finally worked my way up to moving my body up to a daily exercise I enjoy, 2) found a hobby I could periodically enjoy with others.
No. That's a lie. I'm bipolar and have spells of depression that feel like doom. I've been dealing with it as long as I can remember. It can get really bad. Working out helps (if I have the strength to move), medication helps, but nothing and I mean NOTHING can make it go away until it has run its course.
I keep wondering as I read more and experience more things if the cause of some depression is as simple as nothing to look forward to. Joining a club, taking up a hobby, visiting a church, learning a new skill, etc. all seem to help people with their condition. We're wired to connect and to hope and dream. For some people exercise does that but it just makes me tired and want to crash (even when I was in shape and playing football in school). It is a difficult issue and I worry with our technology induced isolation that it will worsen.
However, in my experience, when you truly are clinically depressed, (1) you can't really force yourself to do anything good, and (2) even if you do something positive, you'll just get tired from trying to look like a functioning human being and may even feel worse.
In general, doing positive things do help, but only after you started medication and/or psychotherapy.
Exercise is excellent for staving off depression. One indicator that you may be depressed is you no longer have any motivation to do things like exercise. So while one can suggest it as a treatment, not many legit depressives are actually going to follow through.
Have you been depressed? I can tell from experience that a depressed mind is quite active. In a bad way - constantly hurting itself with dark thoughts and hence reinforcing the bad stuff constantly.
You can't exercise depression away. At least for those situations I am familiar with.
Severe depression leads to isolating behaviors. If you're not so depressed that you are able to leave the house and go somewhere, you're ahead of the game and excercise is just icing on the cake.
The problem with depression is that it prevents you from doing anything, so the first step is to get therapy, anything else could make the depression worse :\
If that would be true, then anything that requires discipline and motivation would help with depression. That is not the case - regular washing dishes or reading or most crafts don't have the same reported effect.
That being said, the help with depression is not because you become physically fit. Exercise works even if you train in an ineffective way. It has more to do with chemistry (e.g. endorphins) in your brain then with overall result.
When I was depressed I went for lots of runs, walks, bike rides, did plenty of sets. All it did was make me feel worse because it caused massive amounts of physical pain, and not in a "good" way.
I think diet and exercise can do wonders for mild and maybe even moderate depression but the odds that it can cure severe depression are very, very small. It's dangerously simplistic to say "you just need some exercise, man."
The first thing I recommend to anyone that shows early signs of depression is: take care of eating/sleeping/exercising.
Besides giving a concrete plan of action, if you take care of those, quality of life greatly improves, and you can "build" on that, getting out of the rut.
Not me, but someone I know very well. Yes, lifestyle helps, but doesn't fix depression. Example: running is great! If you get up, go for a 5km run, do a bunch of stretches and maybe pick up the dumbbells for 10 minutes, then have a shower and then eat a healthy breakfast, you physically feel amazing! If you have depression or anxiety, it's still there, but instead of also feeling tired and crap, you at least have a baseline 'feelgood' with it. If you do this regularly enough that you're in good shape, then you don't have depression and hate your body. You're also less likely to sustain random injuries when you're physically active. But depression and anxiety is still there.
This person has been managing depression without drugs or counseling for decades. There are ups and there are downs. From the outside, it's not always possible to tell the difference until they drop the bombshell "I'm extremely depressed lately" (as in, not just today or yesterday, but continually for a week or more).
I think of it like this: inside my head is a brain, and that brain experiences the world a particular way. Let's call it a colour filter. Well, everyone has a different filter, based on genetics and formative years. For some people, their normal state is 'content', unless something pushes their mood above or below. For other people the normal state is "shitty: slightly worried about nothing in particular, a bit sick of everything, I just want to go to sleep", and they have to constantly struggle to push above that state into one that is more bearable.
By that logic there is nothing useful you could say to a depressed person, as they won't get out of bed anyway.
I am willing to believe that there are people who won't feel better by going for a run or will be unable to do so, but I think there are probably also people who feel better by simply doing it, even if they don't feel like it.
Especially with depression there also seems to be an ideological battle, were some people absolutely want to believe that it is caused by chemical imbalances and medication is the only thing that can possibly work. (Again, I am willing to believe that such cases exist, but I also think there are people who would rightfully have been classified as depressed who came out of it without medication).
Certainly. I have been in the position before where I was at the bottom of my own personal pit and was unable to begin exercising on my own (severely depressed and obese, not a great combination to begin an exercise program). It's not an easy thing to get started doing _anything_ when you're depressed, habits are hard to change. People shouldn't be expected to change these things (purely) on their own, as a lot is a function of environment/genetics/overall life situation, but...
I can recall clearly what it would have been like (for me personally at least) were I in a strongly depressive state: I'd read the comment warning me about exercise, then I'd be afraid to exercise at all.
By framing exercise as a risky behavior based on a few exceptional anecdotes, the poster does depressed readers a disservice. It's relatively established that depressed people are more risk averse in general[1][2], and exercise also has well established benefits in treating symptoms of depression (I shouldn't have to cite sources for this one). The benefits far outweigh the risks.
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