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  • TDS Moderators: AlphaMethylPhenyl | paranoid android

Mental Health does exercise really help moderate to severe depression?

It's true. Smoking weed after a hardcore 50 minute(optimal time for weight lifting without overdoing it) workout would be the best most relaxing smoke of the day.
 
ibtisam midlet said:
depend in depression type not severity, if you can't enjoy exercise you will not get antidepressant effect if you do it, if you can enjoy exercise then it will help for sure.
exercise will induce release of endorphin (opiates not serotonin like SSRIs) so the antidepressant effect will be different.
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Which is what the brain is lacking in depressed patients - considering the depression is neuro-chemical as opposed to situational/circumstantial (ie due to external factors).
 
From what I understand, it can definitely help a lot. I've personally never been able to find much benefit with it, as it's a bit of a catch-22. With certain severe depressions pretty much sapping all motivation to get up and work out.
 
ibtisam midlet said:
if you do exercises your body will not release endorphin opposite of what should happen with normal people so no positive effect.
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Im not completely convinced and may be open to be persuaded. Is there a point where there is no repair and/or flow of natural order?
 
ibtisam midlet said:
depend in depression type not severity, if you can't enjoy exercise you will not get antidepressant effect if you do it, if you can enjoy exercise then it will help for sure.
exercise will induce release of endorphin (opiates not serotonin like SSRIs) so the antidepressant effect will be different.
Click to expand...
Whilst I see what you're saying, I have to disagree. Subjective enjoyment has nothing to do with objective release of endorphins as a response to physical exertion.

deficiT said:
From what I understand, it can definitely help a lot. I've personally never been able to find much benefit with it, as it's a bit of a catch-22. With certain severe depressions pretty much sapping all motivation to get up and work out.
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Yes, motivation definitely plays a HUGE part in exercising when depressed. It can be hard enough to get out of bed and walk out to the letter box, let alone doing enough physical activity so as to break a sweat!

ibtisam midlet said:
you can't enjoy getting fucked if you are a boy (Y-chromosome >testes>testosterone>inhibition on this type of reward)
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I COMPLETELY disagree with this analogy, but that's a story for another thread.
 
Intense resistance training has helped me more than i could hope with deep psychosomatic anxiety and depression. I strongly believe that our bodies need to be stressed and challenged in order to develop properly. This may be extra important for males. A sedentary lifestyle is unnatural and may carry a multitude of unforeseen problems with it. My preferred method is an improvised full-body session, with short rest intervals and high resistances for a rather short time. I try to go for some kind of PR every time. Frequency is on average every other day.

I have also increased my time spent in nature dramatically. Every season offers great beauty, and the hours of low-intensity cardio and terrain exercise can't hurt either.

I have yet to begin a proper high-intensity cardio routine, but that would probably improve things even more.

I wish i could convey the very tangible benefits, because i understand that motivation is hard when all you can hope to achieve is some vague notion of health and duty fulfillment. Probably it's even harder if you're addicted to hard drugs. Personally i'm a weed indulger and moderate booze romantic. I've kept up these habits at full intensity throughout my new healthy lifestyle :D

You can indeed train to feel better. Not just because it seems like a good idea.
 
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I cant say its helpful for severe depression as i have never been able to keep up exercising when i have been at my most depressed, but i have been using the gym and different sports to help control mild to moderate depression with amazing results since i got into that flow in a psych ward back in 2015. Been keeping it up well with excercise since then but during all the Covid lockdowns i slowly lost all my routines and my life spiraled back into depression, anxiety and drug use so for me its been vital to my mental health. Everything is finally back to normal again here in Norway and iam getting back into my workout routines and both my mental health and addiction control is strong again. It can be really hard to find motivation and get going when feelings of depression is taring at your soul but it truly is one of the best medicines in the long run, i have found that the times when i really dont wanna do anything and i push myself to go to the gym despite feeling both body aches and a mood at ground level is the days i get the best effect. I always exercise early in the morning to give me the mood lift and energy i need to get going til the next day. Motivation does not come for free but pushing yourself over and over again when its the most difficult will eventually make it a habit 💪
 
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I find that weightlifting, running, or even just walking the dog can make a huge difference for me if I can find the motivation. Unfortunately, my depression sometimes brings along the lovely side effect of random severe joint/bodily pain (I'm far too young to be dealing with that normally and it only happens at the peak of depressive episodes) whenever I try to do anything physical, which can make exercise quite a bit more difficult than when I'm not depressed.
 
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deficiT said:
From what I understand, it can definitely help a lot. I've personally never been able to find much benefit with it, as it's a bit of a catch-22. With certain severe depressions pretty much sapping all motivation to get up and work out.
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Yeah, exercise can be incredibly transformative for some, but there's always that catch that motivation usually requires some energy in the tank first before you can get going and boost your mood. A decent analogy would be a bit like how a car engine battery requires at least a minimum of charge first in order to start the motor that can then recharge the battery more fully.

For myself, I used to love bodybuilding and running, it felt productive and constructive long-term as well as providing the short-term boost of having accomplished something and some neurochemical boosts. But that all fell apart after Covid, and now I'm unable to restart doing it, even though I know it would help a ton and probably the brain too.
 
If one can somehow escape the catch-22 that in order to rouse the motivation or will to exercise one must have already overcome the depression to some extent, then yes, it does. There are studies comparing the efficacy of exercise versus medication or talk therapy. I can't be arsed to find them, but I'm sure a quick internet search (with advanced settings limiting results to scientific journal extensions) will yield a few.

Personally I have not found a sustainable method (i.e., neither stimulants nor going 3+ days at a stretch without eating) to escape that paradox. If and when I should ever do so, I will report back.
 
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