Or one could lift weights, which is even safer and has many positive ancillary effects. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abst...
Before anyone gets upset, I'm not saying that pills are bad, I'm just saying that many rely on them without making an effort to make other positive changes to their life.
There's a reason why people who lift joke that the heaviest weight in the gym is the front door.
One approach that has worked well for many is establishing positive habits to displace negative ones. That takes a while, but there are tricks to help, like having a group to hold you accountable.
Depression is like I'm sitting on your chest and tell you that breathing is easy and all you need is to do it rhythmically.
Depression is like that day your brain doesn't function properly after not sleeping during the night, but every day for years and regardless how much you sleep.
Depression is not a bad habit, just like the flu is not a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Furthermore, what is somewhat amazing is that, on a Good Day (or less depressed or in-remission day, or whatever one wants to call it), one can also look back on a Bad Day, just yesterday, and be mystified why that seemingly dead simple task [1], seemed completely overwhelming to the point of impossibility.
Like many diseases of the brain, including dementias and schizophrenia, the sufferer can seem and even be fully functional when the disease isn't (as) active, including being prone to falling for the same fallacies as everyone else.
In the throes of the symptoms, however, the brain just isn't working the same, so it's not fair, compassionate, nor reasonable to extrapolate about habit formation or responsibility from an unafflicted brain. It can get a bit too easy to blame the victim that way.
None of this is to say that encouraging good habit formation or increased patient self direction/determination can't be helpful, when possible. I'm just saying not to start with that as an assumption and that it likely isn't even possible for the more severe cases.
[1] taking out the trash, running the dishwasher, or even just getting out of bed
If you think the two are anywhere near each other in terms of instantaneous effectiveness, you must be tripping. Exercise can take months to possibly help. A single good trip can fix years of depression, months forward.
Olympic weightlifting is actually one of the safest sports. But most people who lift are doing body building or more sport-specific training, which is where you see most of the injuries.
Meanwhile, I commute by motorcycle exclusively five days a week and have never missed work due to or come to work with an injury. The safeness of any given activity is relative to each individual and their training.
They're actually required to be amateurs, but otherwise yeah. :-)
Your typical gym-goer does all kinds of other stuff though, like crossfit and similar nonsense, which is highly injury prone.
The "classic" (i.e. Olympic) exercises, is a very safe sport.
Second, anyone who thinks psychedelics are a shortcut or an easy way to do something obviously haven't experienced them.
But this is how the early experiments with ketamine are being described - as a near instant treatment that takes a couple of hours and lasts for months.
I highly recommend doing more research before pushing exercise as a more moral (or whatever, 'safer' if you prefer, but I suspect most opposition is on old-fashioned moral grounds) alternative. The hand-me-down moralisms about drugs have got to stop, especially in a world of legitimate alcohol and prescription drug use. It's time to question what the authorities have been legitimizing versus stigmatizing. The opioid crisis and long-time cannabis prohibition aren't enough to cause questions about the impartiality of the status quo?
I recommend ignoring such persons on the grounds that listening to them is likely to cause harm and unlikely to be beneficial.
On a more nuanced note, different things work for different people, and gyms aren't the optimal mental healing environment for everyone.
If you're gonna arrange everyone on a hypothetical comfort spectrum between gym and library, it seems reasonable that some people would be more likely to seek mental help if it came in the form of taking a tab under supervision from a qualified professional in a private room than they would if they have to go lift in the company of a bunch of loudly moaning middle-aged men hell bent on proving to the room at large that they are the highest quality specimen of humanity in the room. Lets not be elitist about the paths to mental health, options are good.
It's about half an hour a day, that's all you really need. True, if you can't spare half an hour, then you've got greater issues.
The latter part of your argument I personally have never ever once experienced, nor have anyone I known experience it outside of the gym at high school. People grunt when exerting effort, everyone wears headphones anyway. And even then, you don't need to go to the gym to lift, calisthenics are perfectly fine for those with no access/no desire to go the gym.
Unless you don't have a car, or live in a congested city, or live outside the city, in which case it can be half an hour of commuting time before you get your half hour of exercise. It's also ~$60 a month, which not everyone can spare. Your statement also assumes people aren't working two jobs, and aren't working shift work (or have access to a 24h gym, which not everyone does).
Calisthenics, or bodyweight, exercises are perfectly viable for becoming fit and require nothing than you being able to find a nice spot on a floor. If this hypothetical person is that strapped for time, then how do they even get any sleep? That's an even bigger issue than not being able to work out consistently.
However, you can really only do that between april and november here. There's four months of the year where going on any meaningful hike is absolutely only for people who are totally dedicated and have thousands of dollars of gear, plenty of experience and have been guided on that specific track during winter at least once. Those are the same four months when there's no sunlight and the seasonal depression sets in. I'm not in that league and I'm not embarrassed about it.
The whole "just exercise, it's great and easy" shtick is kinda naive and TBH vaguely annoying. Lots of people, even quite wealthy people, live in circumstances where it's actually just not easy, at least not all the time, and exercise kinda only works for mental health if it's regular. You should see the tires on the bikes that the cyclists who try to keep form during the winter here have to use just on city pavements.
But then if you have that time, why not use it for bodyweight exercise at home?
It costs absolutely nothing, requires no equipment, and weather is not an issue. You could be getting quality exercise for free during the same time that you would have otherwise spent hiking.
If you're open to trying it, check out the bodyweight fitness sub on reddit[1] and their recommended routine[2].
[1] - https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/
[2] - https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommend...
What I'm arguing strongly against is the notion that exercise is a magical solution that can suit any lifestyle, any country and any economic situation. It's not been so long since I was working a job with a 2.5 hour commute each direction that I find it easy to listen to people with cozy and secure 9-5 jobs in lovely temperate latitudes condescendingly explain how there's no possible excuse for struggling to find time for regular exercise without calling them out on their shit. Offering better results-for-time options for mental health is not indulging the indolent.
For everything else I agree.
Exercise might help prevent mental ill health, and it's important because mental health meds have severe impact on physical health, but it's probably not a great treatment option, even if you can get people to comply with the treatment.
Exercise is moderately better than nothing, but only if you include weak studies. As soon as you only include good studies the efficacy drops off.
http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depre...