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Comment by astazangasta | Hacker News Reader

Look, the evidence is always surprisingly weak. This isn't necessarily because these things don't work, its because the epistemology used is terrible at evaluating these sorts of questions, when someone has bothered to look in the first place. See here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/

Anecdotally my life experience is that exercise is the best possible way to combat depression. The other day I was crushingly depressed and had been for a week. I went and hit my heavy bag for twenty minutes and came out feeling fine. The effect was profound and easily felt. I don't need a study to convince me further; my lived experience is a superior epistemic method here.

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Anecdotally, for me, when I was in the mist of severe clinical depression exercise did absolutely nothing for me except make me feel much worse and made me vomit... a lot.

Of course, I was suffering from severe clinical depression not "feeling terrible for a week" level "depression."

That's really key, severe clinical depression profoundly affects your response to stimuli in pathological ways. Another example for me is severe clinical depression (of which I've suffered two episodes of in my life) makes me unable to taste food.

If exercise is making you vomit, I think you're doing it wrong. What did you have to do to get that reaction? Did you try backing off the intensity to a level where you could simply cope and enjoy it?

> If exercise is making you vomit, I think you're doing it wrong.

Good point. I'm interested in their answer on that.

> [...] and enjoy it?

Fuck me :) That was amusing!

No offence but you really don't get it. Exercise in that state we use as a coping mechanism. I guess he, like me, overdid it hence the vomiting (just a guess though - love to hear the answer).

There is no enjoying it because there's little if anything to enjoy if you're hurting inside. To repeat: exercise is a coping mechanism. It's not 'fun'.

Didn't overdo it or anything, if anything I underdid it, my workouts, depressed or not depressed, are not particularity intense and the depression takes the intensity down, since I'm feeling so shitty.

Vomiting is simply my body's response to stress while disfunctioned by severe depression. During that timeframe, I was sitting in a room with coworkers discussing specifics of a project and that was just so completely overwhelming to me that I had to run out of the room and go vomit. Later that week I had to take an extended leave of absence from work because I could just no longer function at work.

Ah, yes, the very predicable "doing it wrong" comment. Honestly, what on Earth possesses you make such a comment?

I'm wasn't "doing it wrong," its severe depression that causes such a reaction, not intensity. My workouts are never particularly intense anyways. That's depression - it causes profound disruptions in response to stimuli. Other innocuous things make me vomit too when severely depressed as well. It's called severe clinical depression. I mean, that's literally a diagnosis criteria, anhedonia - An inability to experience pleasure from activities usually found enjoyable.

I can exercise just fine when not depressed without vomiting or feeling like garbage.

> Did you try backing off the intensity to a level where you could simply cope and enjoy it?

This is the equivalent of suggesting to a depressed person that they should just try being happy.

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 floor is always available for pushups, but the social benefits of exercise are also worthwhile in combatting depression. Severe depression is another story, but most depressed people are not severely depressed.

When I was younger I think I was depressed. It got to the stage where people would talk to me and I wouldn't talk back, I'd just stare; I'd lie in bed doing nothing; I let my hair grow long because I didn't want to go outside or talk to a barber.

I'm much better now, and I think exercise was one of the key things that improved my general mood. It was a constant sturggle though for a while.

YMMV, of course, and I was never diagnosed or anything.

That still doesn't mean that he wasn't depressed though. I've experienced the same thing. I struggled with depression in my 20's but I found that if I was able to drag myself out of the house and get on my bike, I'd feel better within minutes. However, the huge struggle was getting out of bed and walking outside in the first place.

Agreed with @astura here.

> The other day I was crushingly depressed and had been for a week

In my regrettably extensive experience, if you feel bad for a week then you can count yourself very, very lucky. I can't see what you describe as being depression, although of course people are very different (had GFs who had it bad for a week or so at a time every month).

> I [...] hit my heavy bag for twenty minutes and came out feeling fine

Depression made me exercise compulsively, to the point of damaging myself. It never made me feel better so I don't know why I did it, but I had to, and I understand this is common. Twenty minutes of exercise and you felt better? It's impossible to equate that in any sense with what I had.

There's a big difference between feeling really crappy and knowing you'd literally be better of dead, and being in that state for years continuously. That kind of things hurts inside, worse than physical pain (I know both).

> my lived experience is a superior epistemic method here

Hmm. Good for you.

> Twenty minutes of exercise and you felt better?

High-intensity exercise, seems plausible. Aerobic exercise is an annoying timesink by comparison, even though it does nevertheless play an important role in building up cardio endurance.

[edit] Replying to myself:

I'll go a little further. Past few years have been extremely hard for me, haven't been able to concentrate for ~6 months to the point of not mentally being able to work (had to sign off sick (am in the UK)) and just starting to get back to work next week 1 day a week, unpaid.

I can just about keep my clothes clean, and mostly keep my flat clean. I'm mentally very unwell to the point of being unable to go to the pub and socialise as I used to. I was unwell to the point of being a danger to other people (am over that now, thank god. Yes, I did talk to the doc). I am coping, barely. I have no current interest in life, music, little interest in other people etc. I'm abusing drugs and alcohol as a way of coping, though in the long term I know that's a bad idea (and I draw a clear distinction between drug use/drug abuse, entirely independent from what's legal/illegal).

Point is, I feel justifiably terrible but I'm not clinically depressed. For sure I'm down, but I'm nowhere near the utter destructive blackness that is real depression, and I'm bloody grateful for it.

So I can't see what you describe as depression in any way that I can comprehend.

(NB, life sucks but any sympathy you can shove up your arse. I'd much prefer you took the piss, at least in a nice way. At least I'd get a laugh out of it).

Wait, what's missing from your description to fit the clinical depression ?

I see what you're asking, but I've had real depression.

Now I can cope, more or less, and don't mind living (though I'm not fond of it much). Full-on depression is where death is outright appealing. Full-on depression hurts inside, really hurts. I've described it as soul-cancer. It fucking hurts. It's difficult to explain how much it hurts. It's over now, but if that came back I doubt I'd be alive for more than a few months if that.

That experience, which was a huge chunk of my life, allows me to put this in perspective - things are shite now (in fact they're worse than I've described) but it could be so much worse. I can cope.

Ah, I see. Thanks for sharing.

You're less depressed, not "not depressed."

Ok, if you must know, that week was at the end of the Oregon winter, my first time north of 40 degrees after years of California living. In addition I had just moved away from all my friends to a new city, had started remote work and felt isolated from my coworkers. I also had some other deep conflicts that were difficult for me.

In other words it was not just one bad week, I was fucking depressed. It was one bad week after months of being down. But thanks for making me play "more depressed than thou", I hope I won this round.

I don't think depression is measured by your circumstances.

That's not fair. I mean, yes I don't believe what he had was depression as I know it but he still clearly had a bad time. Maybe he hadn't had experiences that would allow him to put it in perspective but he had it pretty miserable anyway and I feel for anyone going through that.

Yeah, I don't mean to question him having had it miserable.

>That kind of things hurts inside, worse than physical pain (I know both).

I agree completely and totally.

The context is people being given treatment by the state, sometimes against their will, sometimes when they've been deprived of their liberty.

Given that context it's important that we don't force people to do anything unless we know it works, and the previous evidence didn't tell us that.

I'm glad exercise works for you, and I always support people finding out what works for them.

Is exercising harming them? Why apply such a high standard to something is healthy especially when western populations are sedentary? I think there should be a measured approach.

Exercise usually hurts more that lying around, even when you're not depressed. So yes, I think it can harm.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/15/politics/donald-trump-exercis...

> Trump believed the human body was like a battery, with a finite amount of energy, which exercise only depleted. So he didn't work out.

The link only demonstrates the absurdity of your previous statement. Unless that's what you are going for?

We've asked you countless times to stop posting unsubstantive, trollish, or flamebait comments, and since there's no sign of abatement we're about ready to ban the account. Could you please review the guidelines and stop?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Hi,

Could you please delete all my comments from the site?

Idiots downvoted me.

What gave you that idea?

Some people use the word “exercise” to mean any physical activity, and others use it to mean pushing your body near its limits. Lots of the bewilderment that happens in these discussions is between people that define the word different ways and don’t realize it.

Experience.. if we're not talking about a leisurely walk or light garden work, there is always some pain in exercise. (These endorphins people talk about.. how long do you have to run for? Maybe if one gets more fit? )

There is joy in moving (and good feelings afterwards) too, but if you are unable to feel that, then only the boredom and pain remains.

N=1, but exercise was not useful for me. If anything, the cool-down period afterwards just encouraged me to avoid doing anything, and the pain of strenuous exrrcise also added to the misery index.

I did, however, find a medicine that worked wonders. Since then, I have worked out 30-45 minutes 5 days a week, but I certainly don't notice a difference in mood from before and after i started working out again.

Edit: I want to make clear that this is not a rebuttal of what worked for you, but a point to consider when discussing with others who may be suffering. If you speak in absolutes about what works, and they find that it does not work for them, they may end up feeling even more hopeless.

That article is glorious, thank you for posting!

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