Hacker News Reader

Comment by lethologica | Hacker News Reader

I’ve had major clinical depression for the last 15 years or so. The first 4 months of this year was the lowest I’ve ever been. During that time though I was going to the gym 6 days a week doing weight lifting and then I would cycle 50km a day on top of that. All of it was on autopilot however, my depression just wouldn’t allow me to focus on anything but it.

Luckily I had been building up the habit for years in advance but that was the most I had ever exercised and it was also the most I had ever been depressed. In my case I don’t think the exercise helped at all. Perhaps if I hadn’t of been exercising maybe I wouldn’t even be here now though… I’m not entirely sure. Finding the right medication and getting therapy has been what has really helped me. With those two I can see an almost day and night difference but with the exercise I noticed no difference at all. At least I had a great physique though!

View on HN

Yeah, same here. I don't exercise as much as you - 3, maybe 4 times a week - but yeah, it doesn't help. Sure, it feels good right when you're doing it (sometimes, hah), but the feeling doesn't persist. Some days, I actually feel worse emotionally after exercise.

I agree with you about therapy and medication: in my experience, they are the only things that work. Expensive though.

As a side note, I sort of feel triggered by this kind of article.

Depressed? Have you:

- exercised enough?

- drank enough water?

- slept enough?

- meditated enough?

- gotten outside enough?

It's passed as "helpful advice" by well-meaning people but always makes me feel like I'm not "enough". If I've done all those things but I'm still depressed, I must not have done those things "enough". Does that make sense? I'm so tired of trying to explain how hard I'm working, I just don't talk about it with people for fear they'll bring out "the list" of things I ought to be doing, and I'll have to explain that, yes, I get 8 hours of sleep a night. Yes, I drink a gallon of water a day. Etc.

You could probably turn those questions right around on people: have they meditated “enough” recently? Are they getting 8 hours of sleep and going outside regularly? My bet is that they’re not, and yet if they’re not depressed… well maybe there’s something else going on!

I think the only people who think exercise solves depression are those that have never suffered clinical depression. Dopamine from exercise is pretty much a temporary relief. Just like drinking, smoking, or binging netflix - they provide temporary relief and let us ignore the root problems.

Therapy is what finally taught me how to actually process my thoughts and feelings, and let me make real progress against depression.

And now, when I go for an outside run or walk, I can spend that time focusing purely purely on my internal thoughts/feelings. Done like this, exercise can be a great therapeutic activity - but it's not the dopamine or act of exercise itself, it's creating the time for self-therapy.

The meta analysis linked in the article we're discussing wouldn't really agree with you.

> Physical activity had medium effects on depression (median effect size=−0.43, IQR=−0.66 to –0.27), anxiety (median effect size=−0.42, IQR=−0.66 to –0.26) and psychological distress (effect size=−0.60, 95% CI −0.78 to –0.42), compared with usual care across all population. The largest benefits were seen in people with depression, HIV and kidney disease, in pregnant and postpartum women, and in healthy individuals. Higher intensity physical activity was associated with greater improvements in symptoms

I think comparing exercise to drinking is pretty silly and doesn't suggest a wide berth of knowledge on the topic. I'm glad to hear that therapy was the silver bullet for you, but if there's one thing that's _abundantly_ clear about mental health treatments, it's that there's no one-size-fits-all solution.

> I think the only people who think exercise solves depression are those that have never suffered clinical depression.

What about the studies with clinically depressed people who treat their symptoms as effectively as SSRIs with exercise? I'm thinking specifically of a running therapy study that was done recently, I haven't read the study linked by OP.

How much were you sleeping at night?

I find that exercise without adequate sleep grinds me down into a twilight zone state of everything seeming a bit unreal.

Last time I had a period similar to yours, the problem was too much screen time on social media and gaming, which was disrupting my sleep.

I cut those out, started feeling tired enough to sleep again, and bounced back to normality.

Sorry to hear that. I guess you experienced major setbacks in your life this year?

I did pretty much the same during a longer dip. I guess it's a way of dealing with the always-on fight-or-flight mode, so you exercise way more than your body is able to recover from and only end up digging yourself further down.

Now that I am in a healthier state of mind, I find that exercise helps a lot more as long as I can do it in a healthy way.

Did you ever move to another place, region, country, climate? Left or switched social circles? Switched careers?

I bet you look great though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com