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Comment by boredemployee | Hacker News Reader

Believe in me, I've been in your shoes before, it seems like an endless problem! But the cure starts with the basics that we often neglect:

1) Go out for some exercise (45min of moderate walking)

2) Get some sunlight

3) Check your Vitamin D levels

4) Drink about 2 liters of water

5) Eat healthily

6) After all this, start thinking about your employability again

Never forget that when one opportunity closes, others open up. The following metaphor might seem like quackery, but "instead of focusing on a sick tree, look at the entire forest around it"

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100% on this. Prioritize you health and you will see some huge changes. Plus, if it helps, try to see the "numbers" behind your situation, remove any abstract thoughts and try to find a logical approach

Also try lifting weights. Done carefully to avoid injury, it can produce fairly quick body fitness changes that usually help during job interviews. Having usually done long distance rowing, I was surprised how fast my muscles tightened up and grew with one lifting session a week.

And if you do these things and it doesn't solve your problems, don't feel bad about it. People really hype up the effects of working out but for some of us it doesn't change anything.

The effects are quite measurable

And people are complex creatures. What works for some may not work well for others.

That’s true of diets, not exercise. Physical exercise is always measurable and always works. Whether you can do the exercise is another matter. It should be tailored to your body. It should be hard. It should hurt (in soreness, not in pain). I’ve seen people transform.

You have just listed multiple factors which can be involved in the success of an experience.

How can you claim it’s universal when from your own words it clearly is not?

Effects on your body or mental health? As far as I know nobody crowned sports as a magic cure for mental well-being yet.

Exercise has some huge physiological and psychological benefits [0]. It won’t immediately cure serious mental illnesses, but it definitely doesn’t hurt.

Anecdotally, my mental health is much better with a good diet and some physical exercise every week.

[0]https://cursosextensao.usp.br/pluginfile.php/834363/mod_reso...

Anecdotally mine is as well. But for me it's about enough exercise and not about making a new hobbie out of it.

I guess most people don't have enough healthy exercise, getting to the point of enough is definitely a health benefit without question.

But people here recommend going full on muscle building what seems like a shift of their issues more than anything.

I love the fact that you call out exercise in its other forms. Physical labor is… exercise. Getting out and about and doing things can be exercise. It’s not just hitting a gym. I got in my best shape by avoiding the gym. There’s so much marketing around it, everyone trying to make money, when the reality is all you need is you. Calisthenics requires no upfront purchase. Only a time commitment. Lifting weights is cool too if you have them or want to buy them. Running is great too if you’re into that (or like the resulting “runners high”). I found sports, martial arts, and getting physical in my shop is plenty enough exercise to keep me in my current size jeans for the foreseeable future.

Well actually many studies show that exercise is as good or if not more effective then drugs at treating depression.

I worked out to lose weight, instead I gained an unknown amount of muscle. Not exactly measurable.

Body fat is measurable.

>And if you do these things and it doesn't solve your problems, don't feel bad about it. People really hype up the effects of working out but for some of us it doesn't change anything.

Worth trying in my opinion. It has certainly made me feel better about myself. Seeing myself improve every single day in the mirror gives me hope and makes me more motivated in life. It makes me want to do the same for my career too, improve one day at a time.

> Also try lifting weights.

100% on this. Exercising, especially lifting weights, feels like you're improving yourself after every single session. You will literally see the difference in the mirror.

It's something that you can control. You can't always control how lucky or successful you are in your career. But you can always control your exercising. Once you improve the way you look, you start to feel better and people will also see you as more confident. Slowly, you'll get more opportunities.

Tldr; control what you can first which is your body, and the things you can't control will slowly get better.

On the same note, control what you can control can also mean to change your environment and lifestyle if that is what makes you depressive.

Sports, even more weight lifting, have not helped me in any way. If anything it established a wrong body image of myself. Something I never wanted to be or look like. Self-Confidence based on looks sounds fragil and very risky to me.

It's no magic cure and if you sell it as one people might get sad if it doesn't work for them.

>Sports, even more weight lifting, have not helped me in any way. If anything it established a wrong body image of myself. Something I never wanted to be or look like. Self-Confidence based on looks sounds fragil and very risky to me.

It's done the opposite for me. I used to have lower self-esteem. Once I got into shape and visible muscles through shirts, suddenly everyone is nicer to me. Girls are talking to me more. Men are nicer. No bullying.

I quit weed and started lifting weights at the same time. When combined, these two decisions have done wonders for my mental health.

Glad to hear it worked for you. I totally get where you are coming from, but people are not nicer because you look better but because you approach them differently with your additional self esteem.

You definitely wouldn't need muscles for that. Getting to love yourself has the very same effect.

You'd be surprised. Girls definitely notice the muscles. :)

Did you learn to love yourself trough this is the real question :)

It didn't matter. Girls would stare when I walk around. That's never happened to me before lifting. Of course that boosts my confidence which exudes even more confidence.

You know the joke where people teach you how to be attractive and the first thing you need is "be handsome"? It's similar to lifting weights. You only get the confidence after people find you attractive.

You could just dress well, colorful or freaky (essentially dress with more confidence) and get stared at as well if that's what boosts your confidence.

My only point really is that they/whoever needs to find something that boosts THEIR confidence and not blindly follow things that worked for someone else in their specific situation.

There's nothing arbitrary about doing exercise to deal with depression, it's about as effective as therapy or pharmacological treatment, the same cannot be said about dressing well.

Yes. For some, according to the studies I've seen it's no magic cure that works for everyone, just as I said.

Plus there is an obvious issue of people putting their self esteem focus on something else they have little actual control about. That's not a sustainable solution on its own.

How did these muscles help in tech job interviews?

Self confidence

Meditation can be helpful too. 15 minutes a day. Find some guided ones on youtube that you like.

Or yoga, breathing, or any other form of active slowness!

Yep, you need to do all that for your brain to function properly.

Many studies show exercise is as good if not better than drugs at treating depression.

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