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Comment by snemvalts | Hacker News Reader

Instead, people try to fix it with antidepressants, benzodiazepines or something else.

It feels a bit like the US approach to pain management – instead of massages or physical therapy, some opioid pill is cheaper to prescribe.

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I dislike this black n white rhetoric from both sides. "Just do some workout" - "no this doesn't work for me". Yes, workout does help, but mental illness is still real. Both sides should try to be more sensitive and more understanding in my opinion.

I can't fix my social anxiety through workout. But I sure can feel better about myself when doing it and then approach those anxieties with more confidence, but the anxieties are still there.

I'm not saying that workouts will necessarily fix your social anxiety or any other mental disorder, but I don't know of anything else that necessarily will - meds and psychotherapy are also quite limited in their effectiveness. All I'm saying is people should at least consider that exercise (and more specifically - mild to rigorous cardio workouts) can be just as effective as psychotherapy / meds are. The evidence is there. I don't expect this understanding to come from therapists, this needs to come from society at large. Also, it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive, you can do both.

    > my social anxiety

I am considering trying some beta blockers. Did you try them? They seem like an interesting experiement.

Have you tried pineapple on your pizza? Seems like an interesting experiment

I'm speaking from experience regarding mental illnesses and exercise. And I never discounted medication. Just that exercise is critically underprescribed, I'm fairly sure it would work better for milder cases compared to meds. Not to mention the other health benefits listed in the thread.

Same way an opioid pill is still prescribed in cases of cancer or severe pain. Just that there are probably better, milder alternatives that don't have as many side effects that could fit a lot of these people with milder problems.

I am 90% on your side (my experience is just that most doctors or therapists ask for my workout before considering meds). The truth is just that every mental illness is different.

So yeah, my takeaway is we should embrace workout, or maybe not necesserily straight workout, but just simple movement/exercise, more than meds. Especially here in germany I notice a very bad/prejudice mindset about doctors. I myself had very good experience. Either just because of pure luck or because I went to them, because I geniuenely believe that they are professionals who can help me. And that's what they (most of the time, not always) did.

Exercise (and sunlight!) are proven treatments for mild to moderate depression. It's probably not all you need, but it's a very good start.

Exercise does nothing for severe depression.

Agreed, but mild to moderate depression is the majority of people with mental health issues - that's where we should start. Also , I suspect it will also help a lot in severe depression but its hard to get someone with severe depression to exercise - in that case meds should be the way to go.

My depression is severe and exercise does make a difference. I’m not sure why you’d think that.

It doesn’t make the bad thoughts go away. It doesn’t turn off the bad feelings. I’d still be diagnosed with severe depression if I went in with a fresh slate. What it does is give me the energy to endure it, though. The physiological symptoms subside quite a bit, and it makes a meaningful difference.

It also helps more than medication since I seem to be a non-responder. It’s a big help in my life.

Yep exactly this. The thing is we are now so removed from exercise (and healthy living in general) as a society - take the car, take the elevator, sit at your desk the whole day and then fall asleep in the couch at home. And paradoxically this lifestyle makes us so tired and energy depleted, that even the thought of starting to exercise seems ridiculous to many. This is making it super hard for many people to start exercising and persist, it seems like everything in modern society is geared to make us couch zombies - so no surprise we have high levels of obesity, anxiety, depression and what not.

It's not that hard a leap is it? For some reason it seems oblivious to non-sufferers that the idea of a physical treatment for a mental ailment is a given?

For most folks, that connection doesn't exist. Hell, I work out 3x a week and even I don't notice the obvious side-effects even though I'm certain they exist.

When we're dealing with ordinary people living their daily lives, the idea that something so "non-mental" - in the most literal sense "physical" can have an effect on the mental, is a really tough thing to swallow, understand and hell, even percept when things are going well?

Sorry. But I'm an avid gym-goer and even I have to remind myself of the positive it's doing. We're not all the same.

> Sorry. But I'm an avid gym-goer and even I have to remind myself of the positive it's doing. We're not all the same.

Maybe you're one of the people that for whatever reason exercise does nothing to - though I highly doubt it. I'm not sure what training you do exactly but to reap most of the benefits the workout should include moderate cardio work. I don't think going to lift weights for a 40-60 minutes with plenty of rest between sets will cut it. Running for 45+ minutes is what most people should aim for, of course beginners will do less.

Anyway I agree with you - for most folks the connection doesn't exist, perhaps its time this changed.

Hmm, I've never felt any "noticeable" positive effect of exercise either.

I didn't exercise basically at all for well over decade. But I felt fine, wasn't overweight or gaining weight or anything like that.

But I decided that I should probably exercise, so have been for awhile now. Fortunately I have what appears to be a very high amount of self control so I'm able to just force myself to go exercise even though I hate every second of it and it just feels like a waste of time.

I haven't noticed any changes to anything that I can think of since going from no exercise to 3-4 days a week of about 1 hour sessions of zone 2+ exercise.

I just keep waiting for this magical benefit that some people talk about, but I get nothing.

I'm only doing it because if I don't, supposedly "bad things" will happen to my body in the future.

Interesting. What kind of exercise do you do? and how do you define Zone 2 (there are many contradicting definitions out there)? I would try going a bit to zone 3/4 at times (of course while being careful not to injure yourself) not only to get the 'noticeable' positive effect, but also because it seems like you get bored/frustrated a lot in your workouts and it doesn't have to be that boring. Anyway keep at it, I hope you will enjoy it more and get that nice feelings everyone is talking about. Try noticing if your sleep is a bit deeper and better after hard sessions, how your energy levels are etc. For most people there will be improvement in those areas (you could be an outlier but I kinda doubt it).

Also - don't take it the wrong way but it's going to be very hard for you to notice anything positive about the whole thing if you're convinced you hate every minute of it. I'm not sure how you can get out of this mindset but I think it's important that you do. Or try different kinds of exercise that you don't hate.

Well aside from weight lifting I mostly use the stair machine because I feel that it best matches the activity that I do like to do sometimes (hiking).

I was defining zone 2 mainly by how it feels. Not too hard and where I can breathe fairly normally and easily have a conversation. But also by the heartrate being in the 65-75% range, so for age 36 I was keeping it around 125-130. My resting heart rate is 52 but not sure if that matters. It's always been that even when I was more than a decade of sedentary.

Another reason I was doing all zone 2 is because I thought that I had some sort of aerobic deficiency syndrome thing from being sedentary for so long. Basically my heart rate would shoot up into zone 3 with pretty minimal exercise, and I read that the only way to fix this was to do lots and lots of long zone 2 exercise for months.

I'm sure if I did more fun things it would be easier to be enthusiastic about it, but I am not even sure what active activity I would like. Sure I like hiking, but that's something I like to do on a trip somewhere exotic like a state or national park, not something I can easily do regularly locally.

My energy levels honestly feel somewhat more depleted when I am working out. Like I just want to take a nap after a workout and I feel like nodding off. Not like instantly, but maybe like an hour after or so.

I just haven't been able to understand or feel the connection people find with exercise. Like I said, I never felt any issue or lacking in my energy levels or mood, or sleep or focus when I was more or less completely sedentary, and I always watched what I ate so I was healthy in that regard (perfect scores on biometric blood tests), normal weight, etc.

So exercise just feels like a time waster, just an uncomfortable time sweating etc and overall possibly a little more tired and drained because of it.

My only motivation for keeping doing it is the prospect that it will help prevent some sort of future complications and health issues, and I guess that's good enough for me to convince myself to keep going.

Hating it is maybe too strong of a word, but I definitely don't look forward to it in any way and I just want to get it over with for the day so I can move onto something that I actually enjoy. It just feels like a chore. Something that we need to do to live a good life, so we do it.

Its possible your max HR is way above your age (the 220 - age thing is really inaccurate). You can buy a chest strap / get properly tested to find out. I would try to make at least some of the workouts a bit more challenging - you can try pick up running. Or if you're working the stairs machine, do it faster and for longer for at least part of the time. This will not only make it more interesting for you - its also the only way to improve your vO2 max if all you're doing is 3 workouts a week (and a higher v02 max should be your goal is you're thinking about longevity / health). As for energy levels - I meant in general. After hard workouts I can be quite exhausted for 24 hours sometimes. That's normal. But my sleep is usually higher quality and the day after I'm a bit more vital. My mood is more stabilized etc.

Anyway good luck! I hope you'll take away from this that its OK to change /mix things up and see what works for you.

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