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Comment by Trasmatta | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty intensely depressed, so I think I'd like to learn how to be a little less of that. I've tried so many things, but I guess there's always more. Thinking about getting a personal trainer, because I try to stay active, but have no idea how to actually work out. Seems like a good skill to learn, and should help somewhat with the crushing weight my brain seems to be in constantly.

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    > Thinking about getting a personal trainer, because I try to stay active, but have no idea how to actually work out.

This is a great idea if you have the money for it. Don't feel guilty about just a few sessions to build up a set exercises that works for you. Then you can circle back 2-4 times per year, do a few more sessions to up your game. For me, exercise was a fuckin' game changer for my mental health. Even when I struggle to get out of bed in the morning, missing a workout makes me feel muuuuuuch worse (mentally and physically).

Edit:

Another thing I just thought of: If a personal trainer is too expensive, consider signing up for a free trial of one of a million different online apps that help you build and structure a workout. Example (no shill here): https://rpstrength.com/. There are lots of competitors. Don't worry about getting everything perfect on the first try. The real trick to exercise is finding what works for you. Dr. Mike (from RP) is constantly banging the drum about experimenting with your own body and health through exercise and diet. Ultimately, you know yourself better than anyone else on this planet.

I'm in a similar position but figured out how to work out last year. it's not a panacea, but working out is quite fun and is a great skill. I never had a personal trainer, but the best part about having one would probably be that they could set you up with some plans to follow, removing all the initial guesswork. The hardest part about working out for me is trying to figure out a goal to optimize for that's not too far away but not too simple either.

Working out does SO MUCH to help with depression. There’s a lot of literature to support this, and plenty of anecdata as well. Good luck, you can do it!

I've written about getting out of some giga-depression a few years ago, but having a good therapist was massive. Working out kept me busy and mitigated symptoms, but I don't think I would have improved without a strong psychologist.

Hope that helps a little bit. It gets better sometimes!

    > I've written about

If you are willing, can you share a link to any public writing? I'm surprised that we don't see more blog posts shared in HN about people's stuggle with mental health. You definitely see HN posts about it, but I don't see so much blog post sharing.

My blog is pretty well-known and linking feels a bit self-promote-y, so I tend to avoid it. But since it might help, here you go!

https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/on-burnout-mental-health-and...

Thank you. I've been in therapy for 4 years. It's probably helped keep me stable, but the effectiveness has been limited.

The language models can give you a good quick program right now.

The bigger hurdle is the intimidation of the gym. It doesn't help that the gym will be packed on January 1st. I deload every January to avoid the gym as much as possible in January. It will be back to normal by mid February. A new lifter would be so much better off waiting until March 1st to join.

Walking 30 minutes a day to get your cardio up will almost certainly help your brain chemicals improve after a few weeks and no new skills needed.

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