I feel like we all intuitively knew this but every few months a study comes out and headlines say “exercise does nothing to help depression” or “exercise does heaps to help depression” so I have no idea what the actual truth is on this.
I have seen the exact opposite. Every couple years, a new study finds that exercise helps with depression. People boohoo it or ignore it or say that’s obvious and then it repeats a couple years later.
To be fair, I think the problem is that exercise helps many or most people, but knowing that doesn’t help anyone to start exercising when they’re depressed.
There’s also a lot of people who take studies like these and use them to argue that medications are all bad and everyone should just exercise instead. The Maha nuts and the naturalistic fallacy lovers they spawned from are prime examples. Mental health conditions that are in the category of “normal thing to a disordered degree” such as depression, anxiety, and adhd have a ton of people who just blanket oppose medication as a solution. And I think a lot of people react to these studies as though they’re those people.
Like, I’m a huge fan of regular exercise and time in nature. I think both are vital to most people’s mental health and if possible are a great first step for many mental illnesses. But I depend on prescription stimulants to be able to do such things consistently and safely. My first step is meds, and the lifestyle stuff is important and built on that foundation.
I feel like we all intuitively knew this but every few months a study comes out and headlines say “exercise does nothing to help depression” or “exercise does heaps to help depression” so I have no idea what the actual truth is on this.
I have seen the exact opposite. Every couple years, a new study finds that exercise helps with depression. People boohoo it or ignore it or say that’s obvious and then it repeats a couple years later.
To be fair, I think the problem is that exercise helps many or most people, but knowing that doesn’t help anyone to start exercising when they’re depressed.
There’s also a lot of people who take studies like these and use them to argue that medications are all bad and everyone should just exercise instead. The Maha nuts and the naturalistic fallacy lovers they spawned from are prime examples. Mental health conditions that are in the category of “normal thing to a disordered degree” such as depression, anxiety, and adhd have a ton of people who just blanket oppose medication as a solution. And I think a lot of people react to these studies as though they’re those people.
Like, I’m a huge fan of regular exercise and time in nature. I think both are vital to most people’s mental health and if possible are a great first step for many mental illnesses. But I depend on prescription stimulants to be able to do such things consistently and safely. My first step is meds, and the lifestyle stuff is important and built on that foundation.
Yup. The symptoms of depression make it really hard to start.
But, that’s a great way to use antidepressants. Let them help your energy and motivation enough that you can start getting healthier.
It’s both! Everyone is different.