11 ms·

Association between physical exercise and mental health: a cross-sectional study

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
This is sure to quickly fill with personal anecdotes, I can attest to experiencing this phenomena myself, but I wonder what we can do with this information? I think it's already in the "everybody knows" category, so how do we get those who need it the most to take advantage of it? The extreme presentation of these conditions typically impedes one from becoming physically active, thought I do look forward to the success that I'm sure will be the first soccer league for agoraphobics.
- diss 8y ago
  Well, it could mean that mental health professionals push exercise significantly more as a treatment. A lot of people see psychologists and doctors about mental health.
  - markroseman 8y ago
    In practice, it probably just adds a bit more motivation or reinforcement to the existing body of knowledge. There is a lot of conflicting info out there about how much is needed, what kind, etc., so the fact that this is saying a broad range of activities and so on were shown helpful is a plus. Helps take the "should I run or bike or weight lift or... screw it, I'm sitting on the couch" out of it.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    They already do .. badly. There was an excellent thread on twitter the other day along the lines of "I went to my doctor saying I was suicidal and got sent away with this worksheet" - a whole collection of completely inadequate responses to acute mental health issues.
    - markroseman 8y ago
      That would be the "fuck if I can help you" non-response. Around here it happens a lot because it takes so long to get into a psychiatrist that unless you admit to suicidal ideation, intent and a plan, you're not going to get help fast. A lot of family docs have their hands tied.
- sgillen 8y ago
  > I think it's already in the "everybody knows" category I’m sure most people have a pretty good idea exercise can help with mental health. I think the next thing that needs to happen is a broader awareness of just how effective exercise can be, and that it should be one of the very first thing tried to improve mental health. I think this should happen along with a general increase in mental health awareness (you can’t use exercise to help with your depression if you don’t recognize you’re depressed).
  - markroseman 8y ago
    Agreed for most people with mild-moderate mental illness. It's an intervention that can reduce intensity for quite a number of people, though not everyone. (I wish more people would also get checked early on for easily fixed metabolic stuff like low iron, wonky thyroid etc.) My completely anecdotal example... it kept me from starting crazy meds for at least an extra year or two (by the time I was up to 1-2 hours, 7d/week, it was time to bite the bullet.. though at lower doses than I likely would have otherwise needed.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    > I’m sure most people have a pretty good idea exercise can help with mental health. I think the next thing that needs to happen is a broader awareness of just how effective exercise can be, First step would be "get some evidence it does anything at all". We're not even at that point yet. Almost everyone in this thread talking about exercise as a treatment for depression is failing to correct for cuasality, or for sponteneous remission. > (you can’t use exercise to help with your depression if you don’t recognize you’re depressed) More like you can't use exercise to treat depression because it doesn't work. There's no clear difference between treating depression with nothing or treating it with exercise. And so we end up with a group of people being given bad advice, trying to follow it, and then when it doesn't work (because it won't work for most of them) being blamed for doing the wrong type of exercise or not doing enough.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  I think most people associate "physical exercise" with having to spend an hour at the gym or something similar. What they should be thinking is: going for a walk around the block, not getting the car for close by errands, not taking the elevator, going for a bike ride, etc
  - Pamar 8y ago
    Yes, even just the "10K steps a day" idea is vastly better than nothing...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - a_wild_dandan 8y ago
    This is such an important distinction to actually effect change. The vast majority of folks who go from 0 to Gym Rat will quickly peter out, reverting to sedentariness. Small lifestyle changes are far more effective. Likewise for diets. Those who spend their New Years resolution momentum eating baked chicken and broccoli for a week or completely cutting out carbs will shortly find themselves failing completely and binging ice cream or whatever. Rarely do you see sensible advice like "keep your same diet habits, but cut out soft drinks", or "if you engage in late night boredom-eating, try binging vegetables instead." Unfortunately, humble and incremental changes in habit seem antithetical to our society's affection for (unrealistic) sweeping, dramatic transformations.
    - chris_wot 8y ago
      I have to agree. I’ve been able to keep my gym attendance regular by starting pretty slow and gradually building up to more intense workouts. I honestly have done this for the endorphine boost, but overall I’ve lost just under 11kg in about 10 months and I’ve really started to notice my belly go down, and I can actually see muscle building now... which I’ll be honest and say surprised me (why I have no idea). This is great, but I did exercise to deal with some pretty appalling trauma I experienced - everything else is nice but for me, not essential.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  I think the next step is to try and examine causation vs correlation via known already bad patients. If say psychiatric inpatients within hospitals start adding in more exercise programs would they have improved patient results? The setting is also important for ethics - if it may worsen patient outcomes one should be ready to prevent further harm. Or it could theoretically be like trying to treat muscular dystrophy via 100 lb bench presses - the system is too far gone for it to help.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    > 100 lb bench presses C'mon, no shaming the 100 lbs bench press - I absolutely encourage someone whose benching 100 lbs to bench, because if they work hard pretty quickly it won't be 100 lbs any more. And you raise an excellent point - is exercising the thing boosting the mood, or is the exercising the result of a mood boost.
    - pjc50 8y ago
      Ironically I think the parent poster intended 100lb as "completely unachievable for someone with muscular dystrophy", while you've read it as "so light as to be completely ineffective"!
      - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
        Yes, I realize this now. Whoops.
- DanBC 8y ago
  > I think it's already in the "everybody knows" category, No, it isn't. It's in the folk remedy, but there's not much evidence to support exercise as a treatment for depression.
jessriedel 8y ago
This was a cross-sectional study. Here's an opposing result for anxiety and depression: > Testing Causality in the Association Between Regular Exercise and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression > Context: In the population at large, regular exercise is associated with reduced anxious and depressive symptoms. Results of experimental studies in clinical populations suggest a causal effect of exercise on anxiety and depression, but it is unclear whether such a causal effect also drives the population association. We cannot exclude the major contribution of a third underlying factor influencing exercise behavior and symptoms of anxiety and depression... > Setting: Causal effects of exercise were tested by bivariate genetic modeling of the association between exercise and symptoms of anxiety and depression, correlation of intrapair differences in these traits among genetically identical twins, and longitudinal modeling of changes in exercise behavior and anxious and depressive symptoms. > Results: Cross-sectional and longitudinal associations were small and were best explained by common genetic factors with opposite effects on exercise behavior and symptoms of anxiety and depression. In genetically identical twin pairs, the twin who exercised more did not display fewer anxious and depressive symptoms than the co-twin who exercised less. Longitudinal analyses showed that increases in exercise participation did not predict decreases in anxious and depressive symptoms. > Conclusion: Regular exercise is associated with reduced anxious and depressive symptoms in the population at large, but the association is not because of causal effects of exercise. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/210112 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/... There's a huge bias in popular reporting toward studies concluding that interventions are helpful.
- markroseman 8y ago
  Few academics stake their careers on papers saying that X does fuck all (unless everyone already things X is amazingly effective)
  - DanBC 8y ago
    Cochrane Collaborations. https://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depression https://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depr... > Exercise is moderately more effective than no therapy for reducing symptoms of depression. [...] > The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive.
ec109685 8y ago
How does a study like this control for the fact that if you are depressed, you might not want to exercise that day? And thus it’s mental health that drives how much you exercise, not the other way around?
- jimrandomh 8y ago
  It doesn't.
- Retric 8y ago
  Mental health goes beyond depression. So, one option is to ignore depression and look at other things.
  - markroseman 8y ago
    Good point. The value in this one is the large size of the data set, but mental illness is hardly a uniform phenomenon, so if you fit the "mental illness" category it doesn't say much about how many people in their data set really overlap with you. And it can make a difference. High intensity exercise still can help many people with depression, but is often counterproductive for anxiety, where low-moderate intensity can be helpful.
- Kyrztyn 8y ago
  If these studies were not behind paywalls people might better understand what they mean. They did not establish causality in the study and they also said that inactivity might be a symptom of poor mental health. The people who had less mental health days might not be physically ill, but rather, socially ill. If you read the full study and some of the interesting demographics you will see what I mean. It really tells us nothing but puts more stigma on people who are ill making it seem like it is their fault they are sick.
- jpmoyn 8y ago
  The study itself addresses that they didn't prove causality between exercise and reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression
taneq 8y ago
I'm interested to see how VR affects overall mental health among gamers. There seems to be some crossover between heavy duty gamers and mental health struggles (just from my own observation) and VR is starting to be a natural progression for gaming. And VR gaming is often a real work-out, focusing on a lot of movement as well as physical dexterity.
- prophesi 8y ago
  I'm interested in this as well. I had a friend play Beat Saber for 3 hours straight, burning literally thousands of calories. He said he felt amazing for the rest of the day. On the flip-side, I personally experienced some serious post-binge depression after playing Talos Principle VR for a few hours. It's not very physically engaging, with a somber atmosphere throughout. I felt so weird taking off the headset and jumping back into reality. Though I think both scenarios just go to show how powerful VR could potentially be in the medical field.
  - taneq 8y ago
    I've played 1-2 hrs of Beat Saber a day since Tuesday and now I just feel generally achy. Everything hurts. I've lost most of a kilo though. >.> That weird not-quite-real feeling you get after a lot of VR seems to be a thing though. If you're playing something engaging and emotionally heavy I imagine it'd be even stronger.
  - always_good 8y ago
    Let's be honest, though. He didn't burn thousands of calories. You are underestimating how efficient the human body is.
    - taneq 8y ago
      Actually I think this is really important. I don't have any science to back this up but I feel like the human body actually changes its tradeoff between efficiency and instantaneous performance based on some so-far-undescribed factor.
- 8y ago
themodelplumber 8y ago
I personally find that exercise only contributes to good mental health outcomes when it is part of a system that monitors and directly, daily, addresses issues of physical exhaustion. Experiencing exhaustion and a desire to push through it was my personal #1 link to depression and anxiety. I found that just laying in bed and relaxing has a much higher likelihood of vanquishing my depression and anxiety than exercise ever did, and exercise, even a simple walk, can actually make the symptoms worse by contributing to the exhaustion. This is _my own analysis and experience_, of course, so YMMV. There are additional important approaches to anxiety, like identifying stressors that need to be addressed (situations, goals, relationships, etc.) and attending to various facets that contribute to a feeling of purpose and promise. But after learning to look at my symptoms through the lens of "exhaustion" (whether it be productivity exhaustion or fitness-induced) I no longer suffer from chronic severe anxiety and depression, and my psychiatrist long ago pronounced me cured. Some people here may benefit so I share this in case it helps.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  For the exercise itself I find that it's not the exhaustion, but the mental effort it takes to really push hard sort of resets my mental processes - I train powerlifting, so those 30 seconds where I'm going "this bar is going to kill me if I don't keep going" really changes my mental affect once I get out from under the bar.
  - themodelplumber 8y ago
    Yes, what I'm describing would be like powerlifting on a couple hours of sleep, daily. That kind of emotional / depressive outcome, where one has not attended to their exhaustion level and jumps in to perform, as opposed to powerlifting under more typical or optimal circumstances which I'm sure has some really positive mental outcomes.
  - bergerjac 8y ago
    Instead of the bar killing you, what if you flipped the script and went I'm going to dominate this bar
itschekkers 8y ago
Original Article author here - happy to help with any questions people have. Also sorry about the paywall - you can get the article either through sci-hub here http://sci-hub.tw/10.1016/S2215-0366(18)30227-X http://sci-hub.tw/10.1016/S2215-0366(18)30227-X or you can email me and i'll send you a copy direct!
- Kyrztyn 8y ago
  Awesome. Question: Why are you wasting your time? Do you wish to apply a blanket cure for the unknown multitude causes of mental health issues? Why do you think reductions in the self reported “mental health” of the general population is useful for people who have been hospitalized with mood disorders? Don’t you think that people who lie about how much exercise they do also might be lieing to themselves about their mental health?
  - itschekkers 8y ago
    1- surely we're allowed to waste our own time if we like! 2- nope, and actually my entire research agenda has been around helping people find a treatment that is most likely to work for them specifically! (we also founded a company to bring the research to market- springhealth.com) 3- that is beyond the scope of the paper, and we didnt use the word hospitalized once 4- yep, and thats a good example of one of the pitfalls of self-reported surveys. in general, i am a bit less cynical and in our experience, most people aren't filling out surveys to intentionally lie or sabotage. hope this helps!
    - Kyrztyn 8y ago
      #2, of course. Capitalism. You want to bring the research to market, not help the mentally ill. You goal is profit. For the 20 I have been “cared for” by people like you it took my own ingenuity and relentless pressure on a psychiatric system that thinks there is never a nutritional cause to mood disorders to have them test me for a biotinidase deficiency which turned up positive. My mood issues were cured by 15 grams of biotin a day. Researched and doctors like you were so certain what caused my depression and anxiety you filled me with pills that rarely worked and diabled me with side effects. It took 15 years to even test me for a B12 or iron deficiency. So sorry, but your study does not help the mentally ill. Maybe it helps people who are stressed from the everclenching fist of capitalism, but that’s about it.
Kyrztyn 8y ago
This study was flawed from the start. They asked people if they were ever “diagnosed” with depression when there is no clear cause of depression. Depression can be lifelong, short term situational, caused by drugs, etc. It also relied on self reported physical activity! Ha! It is worthless to extract anything regarding mental heath and exercise from this study.
- markroseman 8y ago
  I'd consider the value to be motivational ammunition for an intervention that generally has few downsides and multiple possible benefits for the person affected. Your point about stigma does counterbalance that somewhat. In other words, would I put the overview on the coffee table in my wife's office (she's a psychiatrist) for her patients to see? Yes.
  - Kyrztyn 8y ago
    They did not establish causality in the study, yet you would put it out for sick people already stigmatized and thinking they are “lazy”, “just need to get out of bed”, etc as another burden for them to carry? Are you a sadist? Let me give you a personal anecdote. I suffered depression and anxiety and fatigue for years. I tried to be active but it made me feel worse. Turns out I had late onset partial biotinidase deficiency. I take biotin, my depression and anxiety are gone and now I can work out like a normal person. What good does this study do for people like me and the probably hundreds of thousands of people like me? I would in fact it harms people like me because it lays a simple cure over a complex and diverse issue.
    - markroseman 8y ago
      In this or anything else, exercise isn't suggested as a cure. Almost without exception, the people she sees are looking for ways to help move themselves forward. By the time they get here, they realize (and it's part of the education that goes with the practice) that mental illness is extremely complex, not every treatment helps everyone, and there's no single magic bullet. And yes, serious metabolic workups are a big part of the practice. So while I appreciate your perspective, I take issue with the claim that (in this context) it is suggesting laziness as a cause for their illness, or sadism on my part.
hi41 8y ago
For many months now I have been bad at paying bills, filing tax etc due to anxiety and depression. It is like paralysis. But reality does not wait for you. There are consequences like fines and court orders. How have you overcome this? I feel I will be happier if I can manage my duties better.
- bmpafa 8y ago
  Auto bill pay is a boon. Hire a tax preparer. It costs more than doing it yourself, but I find we often discount the cognitive cost of just doing a thing when considering whether to outsource stuff. In other words, build / use systems to minimize the impact of your own limitations on your responsibilities.
- drunkenmonkey 8y ago
  Go see a psychiatrist, and get a caseworker.
- Boles001 8y ago
  I've found that in times where I can't seem to shake "the blues" that it's best to get out of my head and get into my body by doing something physical. Whether it's a jog, lifting at the gym, or playing a sport...focusing on these activities allows my concentration to shift and seemingly my mind to reset
- kranner 8y ago
  I’ve noticed this pattern in myself that I like to call Automatic Pointless Resistance which is especially active when I’m anxious. I overcome it by completely ignoring my feelings and getting started on tasks regardless of how little I want to do them, or how much I think I’m going to screw them up. Sometimes the disconnect is profound, my brain just doesn’t want to do something but my body knows what to do. Even if it’s something mentally involving like filing taxes, I just ignore any thoughts that say I must be doing it wrong, I should stop and plan it better, etc. And before I know it, the task is well underway and I’m often even enjoying it.
- Tactic 8y ago
  I have found setting a routine and scheduled time to do it helps. Put it in your calendar and treat it as you would work. However, if you are finding this to be a consistent and long term issue please see a councilor. They can help and diagnose far better than you will find here. If you find that gets put off as well, ask a friend or family member to help you make and keep the initial appointments. You may be surprised by the number of people that are willing to help free of judgement if you will let them.

This is sure to quickly fill with personal anecdotes, I can attest to experiencing this phenomena myself, but I wonder what we can do with this information? I think it's already in the "everybody knows" category, so how do we get those who need it the most to take advantage of it? The extreme presentation of these conditions typically impedes one from becoming physically active, thought I do look forward to the success that I'm sure will be the first soccer league for agoraphobics.

diss 8y ago
Well, it could mean that mental health professionals push exercise significantly more as a treatment. A lot of people see psychologists and doctors about mental health.
- markroseman 8y ago
  In practice, it probably just adds a bit more motivation or reinforcement to the existing body of knowledge. There is a lot of conflicting info out there about how much is needed, what kind, etc., so the fact that this is saying a broad range of activities and so on were shown helpful is a plus. Helps take the "should I run or bike or weight lift or... screw it, I'm sitting on the couch" out of it.
- pjc50 8y ago
  They already do .. badly. There was an excellent thread on twitter the other day along the lines of "I went to my doctor saying I was suicidal and got sent away with this worksheet" - a whole collection of completely inadequate responses to acute mental health issues.
  - markroseman 8y ago
    That would be the "fuck if I can help you" non-response. Around here it happens a lot because it takes so long to get into a psychiatrist that unless you admit to suicidal ideation, intent and a plan, you're not going to get help fast. A lot of family docs have their hands tied.
sgillen 8y ago
> I think it's already in the "everybody knows" category I’m sure most people have a pretty good idea exercise can help with mental health. I think the next thing that needs to happen is a broader awareness of just how effective exercise can be, and that it should be one of the very first thing tried to improve mental health. I think this should happen along with a general increase in mental health awareness (you can’t use exercise to help with your depression if you don’t recognize you’re depressed).
- markroseman 8y ago
  Agreed for most people with mild-moderate mental illness. It's an intervention that can reduce intensity for quite a number of people, though not everyone. (I wish more people would also get checked early on for easily fixed metabolic stuff like low iron, wonky thyroid etc.) My completely anecdotal example... it kept me from starting crazy meds for at least an extra year or two (by the time I was up to 1-2 hours, 7d/week, it was time to bite the bullet.. though at lower doses than I likely would have otherwise needed.
- DanBC 8y ago
  > I’m sure most people have a pretty good idea exercise can help with mental health. I think the next thing that needs to happen is a broader awareness of just how effective exercise can be, First step would be "get some evidence it does anything at all". We're not even at that point yet. Almost everyone in this thread talking about exercise as a treatment for depression is failing to correct for cuasality, or for sponteneous remission. > (you can’t use exercise to help with your depression if you don’t recognize you’re depressed) More like you can't use exercise to treat depression because it doesn't work. There's no clear difference between treating depression with nothing or treating it with exercise. And so we end up with a group of people being given bad advice, trying to follow it, and then when it doesn't work (because it won't work for most of them) being blamed for doing the wrong type of exercise or not doing enough.
raverbashing 8y ago
I think most people associate "physical exercise" with having to spend an hour at the gym or something similar. What they should be thinking is: going for a walk around the block, not getting the car for close by errands, not taking the elevator, going for a bike ride, etc
- Pamar 8y ago
  Yes, even just the "10K steps a day" idea is vastly better than nothing...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- a_wild_dandan 8y ago
  This is such an important distinction to actually effect change. The vast majority of folks who go from 0 to Gym Rat will quickly peter out, reverting to sedentariness. Small lifestyle changes are far more effective. Likewise for diets. Those who spend their New Years resolution momentum eating baked chicken and broccoli for a week or completely cutting out carbs will shortly find themselves failing completely and binging ice cream or whatever. Rarely do you see sensible advice like "keep your same diet habits, but cut out soft drinks", or "if you engage in late night boredom-eating, try binging vegetables instead." Unfortunately, humble and incremental changes in habit seem antithetical to our society's affection for (unrealistic) sweeping, dramatic transformations.
  - chris_wot 8y ago
    I have to agree. I’ve been able to keep my gym attendance regular by starting pretty slow and gradually building up to more intense workouts. I honestly have done this for the endorphine boost, but overall I’ve lost just under 11kg in about 10 months and I’ve really started to notice my belly go down, and I can actually see muscle building now... which I’ll be honest and say surprised me (why I have no idea). This is great, but I did exercise to deal with some pretty appalling trauma I experienced - everything else is nice but for me, not essential.
Nasrudith 8y ago
I think the next step is to try and examine causation vs correlation via known already bad patients. If say psychiatric inpatients within hospitals start adding in more exercise programs would they have improved patient results? The setting is also important for ethics - if it may worsen patient outcomes one should be ready to prevent further harm. Or it could theoretically be like trying to treat muscular dystrophy via 100 lb bench presses - the system is too far gone for it to help.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  > 100 lb bench presses C'mon, no shaming the 100 lbs bench press - I absolutely encourage someone whose benching 100 lbs to bench, because if they work hard pretty quickly it won't be 100 lbs any more. And you raise an excellent point - is exercising the thing boosting the mood, or is the exercising the result of a mood boost.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    Ironically I think the parent poster intended 100lb as "completely unachievable for someone with muscular dystrophy", while you've read it as "so light as to be completely ineffective"!
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      Yes, I realize this now. Whoops.
DanBC 8y ago
> I think it's already in the "everybody knows" category, No, it isn't. It's in the folk remedy, but there's not much evidence to support exercise as a treatment for depression.

jessriedel 8y ago

This was a cross-sectional study. Here's an opposing result for anxiety and depression: > Testing Causality in the Association Between Regular Exercise and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression > Context: In the population at large, regular exercise is associated with reduced anxious and depressive symptoms. Results of experimental studies in clinical populations suggest a causal effect of exercise on anxiety and depression, but it is unclear whether such a causal effect also drives the population association. We cannot exclude the major contribution of a third underlying factor influencing exercise behavior and symptoms of anxiety and depression... > Setting: Causal effects of exercise were tested by bivariate genetic modeling of the association between exercise and symptoms of anxiety and depression, correlation of intrapair differences in these traits among genetically identical twins, and longitudinal modeling of changes in exercise behavior and anxious and depressive symptoms. > Results: Cross-sectional and longitudinal associations were small and were best explained by common genetic factors with opposite effects on exercise behavior and symptoms of anxiety and depression. In genetically identical twin pairs, the twin who exercised more did not display fewer anxious and depressive symptoms than the co-twin who exercised less. Longitudinal analyses showed that increases in exercise participation did not predict decreases in anxious and depressive symptoms. > Conclusion: Regular exercise is associated with reduced anxious and depressive symptoms in the population at large, but the association is not because of causal effects of exercise. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/210112 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/... There's a huge bias in popular reporting toward studies concluding that interventions are helpful.

markroseman 8y ago
Few academics stake their careers on papers saying that X does fuck all (unless everyone already things X is amazingly effective)
- DanBC 8y ago
  Cochrane Collaborations. https://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depression https://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depr... > Exercise is moderately more effective than no therapy for reducing symptoms of depression. [...] > The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive.

ec109685 8y ago

How does a study like this control for the fact that if you are depressed, you might not want to exercise that day? And thus it’s mental health that drives how much you exercise, not the other way around?

jimrandomh 8y ago
It doesn't.
Retric 8y ago
Mental health goes beyond depression. So, one option is to ignore depression and look at other things.
- markroseman 8y ago
  Good point. The value in this one is the large size of the data set, but mental illness is hardly a uniform phenomenon, so if you fit the "mental illness" category it doesn't say much about how many people in their data set really overlap with you. And it can make a difference. High intensity exercise still can help many people with depression, but is often counterproductive for anxiety, where low-moderate intensity can be helpful.
Kyrztyn 8y ago
If these studies were not behind paywalls people might better understand what they mean. They did not establish causality in the study and they also said that inactivity might be a symptom of poor mental health. The people who had less mental health days might not be physically ill, but rather, socially ill. If you read the full study and some of the interesting demographics you will see what I mean. It really tells us nothing but puts more stigma on people who are ill making it seem like it is their fault they are sick.
jpmoyn 8y ago
The study itself addresses that they didn't prove causality between exercise and reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression

taneq 8y ago

I'm interested to see how VR affects overall mental health among gamers. There seems to be some crossover between heavy duty gamers and mental health struggles (just from my own observation) and VR is starting to be a natural progression for gaming. And VR gaming is often a real work-out, focusing on a lot of movement as well as physical dexterity.

prophesi 8y ago
I'm interested in this as well. I had a friend play Beat Saber for 3 hours straight, burning literally thousands of calories. He said he felt amazing for the rest of the day. On the flip-side, I personally experienced some serious post-binge depression after playing Talos Principle VR for a few hours. It's not very physically engaging, with a somber atmosphere throughout. I felt so weird taking off the headset and jumping back into reality. Though I think both scenarios just go to show how powerful VR could potentially be in the medical field.
- taneq 8y ago
  I've played 1-2 hrs of Beat Saber a day since Tuesday and now I just feel generally achy. Everything hurts. I've lost most of a kilo though. >.> That weird not-quite-real feeling you get after a lot of VR seems to be a thing though. If you're playing something engaging and emotionally heavy I imagine it'd be even stronger.
- always_good 8y ago
  Let's be honest, though. He didn't burn thousands of calories. You are underestimating how efficient the human body is.
  - taneq 8y ago
    Actually I think this is really important. I don't have any science to back this up but I feel like the human body actually changes its tradeoff between efficiency and instantaneous performance based on some so-far-undescribed factor.
8y ago

themodelplumber 8y ago

I personally find that exercise only contributes to good mental health outcomes when it is part of a system that monitors and directly, daily, addresses issues of physical exhaustion. Experiencing exhaustion and a desire to push through it was my personal #1 link to depression and anxiety. I found that just laying in bed and relaxing has a much higher likelihood of vanquishing my depression and anxiety than exercise ever did, and exercise, even a simple walk, can actually make the symptoms worse by contributing to the exhaustion. This is _my own analysis and experience_, of course, so YMMV. There are additional important approaches to anxiety, like identifying stressors that need to be addressed (situations, goals, relationships, etc.) and attending to various facets that contribute to a feeling of purpose and promise. But after learning to look at my symptoms through the lens of "exhaustion" (whether it be productivity exhaustion or fitness-induced) I no longer suffer from chronic severe anxiety and depression, and my psychiatrist long ago pronounced me cured. Some people here may benefit so I share this in case it helps.

SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
For the exercise itself I find that it's not the exhaustion, but the mental effort it takes to really push hard sort of resets my mental processes - I train powerlifting, so those 30 seconds where I'm going "this bar is going to kill me if I don't keep going" really changes my mental affect once I get out from under the bar.
- themodelplumber 8y ago
  Yes, what I'm describing would be like powerlifting on a couple hours of sleep, daily. That kind of emotional / depressive outcome, where one has not attended to their exhaustion level and jumps in to perform, as opposed to powerlifting under more typical or optimal circumstances which I'm sure has some really positive mental outcomes.
- bergerjac 8y ago
  Instead of the bar killing you, what if you flipped the script and went I'm going to dominate this bar

itschekkers 8y ago

Original Article author here - happy to help with any questions people have. Also sorry about the paywall - you can get the article either through sci-hub here http://sci-hub.tw/10.1016/S2215-0366(18)30227-X http://sci-hub.tw/10.1016/S2215-0366(18)30227-X or you can email me and i'll send you a copy direct!

Kyrztyn 8y ago
Awesome. Question: Why are you wasting your time? Do you wish to apply a blanket cure for the unknown multitude causes of mental health issues? Why do you think reductions in the self reported “mental health” of the general population is useful for people who have been hospitalized with mood disorders? Don’t you think that people who lie about how much exercise they do also might be lieing to themselves about their mental health?
- itschekkers 8y ago
  1- surely we're allowed to waste our own time if we like! 2- nope, and actually my entire research agenda has been around helping people find a treatment that is most likely to work for them specifically! (we also founded a company to bring the research to market- springhealth.com) 3- that is beyond the scope of the paper, and we didnt use the word hospitalized once 4- yep, and thats a good example of one of the pitfalls of self-reported surveys. in general, i am a bit less cynical and in our experience, most people aren't filling out surveys to intentionally lie or sabotage. hope this helps!
  - Kyrztyn 8y ago
    #2, of course. Capitalism. You want to bring the research to market, not help the mentally ill. You goal is profit. For the 20 I have been “cared for” by people like you it took my own ingenuity and relentless pressure on a psychiatric system that thinks there is never a nutritional cause to mood disorders to have them test me for a biotinidase deficiency which turned up positive. My mood issues were cured by 15 grams of biotin a day. Researched and doctors like you were so certain what caused my depression and anxiety you filled me with pills that rarely worked and diabled me with side effects. It took 15 years to even test me for a B12 or iron deficiency. So sorry, but your study does not help the mentally ill. Maybe it helps people who are stressed from the everclenching fist of capitalism, but that’s about it.

Kyrztyn 8y ago

This study was flawed from the start. They asked people if they were ever “diagnosed” with depression when there is no clear cause of depression. Depression can be lifelong, short term situational, caused by drugs, etc. It also relied on self reported physical activity! Ha! It is worthless to extract anything regarding mental heath and exercise from this study.

markroseman 8y ago
I'd consider the value to be motivational ammunition for an intervention that generally has few downsides and multiple possible benefits for the person affected. Your point about stigma does counterbalance that somewhat. In other words, would I put the overview on the coffee table in my wife's office (she's a psychiatrist) for her patients to see? Yes.
- Kyrztyn 8y ago
  They did not establish causality in the study, yet you would put it out for sick people already stigmatized and thinking they are “lazy”, “just need to get out of bed”, etc as another burden for them to carry? Are you a sadist? Let me give you a personal anecdote. I suffered depression and anxiety and fatigue for years. I tried to be active but it made me feel worse. Turns out I had late onset partial biotinidase deficiency. I take biotin, my depression and anxiety are gone and now I can work out like a normal person. What good does this study do for people like me and the probably hundreds of thousands of people like me? I would in fact it harms people like me because it lays a simple cure over a complex and diverse issue.
  - markroseman 8y ago
    In this or anything else, exercise isn't suggested as a cure. Almost without exception, the people she sees are looking for ways to help move themselves forward. By the time they get here, they realize (and it's part of the education that goes with the practice) that mental illness is extremely complex, not every treatment helps everyone, and there's no single magic bullet. And yes, serious metabolic workups are a big part of the practice. So while I appreciate your perspective, I take issue with the claim that (in this context) it is suggesting laziness as a cause for their illness, or sadism on my part.

hi41 8y ago

For many months now I have been bad at paying bills, filing tax etc due to anxiety and depression. It is like paralysis. But reality does not wait for you. There are consequences like fines and court orders. How have you overcome this? I feel I will be happier if I can manage my duties better.

bmpafa 8y ago
Auto bill pay is a boon. Hire a tax preparer. It costs more than doing it yourself, but I find we often discount the cognitive cost of just doing a thing when considering whether to outsource stuff. In other words, build / use systems to minimize the impact of your own limitations on your responsibilities.
drunkenmonkey 8y ago
Go see a psychiatrist, and get a caseworker.
Boles001 8y ago
I've found that in times where I can't seem to shake "the blues" that it's best to get out of my head and get into my body by doing something physical. Whether it's a jog, lifting at the gym, or playing a sport...focusing on these activities allows my concentration to shift and seemingly my mind to reset
kranner 8y ago
I’ve noticed this pattern in myself that I like to call Automatic Pointless Resistance which is especially active when I’m anxious. I overcome it by completely ignoring my feelings and getting started on tasks regardless of how little I want to do them, or how much I think I’m going to screw them up. Sometimes the disconnect is profound, my brain just doesn’t want to do something but my body knows what to do. Even if it’s something mentally involving like filing taxes, I just ignore any thoughts that say I must be doing it wrong, I should stop and plan it better, etc. And before I know it, the task is well underway and I’m often even enjoying it.
Tactic 8y ago
I have found setting a routine and scheduled time to do it helps. Put it in your calendar and treat it as you would work. However, if you are finding this to be a consistent and long term issue please see a councilor. They can help and diagnose far better than you will find here. If you find that gets put off as well, ask a friend or family member to help you make and keep the initial appointments. You may be surprised by the number of people that are willing to help free of judgement if you will let them.