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And you think the effects of drugs is universal? Exercise is a side effect free treatment that works for some people so it’s worth a shot because it sometimes

And you think the effects of drugs is universal? Exercise is a side effect free treatment that works for some people so it’s worth a shot because it sometimes works.

PaulHoule 9mo ago
I'd argue that depression kills and optimal therapy is: anti-depressants, exercise AND talking therapy and the time to start is NOW. I wouldn't knock the effectiveness of any of them with the caveats that: (1) you can get anti-depressants from you primary care doc, the best practice is to start on something, ramp up your dose and try something different if it is not working or you don't like the sides. I really thought Vanlafaxine was a comfortable ride but it raised my blood pressure to the "go to the ER" range. Call on the phone and lean in about adjusting your meds. (2) Getting an appointment for talk therapy can take a while these days. (3) In a hard case you can get a more complex medication cocktail from a psychiatrist but the wait could be worse than the talk therapy. (4) People in the military do insane amounts of cardio because it helps dealing with insane amounts of stress. 2 hours a day of cardio helped me deal with a business development process that went on for years before ultimately failing.
- stuffn 9mo ago
  Or avoid medication for anything but treatment resistant depression. SSRIs are not well understood. Their side effects are not great. Getting off them is miserable. I had them. I felt dead inside. Mission accomplished. Depression was gone, so was my desire to eat, have sex, or do anything else. I wasn’t depressed, I was a zombie. 8 adjustments and medications later I got off them and realized they’re yet another pill to fix a problem 98% of people can fix other ways if they tried. I do not understand this intense desire to be medicated. Exercise, go outside, talk to people. Get good sleep. Once the rest of your life is squared away get some meds if necessary. Psychiatrists and psychologist walk the razors edge of quackery every single day. Talk therapy is a program to take tremendous amount of money from people and funnel it into their account. It’s absolutely nuts the average talk therapist bills at over 300 dollars an Hour. There is no reproducibility in mental health. in their “science”. Therefore, there’s no reason to believe their magical pills will fix problems they barely understand at a biological level. As a final note people in the military do a ton of cardio because running and rucking is hard work you train for. It is certainly not to “stay sane”.
  - PaulHoule 9mo ago
    yeah... i did forget to add meaningful community and spiritual activities to that list but people can have just as strong objections to them as they do to the other things on my list!
  - nineteen999 9mo ago
    100% I have found the same, SSRI's definitely make things worse and I stay away from them, and regular exercise has offered the biggest consistent/persistent improvement in mood.
  - wombatpm 9mo ago
    Medication is the fastest way to make some positive progress before you completely spiral and majorly fuck up your life. Would you rather take a pill and keep working while you sort things out or would you try to rebuild everything after you burn it all down? Talk therapy and exercise may be just as effective or more so long term, but may not be effective enough in the short term.
    - stuffn 9mo ago
      [flagged]
      - dang 9mo ago
        Whoa, you can't post like this to HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. We ban accounts that do this, and I'm afraid you've been breaking the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) in other places as well, including other personal attacks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46530967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46530967. It also looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle, which is not something we allow here (see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... for past explanations of this point). Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules? We'd appreciate it. You're welcome here as long as you do that, but we really need commenters to stay respectful, avoid posting in the flamewar style, and (above all) use the site primarily for curiosity, not smiting enemies.
- psunavy03 9mo ago
  > People in the military do insane amounts of cardio because it helps dealing with insane amounts of stress. This is giving the military way too much credit for organized stress management. If military people give the impression of doing "insane amounts of cardio" it's because that's what the physical fitness tests are biased towards. And we also won't talk about the fact that getting a psych diagnosis, especially in fields like aviation, can end your career, while managing stress via alcohol gets a wink and a nod as long as you don't have an alcohol-related incident.
- bluGill 9mo ago
  The military does insane cardio because when the enemy knows where you are sometimes you have to run hard and fast in hopes you can get to safety before they can kill you. I've known people who likely would have died in Afghanistan without that insane cardio. it might help with stress too, but that isn't as clear
mrgoldenbrown 9mo ago
The poster you responded to didn't claim that drugs were universally helpful. I think the main point is that there is no universal that works for everyone. For some exercise works, for some drugs, for others therapy. And "works" isn't a yes/no, one might work a little for you, one might work super great.
- 2muchcoffeeman 9mo ago
  The poster questioned the universality of exercise. And the went on to say that drugs worked for them in the next sentence. Clearly the two statements are related.
  - HauntingPin 9mo ago
    Anecdotal data isn't sufficient to infer a universal rule. The point of my comment wasn't to argue for drugs. It was to push back against the idea that drugs like anti-depressants are unnecessary and bad, which I see all the time when this topic comes up. A common take is "why use or prescribe drugs when apparently exercise works fine against depression?"
keeganpoppen 9mo ago
i think they are merely saying what worked for them. it is working for me too, despite my misgivings about “just taking a pill”. YMMV.

And you think the effects of drugs is universal? Exercise is a side effect free treatment that works for some people so it’s worth a shot because it sometimes works.

PaulHoule 9mo ago

I'd argue that depression kills and optimal therapy is: anti-depressants, exercise AND talking therapy and the time to start is NOW. I wouldn't knock the effectiveness of any of them with the caveats that: (1) you can get anti-depressants from you primary care doc, the best practice is to start on something, ramp up your dose and try something different if it is not working or you don't like the sides. I really thought Vanlafaxine was a comfortable ride but it raised my blood pressure to the "go to the ER" range. Call on the phone and lean in about adjusting your meds. (2) Getting an appointment for talk therapy can take a while these days. (3) In a hard case you can get a more complex medication cocktail from a psychiatrist but the wait could be worse than the talk therapy. (4) People in the military do insane amounts of cardio because it helps dealing with insane amounts of stress. 2 hours a day of cardio helped me deal with a business development process that went on for years before ultimately failing.

stuffn 9mo ago
Or avoid medication for anything but treatment resistant depression. SSRIs are not well understood. Their side effects are not great. Getting off them is miserable. I had them. I felt dead inside. Mission accomplished. Depression was gone, so was my desire to eat, have sex, or do anything else. I wasn’t depressed, I was a zombie. 8 adjustments and medications later I got off them and realized they’re yet another pill to fix a problem 98% of people can fix other ways if they tried. I do not understand this intense desire to be medicated. Exercise, go outside, talk to people. Get good sleep. Once the rest of your life is squared away get some meds if necessary. Psychiatrists and psychologist walk the razors edge of quackery every single day. Talk therapy is a program to take tremendous amount of money from people and funnel it into their account. It’s absolutely nuts the average talk therapist bills at over 300 dollars an Hour. There is no reproducibility in mental health. in their “science”. Therefore, there’s no reason to believe their magical pills will fix problems they barely understand at a biological level. As a final note people in the military do a ton of cardio because running and rucking is hard work you train for. It is certainly not to “stay sane”.
- PaulHoule 9mo ago
  yeah... i did forget to add meaningful community and spiritual activities to that list but people can have just as strong objections to them as they do to the other things on my list!
- nineteen999 9mo ago
  100% I have found the same, SSRI's definitely make things worse and I stay away from them, and regular exercise has offered the biggest consistent/persistent improvement in mood.
- wombatpm 9mo ago
  Medication is the fastest way to make some positive progress before you completely spiral and majorly fuck up your life. Would you rather take a pill and keep working while you sort things out or would you try to rebuild everything after you burn it all down? Talk therapy and exercise may be just as effective or more so long term, but may not be effective enough in the short term.
  - stuffn 9mo ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 9mo ago
      Whoa, you can't post like this to HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. We ban accounts that do this, and I'm afraid you've been breaking the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) in other places as well, including other personal attacks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46530967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46530967. It also looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle, which is not something we allow here (see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... for past explanations of this point). Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules? We'd appreciate it. You're welcome here as long as you do that, but we really need commenters to stay respectful, avoid posting in the flamewar style, and (above all) use the site primarily for curiosity, not smiting enemies.
psunavy03 9mo ago
> People in the military do insane amounts of cardio because it helps dealing with insane amounts of stress. This is giving the military way too much credit for organized stress management. If military people give the impression of doing "insane amounts of cardio" it's because that's what the physical fitness tests are biased towards. And we also won't talk about the fact that getting a psych diagnosis, especially in fields like aviation, can end your career, while managing stress via alcohol gets a wink and a nod as long as you don't have an alcohol-related incident.
bluGill 9mo ago
The military does insane cardio because when the enemy knows where you are sometimes you have to run hard and fast in hopes you can get to safety before they can kill you. I've known people who likely would have died in Afghanistan without that insane cardio. it might help with stress too, but that isn't as clear

mrgoldenbrown 9mo ago

The poster you responded to didn't claim that drugs were universally helpful. I think the main point is that there is no universal that works for everyone. For some exercise works, for some drugs, for others therapy. And "works" isn't a yes/no, one might work a little for you, one might work super great.

2muchcoffeeman 9mo ago
The poster questioned the universality of exercise. And the went on to say that drugs worked for them in the next sentence. Clearly the two statements are related.
- HauntingPin 9mo ago
  Anecdotal data isn't sufficient to infer a universal rule. The point of my comment wasn't to argue for drugs. It was to push back against the idea that drugs like anti-depressants are unnecessary and bad, which I see all the time when this topic comes up. A common take is "why use or prescribe drugs when apparently exercise works fine against depression?"

keeganpoppen 9mo ago

i think they are merely saying what worked for them. it is working for me too, despite my misgivings about “just taking a pill”. YMMV.