Exercise is the best medicine for fighting depression

[gobot90]

Hi all - 

 

My name is David...

 

"HELLOOO DAVID!!"

 

...and I am a nerd. I work from home and most dinners are late night take out with streamed reruns of Star Trek: TNG. (I just started watching Voyager, and if anyone can convince me to like it, because I really want to, I'm all ears.)

 

I'm really here because I want to start a discussion regarding the benefits of exercise and diet when it comes to dealing with depression, mood disorders, anxiety disorders and the like. Is that the main reason you started exercising, to battle these problems with or without the help of medication? What's your regiment? What kind of success have you had?

 

I'd love to hear from other Rebels interested in this topic. We can swap tips, cheats, and hacks, and maybe get to the bottom of my deep distaste for everyone on Voyager except the Doctor (and Kes is ok too)--though he's no Beverly Crusher.

 

Let the forumizing begin!

 

[citizenkade]

The most obvious, of course, is that exercise releases endorphins, which help elevate the mood and deal with stress. I'm finding that it's easier for me to cope with my responsibilities as a father, business owner, podcaster, and God of Skyrim if I fit in an hour or two of exercise each day than if I don't. Getting to a point right now were if I DON'T work out, I feel antsy and lethargic.

[katamac]

Hi David!

 

Welcome to the Rebellion! I am totally down for this discussion, as it is something very near and dear to me (whether I want it to be or not).

 

As someone who has spent the last 8 years on various anti-depressants and anxiety medications, I was always really hesitant to take the plunge and begin to exercise and change my diet. I guess it was half teenage rebellion and half not knowing where to start. If this is something you are interested in, start small and work your way up.

 

Simply by changing my diet to 80% Paleo, cutting out coffee and starting to take the time to listen to my body (not my depressed mind), I found myself feeling better than the pills ever had. Depression is a sinister illness, taking away your motivation and happiness. Being strong enough to push through the bad days and focus on the good ones is hard, but it is worth it. My long term plan is to wean off the medication (with help of my medical team) and become a self-sufficient serotonin-producing machine! 

[Captain Hanuman]

The thing I hate most about Voyager is that  you can't really refer to it in an abbreviated form.  If I say TOS, TNG or DS9 every Trekkie knows exactly what I'm talking about.  If I go and say STV then it just makes people think I've something that can't be washed off.  

 

Hey! Welcome to the rebellion!  Sometimes I forget my manners when talking Star Trek...

 

Before I took control of my life I was terribly depressed.  I did my very best to isolate myself from social situations and people in general.  If I had to go out I'd do it late at night or during the wee hours of the morning so that I could maintain some level of invisibility.  I also took a night watch job so that I could at least get paid for being alone.  I hated nothing more that the thought of people seeing a nearly 300 pound me.  So I did everything I could to keep that from happening.  

 

When I started making changes in my eating and exercising, my mood as well as my negative self image improved dramatically.  It seems that the cleaner I eat and the harder I lift the smaller the dark cloud of depression becomes.  Also, since most of my depression seems to stem directly from a very dysmorphic attitude (look in the mirror see mother horta sort of thing) when my body started changing and I was able to see a better version of me my state of mind  improved  dramatically.

 

Now tell me, and please don't mince words...How do you feel about Neelix?

 

[gobot90]

Whoa I started this thread just a few hours ago and already I've gotten three hearty welcomes and some really positive feedback.

 

I'm picking up on the fact that exercise can have both long term and short term benefits when it comes to managing depression. In the short term, moving around and getting your heart rate up and working out hard enough to get those endorphins flowing just feels good and then of course you lose weight and just look healthier and self image benefits too.

 

I've been hitting the gym pretty consistently for the past few years and I've def. reaped all of the above benefits. But then something changed. I don't know why but my usual routine started to seem too...usual. I needed something different. I need to be outdoors, with people. I live in NYC, which makes getting involved with team sports really hard (it's all either hipsters who chug beers during softball games--not kidding, I've seen them do shots while rounding the bases too--or really intense pickup games of basketball or roller hockey) so until I'm able to find some cool Rebelminded peeps I've taken up running through this beautiful park near my neighborhood. Problem is, I'm really out of shape and most days I just end up walking fast. My concern is that unless I pick it up I'll start to lose the benefits of the cardio/weight training I did at the gym.

 

I know, I know POOR ME. I guess what I'm saying is, do you guys think it is ok to go low impact for a while and then pick it up gradually? I mean, I know you have to rev through impulse speeds before you can hit Warp, but I'm afraid that if I slow down I'll be vulnerable to any Ferengi pirates along the way. I know cardio is best for dealing with anxiety and depression, but have you guys found any specific exercise routines/diet changes to be esp. helpful?

 

@Katamac: You make such a great point about coffee. I just gave up a 4-5 cup a day habit a few weeks ago and it can suck for the first few days (weeks) but then your body adjusts and you're like holy crap I don't need this stuff! And actual sleep is awesome! Also, what do you mean 80% Paleo? That's another thing I've wanted to try...I assume you recommend the instructions on this site (or one of the other ones they link to)?

 

@Seldom: The worst part about discovering the post-TNG shows is finding out that of them all, ENT (assuming that's an acceptable pseudo-acronym) may be the best one. All the characters on DS9 are interchangeable and...Neelix. DAMN YOU RODDENBERRY'S GHOST. During the pilot, just that one episode, he went from being this cool deranged outsider to all touchy-feely Uncle you don't want at your Xmas party. A few eps in and he becomes the Jar Jar of the 24th century.

 

Anyway, it's cool to have you guys onboard my little forum craft. Getting fit and dealing with depression are two steep uphill battles, and I feel pretty good knowing I'm not alone. 

[citizenkade]

I've liked every incarnation of Trek EXCEPT Voyager. I tried, I really tried. But every time they did something, I would think "I wish Riker was the Captain!". And then it was ruined. I loved DS9 the most, and still watch it every year. It feels more personal to me, and the Defiant is a bad-ass ship!

[katamac]

I cut out coffee and I don't miss it, except for keeping my hands warm while I wait for the bus. I found myself pretty much living off the stuff, drinking 2-3 large double-doubles (2 cream, 2 sugar, Canadian-style) a day just to keep myself conscious enough to get through classes. It's funny, because I never actually even liked coffee, I just drank it because that's what art students do. I have so much more energy now, and am finding it way easier to sleep at night, which is keeping my mental state in a much better place. This week I have been trying ease myself into drinking green tea, which in my opinion tastes like boiled leaf juice. Still, if I could force myself to like coffee, I can suck it up and drink green tea, maybe with a wee bit of honey to cover the bitterness.

 

Maybe I phrased 80% paleo wrong? 80-20 paleo? Meh. Basically I am aiming to keep my diet as paleo as possible, but I still enjoy milk, yogurt and rice in moderation. A student budget does complicate things, but the money I'm saving by cutting out the Timmies and bringing my own food with me everywhere is balancing it out.  I also have a love of cooking and baking, so I am totally loving being in the kitchen more and the challenge of learning new recipes. Knowing that I if I wake up early enough I'll get to make a nice hot meal is slowly turning me into a morning person. 

 

Changing my diet was huge in improving my mood. Three days of non-processed foods had my entire body singing. Two weeks and I found myself with more energy and desire to be active then ever before. My productivity skyrocketed for the first time in years and my teachers were dumbfounded by my class participation. I never felt like I was worth the effort to take care of, but now I believe I am it whole-heartedly. 

 

I am on the same page as you, I want to be outside. Unfortunately winter in Canada is not conducive to outdoor exercising. Too much slippery ice and the frigid air's effect on my asthmatic lungs is keeping my efforts indoors for now. With the New Year coming up, I'm sure beginner's classes will be cropping up all over the place. Maybe try taking a class or some activity that you've always wanted to do would help you mix things up? Trying new things is tough, but knowing you'll be with a bunch of people closer to your current abilities makes it less scary. And when you totally blow them out of the water with your awesome Rebel-mindedness, you will feel even more like a champ

[Faust]

Qapla'! lol

 

hey David!

 

I don't know what you are going through personally but I know from personal experience that exercise has really helped me out when it comes to depression.  Sure endorphins are God's gift to painkillers and they are nice but I think what really helped me was just the act of doing something to break the cycle of fail.

 

It is hard to see sometimes when one problem ends and another one begins.  A sucky situation makes you depressed which might make you tired, which may make you not want to hang out with friends, which may then cause you to push friends away or make your friends not want to invite you to hang out with them, which might make you more depressed which causes you to stress eat and gain weight, which causes you to have health issues which......  and then it just keeps on going down the drain.  

 

But for me, just starting to exercise a little was enough to help me out of all that funk.  It is super hard to do and it sounds counter intuitive but a person must go and do in order to start to feel better rather than wait until they feel better in order to go and do stuff.  

 

It's like the Klingon saying.  

bI'IQchugh yIvang!

If you are sad, act!

 

I would advise to keep doing your exercise on a regular scheduled basis.  If you are anything like me, my brain is sneaky and will easily make a low gear shift into a slippery slope back into the black hole of fail.  There is no shame in starting out slow if you've gotten out of shape (I know I'm going to have to take it slow again for a while.).  Just be careful and be honest with yourself.

 

The outside is awesome.  Maybe you could word(I always set rules in my head for workout goals and try to be super specific in my wording so that I can't wiggle out of it later. lol)  your workouts to be like x minutes of cardio MWF so that it doesn't matter where you are so long as you still get your exercise in.

 

It'd also might help if you could find another person exercise with in person or two where you live but I know that is also super hard to do.

 

Paleo/ketogenic diets are powerful things.  I'm currently on the last stages of recovering from a head injury and while looking for solutions to some of the weird side effects of that injury (such as the seizures), I found out that a ketogenic diet used to be the go to treatment for epilepsy and other brain related things.  If you are brave enough to read the warning labels on some of you medications, it might still warn against combining that kind of diet with the aforementioned medication.     

 

Anywho,  I'd like to wish you Godspeed David and I hope my random advice wasn't too forward.  

 

Don't get discouraged.  Everyone encounters tribbles occasionally.