I was walking every day for months on end. It did nothing for my mood. Not just casual walking, I was speed walking. My hear rate was pretty high while walking. It did nothing for me, so i lost all motivation
Yes, you might need something more strenuous. If speed walking was getting your heart rate to the target zone, then it’s possible you weren’t in good enough shape to see the mental health benefits.
If exercise doesn’t work for you then you can now deduce with more confidence that your depression is not mild.
Exercise works for me, my depression is mild. I require a lot of running, no amount of power walking pulls me out of a funk, i need 3 or 4 days of doing 20-40 minute runs to get to the good place. If it’s not helping or you can’t then you definitely need medical and social support to get out of the hole. This article, and thus the discussion was not intended to belittle anyone who finds exercise does not help them.
I, personally, found the article encouraging because it reminds me that i need to be better about my exercise routines to stay in better mental health. This article is trying to talk to my circumstance, hence the words “mild depression”
This article, and thus the discussion was not intended to belittle anyone who finds exercise does not help them.
However, people making the claim that they are too depressed to exercise are being belittled. For example, to quote another comment:
I’m not sure that “too depressed to exercise” is a medically recognized state short of being bedridden and comatose, so unless one is unable to get out of the bed to go to the bathroom saying “i’m too depressed to exercise” is just words being used to justify not going for a walk
I personally love the feeling of exercising, so unless I am experiencing severe anhedonia—which has happened in the past when I was on a lower dosage of antidepressant—then it always bursts my mood while I am doing it, which provides significant motivation. However, exercise does nothing for my wife except to make her feel sweaty and unpleasant, so she feels no motivation to do it, and even though I understand this intellectually I still have trouble “getting” it.
I was walking every day for months on end. It did nothing for my mood. Not just casual walking, I was speed walking. My hear rate was pretty high while walking. It did nothing for me, so i lost all motivation
You likely need to do something more strenuous than walking.
Yes, you might need something more strenuous. If speed walking was getting your heart rate to the target zone, then it’s possible you weren’t in good enough shape to see the mental health benefits.
Or… maybe not everyone’s brain works the same way?
If exercise doesn’t work for you then you can now deduce with more confidence that your depression is not mild.
Exercise works for me, my depression is mild. I require a lot of running, no amount of power walking pulls me out of a funk, i need 3 or 4 days of doing 20-40 minute runs to get to the good place. If it’s not helping or you can’t then you definitely need medical and social support to get out of the hole. This article, and thus the discussion was not intended to belittle anyone who finds exercise does not help them.
I, personally, found the article encouraging because it reminds me that i need to be better about my exercise routines to stay in better mental health. This article is trying to talk to my circumstance, hence the words “mild depression”
However, people making the claim that they are too depressed to exercise are being belittled. For example, to quote another comment:
It’s funny how people can be so different.
I personally love the feeling of exercising, so unless I am experiencing severe anhedonia—which has happened in the past when I was on a lower dosage of antidepressant—then it always bursts my mood while I am doing it, which provides significant motivation. However, exercise does nothing for my wife except to make her feel sweaty and unpleasant, so she feels no motivation to do it, and even though I understand this intellectually I still have trouble “getting” it.