It feels pretty weird to me that people are almost programmed to recommend Therapy or Gym as the ultimate solutions.
Despite the fact that not all people are capable of doing both.
Further more, there is no study, as far as my knowledge go, that show any ultimate cure for depression. Matter of fact I had seen a study that suggest a very high percentage of people are drug treatment resistant (meaning that there depression would not get better with any prescribed drugs).
I had seen studies that say that training or even just daily walks can highly improve mood, but I had never heard that they fully cure depression.
I had seen studies that say that training or even just daily walks can highly improve mood, but I had never heard that they fully cure depression.
The solution people are commonly offering helps then, even if it isn’t a silver bullet. If a silver bullet existed that instantly and universally cured depression I’m sure people would offer that instead. People are offering the best they can to a stranger.
Despite the fact that not all people are capable of doing both.
If you go online and ask strangers, you’re going to get general advice. If you have a paragraph of reasons why you can’t do both, either, or a modification of the advice of exercise and therapist then I feel for you but aggressively rejecting generally helpful advice while looking for some other solution is putting the responsibility on random strangers to come up with something.
I’ll add that while some people may not be able to do some of the common advice, I privately suspect that at least a healthy percent of the time that resistance to the advice isn’t coming from inability to do it, or in the case of the exercise part to follow the spirit of the advice by being more active. If you truly have a chemical imbalance, a therapist is the person who can help and is qualified to talk about drug solutions.
Short of telling you to see that therapist to get actual professional help, and doing exercise which while it might only a partial solution is something that you can do right away, what exactly do you want of random people?
So many misconceptions here.
First, there are 2 buckets of depression. First is situational. These typically resolve when the situation causing it resolves. Second is chronic depression, or whatever the correct term is. This is a lifelong condition that cannot be cured as far as I know, but can instead be mananged. If you have chronic depression then the best thing you can do is accept it and try your best to manage it.
Second, therapists don’t prescribe medication. Psychiatrists do. Talk therapy helps you work through your issues. You can do this without being on meds. It doesn’t have to be both.
Third, exercise has been clinically proven to improve mood, as you said. No, it won’t cure chronic depression but it will sure as shit help. You should definitely take advantage of it if you can.
Good callout all. I like that OP called out that exercise won’t cure depression. No but it sure as shit helps by releasing endorphins while also helping you feel better about yourself. But apparently it’s all or nothing with OP, if something doesn’t fix it 100% then it’s not worth even looking into.
It only releases endorphins in certain people.
Lol wut?
Exercise makes me want to commit murder.
Yes, unless you’re doing weight lifting or some specific sport that personally excites you, exercise is a chore, just like brushing your teeth or wiping your ass. It is what it is. Gotta do it.
In short: those are pretty much the two only solutions.
Of course, there are different types of depression and they can all be cured in different ways. For some of them there’s no cure at the moment.
Matter of fact I had seen a study that suggest a very high percentage of people are drug treatment resistant (meaning that there depression would not get better with any prescribed drugs).
Therapist =/= drugs. First of all, a therapist cannot prescribe you anything. That’s the job of psychiatrists. Both a therapist and a psychiatrist may recommend drugs for depression if they deem it appropriate, but it’s by bo means the default or the go-to option (or at least it shouldn’t be). Sometimes depression is a natural response to events like death of loved ones and drugs do nothing to cure it.
I had seen studies that say that training or even just daily walks can highly improve mood, but I had never heard that they fully cure depression.
Both of those things are commonly recommended by regular people as well as therapists, because they’re known to be effective, and more importantly - they are completely free. For 99% of people, absolutely nothing is stopping them from doing a few pushups or walking to a park. The cost/benefit ratio here is insane. As for ‘fully curing depression’ - that would highly depend on the type of depression. Also, keep in mind depression is rarely cured with just one thing.
To summarize: people recommend a therapist, because a therapist is usually the best option for any mental problems, though it may not be cheap. While exercising, or just walking and interacting with nature, are basically free and always help, but may not produce noticeable results.
You’re letting perfection be the enemy of progress. No there is not a cure-all for depression, because there are many reasons for depression not a single one.
The foundations of health, are what people recommend, because if any of them are out of balance they could lead to mood disorders.
- low quality sleep
- missing nutrition
- lack of sunlight
- lack of social interaction
- lack of cardiovascular exercise
- excessive sugar
- excessive inflammation
If any of these are a factor, they could be related to depression. So the general advice is generally good, hey are you doing all the foundational things? If not, Try that first!
My personal bias, is that nutrition, is the leading cause of modern maladies, including mood issues. So for people who only have the energy to fix one thing, it would recommend fixing their nutrition
If one is depressed, truly depressed and not just sad about real life events, one should see a Therapist. It is not weird, it is literally the way to seek treatment for Depression and other mood disorders.
Exercise has been demonstrated to elevate mood, but as far as I know, not a substitute for medication when dealing with mood disorders. If it worked, myself and many others wouldn’t be on meds.
No. A real depressed person should first go to a psychiatrist.
Therapist here. The concept of a “real depressed person” is brought to you by insurance companies (so they can deny coverage), the APA (so they can sell the DSM) and big pharma (so they can sell you drugs). The criteria are arbitrary and often discourage people from seeking help when they don’t think their suffering is “real enough.” Most therapists I know hate the diagnostic process, but we’re forced to do it so your insurance will pay for treatment.
Anyone who’s feeling depression that disrupts their lives is welcome to see a psychiatrist, or a therapist, or both. Both types of providers are here to help, and we’ll refer you to any additional providers if it’s appropriate.
Edit: for a deeper dive into the over-pathologizing of human experiences, I recommend Allen Frances’ Saving Normal and Ethan Watters’ Crazy Like Us. The latter has a chapter on GlaxoSmithKline’s crusade to change Japan’s cultural understanding of depression from a natural response to external events, to a pervasive disease that needs treatment (like Paxil!)
@Arkouda@lemmy.ca @Pro@programming.dev
I’m a person who’d be labeled as “truly depressed”, as I coexist with the so-called “depression” since my childhood. I went to several mental health professionals, tried several different medications (Paroxetin, Ritalin, Escitalopram, Aripiprazole). Nothing worked.
Here’s why: one can’t cure something without curing the root cause. One could take painkillers for a headache and the headache would temporarily cease, but the painkiller won’t cure whatever is causing the headache in the first place.
Turns out that my “depression” stems from something that can’t be cured, the ontological realization of the lack of True Will. It’s something way beyond mundane questions such as “I’m far into adulthood and I still don’t know what kissing is” or “I’m in adulthood and I didn’t manage to achieve a career”. My fundamental complaints can’t even be put into human language without sounding absurd, because they have to do with the absurdity of existence itself.
My “problems” can’t be treated by medications, my “problems” can’t be treated by professionals, because my “problems” exist beyond existence.
I have a problem with having being born without my consent. I have a problem with my awareness of the pointlessness of a fleeting biological existence before the carelessness and vastness of the Cosmos. I have a problem with the fact that I must “take responsibility” legally/socially about myself even though I couldn’t even choose to be born in the first place. I have a problem with the fact that I must seek to "do/be something/someone useful for society_ so I get to “afford to eat and have a shelter” by having a colorful piece of paper, when there’s no proper way to release my body from such needs. I have a problem with how this flesh-and-bones vessel imposes the continuity of existence unto me (“instinct of survival”).
Treatent won’t solve the root problem (lack of True Will), it’d be just gaslighting me into gaslighting myself by keeping me busy with fleeting mundaneity. As the movie says, “Don’t look up”: I must not see the ever-approaching dark lips of Death emerging from the darkness of spacetime continuum so I should take medication and walk myself to that queue over there so I can apply for countless jobs until I afford to be chosen by a
landlordemployer who expects me to grant them more profit.Even talks about one’s own choice on the continuity of existing (MAID) is met with societal rejection, for “life is a gift and we must be thankful to whatever/whoever granted us with life”. In this sense, suicide hotlines, treatment and medication aren’t so different from clergy and their religious dogmas in the time of feudalism, where peasants were convinced of their “transcendental purpose” to serve… Just history repeating itself.
Unfortunately, no treatment will make me forget how existence is inherently servile, to which I’ll continue to shout until Lady Death gets to finally kiss me: “Non Serviam”.
Free will doesn’t exist, doesn’t mean you don’t. Do something fun with your time. I would recommend creative writing.
@Arkouda@lemmy.ca Even if I get to do something (such as I’m doing right now while trying to express something profound, aware of how I’m probably just yelling to the clouds), it doesn’t change the fact that the world behaves like a prison where all lifeforms are thrown to “make a living” (i.e. surviving and competing against other lifeforms because their own vessels offer no other option other than the biological preprogramming of “instincts”).
Also, the “exit hatch” is so tight and spiky that one must endure utter pain while trying to squeeze through it. And things like MAID, which would allow one to conscientiously and finally choose something about their own existence, “must be allowed only for the terminally-ill” because “life” is something so, so “sacred” that people can’t even dare to think of choosing other than “living” (a.k.a. constantly trying to avoid and postpone the unavoidable by trying to fulfill the vessel’s needs while being forced to play the unskippable game of social compliance), because they “must do something fun with their time” and thinking otherwise must be inconceivable!
And it sounds no different from how prisoners must “do something” with their prison time, be it reading a book, playing cards and small-talking with other inmates, taking the obligatory sunbath for the daily dose of Vitamin D, scratching the wall so to keep track of days, or doing the obligatory physical exercising at the grass-field…
I can’t help but wonder why some Demiurge threw me to endure the lifelong punishment of “existing”, with all the whistles and bells inseparable from human existence: paying taxes and subscriptions (despite any condition of unemployment), seeking and serving jobs so a rich person can become more rich, conforming to civil duties, serving the military and, in many countries, forcefully belonging to some religion, etc, etc… It’s so absurd that even Absurdist philosophers would have a hard time trying to frame existence in less absurd terms.
I’m not denying how some moments can be “happy” or “enjoyable”, but it doesn’t make life less of a prison. It just makes me momentarily distracted from the prison while still being behind the bars of the baryonic matter.
The only thing that really comforts me is knowing how the kiss from the Lady Scythe-Bearer is inevitable and even humans with their fancy tools are powerless against Her, but for me to need to wait for Her bittersweet lips is like a prisoner needing to wait for serving their sentence before getting to gather with their loved one.
My point is: people like me should be allowed to choose to end our own existence without having to endure pain and the high certainty of failure from an attempt of our own (and trust me, I’ve been trying and failing because my vessel is preprogrammed with the pesky survival instincts). My point is that MAID should be also allowed to anyone who are consciously willing to choose it. But, yeah, it’s such a taboo for many people.
I struggled with this for a while too. But ultimately, I found the meaninglessness more freeing than anything. A cold and indifferent universe makes the elegance of physics and the intricate diversity of life that much more beautiful. The fact that consciousness exists at all is a marvel.
You’re right, death is inevitable. But non-existence is the default state. We didn’t exist for billions of years in the past, and we won’t exist for billions of years in the future. Life is recreation time. We get to observe the world, have experiences, interact with other consciousness. We’ll be called back to oblivion eventually, and as far as we can tell we only get one ride. What’s the rush in getting off?
I prefer to think of life more like a game than a prison. There are cool things to do if you follow the quests, but you can also just bug off to the wilderness to appreciate the graphics. It’s totally open world. Find something cool and obsess over it, create something just for the sake of creation, help other people who are struggling.
If nothing matters anyway, it’s impossible to waste your life. The rules are made up, you can choose to do whatever you want, if you put in a little effort. Even the effort can be fulfilling, it’s not very satisfying to just get everything you want.
So yes, the cosmos are inscrutable and unfeeling, yes, death is inevitable. But so what? What’s the rush? You are not the first to feel ennui, many before you have come out the other side with an absurdist appreciation for a “purposeless” life. Rushing to the exit just seems a bit premature to me, assuming you aren’t in chronic and terminal physical pain. Who knows how your views can change in even a few years, but you’ve gotta be around to find out.
In the Netherlands you’d be eligible for assisted dying. After therapy and psychiatric assessment, of course.
What else is one supposed to say?
There is no magic code to just make depression stop.
Why do you expect anyone to offer a complete cure when none exists? People are offering known helpful actions that can lead to better outcomes. What the fuck is wrong with that?
Exactly. It’s comparative to someone refusing to take ibuprofen or acetaminophen because that won’t “cure the flu”, but it will sure as hell make you feel a bit (or a lot) better while you have to endure it.
A systematic review of research on exercise for depression: https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-075847
Conclusions: Exercise is an effective treatment for depression…
People recommend exercise and went to therapy because those are found helpful in manage the mood and thus manage their depression. Depression isn’t like a disease, it cannot be cure. The last time people “curing” depression is by shoving a stick into their eye and mush up their brain so they won’t feel depressed anymore.
In my mind it’s because starting training to take care of your physical health is one of the first steps toward training your brain to take care of yourself as a whole.
It’s also a lot easier to feel better about your existence if you have the physical ability to do get up and spend it doing something that gives you joy, like going for a longer walk than usual because the weather hits right
There’s also potential link to how we as a species have survived- we had to keep moving to stay alive, so our brains throw a wobbly if we don’t.
Because just recommending someone take LSD like I did will have WILDLY different outcomes per person. Like others said, general advice is general advice. Walks do help me, and everyone I know who goes on walks says it helps them. Therapy is a solid option for most, and going to a gym can tackle physical and mental health in one go.
Let’s take those in reverse order:
Why do people always respond to depressed people by recommending … going to gym?
You basically answered this one yourself:
I had seen studies that say that training or even just daily walks can highly improve mood, but I had never heard that they fully cure depression.
There is no permanent cure for depression. The best you can do is treat it. Getting out of the house for a walk, or to a gym, or just outside, seems to be a simple way to take the worst of the edge off for many people. But it’s not a cure, which leads into the other part.
recommending visiting a therapist
There isn’t a universal one-size-fits-all treatment. A therapist can help find what works for each individual. Sometimes that’s changing destructive habits, or getting more exercise, or yes, pharmaceuticals (even then, there are lots of different types that work for some people and not others). Getting the best treatment often starts with professional help.
Untreated depression can be fatal. If there are physical limitations that prevent someone from being more active, and financial (or other) constraints that prevent medical care, there are support groups for depression and other ailments around the US (and I assume elsewhere): https://adaa.org/find-help/support/support-groups
To me, depression has always been like Bilbo in Mirkwood. He’s at the top of the trees, looking around, but all he can see is trees. He doesn’t realise that they’re in a valley, so there’s nothing but trees all of the way to the horizon. There is no end in sight. There’s no point in going on: he knows that they can’t go on much further, so why bother even trying. They might as well give up. But we know, from outside looking in, that he’s just got to make it to the top of the next valley. If he checks again once he reaches the top then he will be able to see all the way to the Lonely Mountain and that the trees end soon and give way to the lake… He’s almost through the darkest part.
So back to your question…
Making an appointment to see a therapist gives you a goal. You’ve made a commitment to be at a specific place at a specific time. That is often enough to get you up the next valley to see a way forward. The therapy itself can also be quite beneficial, but I’ve always seen the making and keeping of the appointment as a fundamental motivator for my own will when I’m deeply depressed. It’s hilarious to me that I will consider ending it all, despite the effect I know it will have on my family and friends, but that I would postpone suicide to keep me from the embarrassment of missing an appointment. The depressed brain is completely irrational.
Exercise requires getting up, getting outside, going to the gym, going to the park, being around people… The exercise itself is beneficial with the endorphins and the elevated heart rate and the requirement for replenishment (eating food), but again, for me it has always been just getting out of my room and going somewhere. Just get to the front door… Right, you’re here now! Might as well go for a walk. Just gotta hang on long enough to get to the top of the next valley.
I recommend exercise and therapy because it forces people to choose between the “permanent solution to the temporary problem” and the possibility of hope. 99.9% of the time, people will choose hope.
I also recommend them because they both work for me. There’s no cure: you’ve just gotta hold on long enough to see the lonely mountain.
It feels pretty weird to me that people are almost programmed to recommend Therapy or Gym as the ultimate solutions.
Depression is too vague to recommend anything. And then, a lot of people will call depression them just feeling depressed… it’s complicated.
I’m not much into therapist myself, but physical activity is the one thing that allowed me to get over a decade+ long depression that almost got me killed. More specifically, daily walks.
So, yeah, if I’m discussing potential solutions with someone and I see they are not much into gym already, I will suggest they give it a shot.
Despite the fact that not all people are capable of doing both.
Sure but also don’t forget ‘physical activity’ doesn’t mean running a marathon or lifting weight. It means using one’s body as much as this body allows.
When I started walking, I was barely able to walk at all. Not exaggerating, It would take me hours if not days to rest from the effort (and the pain) of getting the mail at our door. It was even worse to go buy a fresh baguette (yep, I’m French ;) at the bakery at the corner of our street. For that I would spend a lot of time preparing for this huge effort and then would I would spend the rest of the day lying down, resting, exhausted. There are worse situations than mine, obviously, but you get the idea: I was in a real bad shape. Nowadays, a few years later? I walk miles every single day. And those days when I can’t walk? I feel like an absolute shit.
And it all started by deciding to walk a few more steps. Not much, really.
I’m still not an athlete and I’m still chronically ill (no cure available) but I’m also in such a better physical condition it’s night and day. Even the specialists that are taking care my medical issues where floored to see the change, back then. Two of them even asked me to start talking to some patients so I could encourage them to endure the least… pleasant parts of our condition, by doing some physical activities.
Those are the only suggestions non-therapists are qualified to offer.
