106
Exercise is as effective as medication in treating depression, study finds
(npr.brightspotcdn.com)
this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
106 points (90.2% liked)
Mental Health
6857 readers
82 users here now
Welcome
This is a safe place to discuss, vent, support, and share information about mental health, illness, and wellness.
Thank you for being here. We appreciate who you are today. Please show respect and empathy when making or replying to posts.
If you need someone to talk to, @therapygary@lemmy.blahaj.zone has kindly given his signal username to talk to: TherapyGary13.12
Rules
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
- No promoting paid services/products.
- Be kind and civil. No bigotry/prejudice either.
- No victim blaming. Nor giving incredibly simplistic solutions (i.e. You have ADHD? Just focus easier.)
- No encouraging suicide, no matter what. This includes telling someone to commit homicide as "dragging them down with you".
- Suicide note posts will be removed, and you will be reached out to in private.
- If you would like advice, mention the country you are in. (We will not assume the US as the default.)
If BRIEF mention of these topics is an important part of your post, please flag your post as NSFW and include a (trigger warning: suicide, self-harm, death, etc.)in the title so that other readers who may feel triggered can avoid it. Please also include a trigger warning on all comments mentioning these topics in a post that was not already tagged as such.
Partner Communities
To partner with our community and be included here, you are free to message the current moderators or comment on our pinned post.
Becoming a Mod
Some moderators are mental health professionals and some are not. All are carefully selected by the moderation team and will be actively monitoring posts and comments. If you are interested in joining the team, you can send a message to @fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yeah, you know what? I somehow managed to do consistent cardio for 1.5 years. Consistent as in every other or every third day, building up my cardio slowly from 20 minutes all the way to 1.5 hours. Literally never helped my mental health.
An interesting thing I noticed is that it would magnify my current emotion. If I was angry, it would make me angrier. If I was sad, it would make me sadder. If I was neutral, it would either do nothing or occasionally make me slightly more happy. If I was already happy, it would make me elated.
Of course, if you're struggling with mental health to begin with, you can see how it would be counterproductive to me. Struggling with mental health means that I generally wasn't often in the happy camp to begin with.
I never really got the benefits people claimed. People always said I was doing it wrong. You're just not running fast enough. You're just not running far enough. So I did. I tried harder and harder. I was eventually consistently running 7-8 miles consistently, and having met 10 miles a couple of times as my farthest distance. I was consistent.
I stopped late last year. I want to get back into it soon because it's great for your heart, not because it ever helped my mental health.
It just doesn't work for me, I guess. I am very glad that it does work for some people. Everyone out there should give it a go...if not for your mental health but your physical health.
But everyone seems to claim it as a one size fits all. It isn't.
I can very much relate to this.
Good to know I'm not just weird/alone with this lol.