Right, they are too depressed to try exercising, so they have not tried exercising. That is practically a tautology, so I am not sure what your point is.

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

I have been in a persistent depressive state for over 20 years, and the thing is that they're physically capable of doing it. You basically have to convince yourself that you don't have a choice but to at least go for a walk or something.

I'm not saying it's easy, but the only one stopping you is you. I occasionally get off track on my workouts and I have to force myself to get back into it. It's not easy, but it's absolutely achievable.

And you don't have to start big. Go walk to the end of your driveway or the office of your apartment complex or something. Do anything, even if it's only for 5 minutes. Then start adding a minute each day. Eventually you'll start looking forward to doing it.

And the great part about telling yourself, "I'm just going to do this for 5 minutes," is that very often after 5 minutes you really don't want to stop (also helps with ADHD and chores)

One thing that helped me a lot is my therapist repeating that I drive my brain, not the other way around. That, and 'don't believe everything you think'.

My brain is telling me I don't have the energy to workout, but I know it's full of shit.

[–] totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

So it sounds like, by definition, you were not too depressed to try exercising because you did it. Go you?

Also, a lot of people simply do not get anything out of exercising, unfortunately; it never stops being uncomfortable tedium that brings no improvement in their mood.

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Right, there's no one size fits all solution. But the idea that you're too depressed to do anything is a self fulfilling prophecy. You're fully capable; your brain is just telling you that you're not.

It does take practice to acknowledge and internalize that your brain is lying to you and to set those thoughts aside (which is what Mindfulness is). It's not like I woke up one day and said, "My depression is cured so I'll go exercise."

It took therapy and months of false starts to get to the point where I could force myself to do it on a regular basis. But the only person stopping me was me.

[–] totally_human_emdash_user@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 hour ago

Yes, but I think that my point still stands that if one is too depressed to exercise, then exercise is not the solution to the depression. You yourself have just said that you had to use other techniques first to get to the point where you were able to exercise.

Also, very importantly, I really think you need to reject the thinking of "the only one stopping you is you", both in yourself and in the advise you give to others, because makes it seem like the problem is a lack of willpower, and I think that telling people that they just need to try harder to fight their brain will just cause them to dig in. Furthermore, since you have been practicing mindfulness, you know that there is no "self" at the core but just a collection of mental processes, and that thinking of there being a "self" at the core actually causes harm by creating a false narrative about the way that the mind works which makes it harder to guide it in a better direction. Telling people that there is a "you" that is the one stopping things from happening reinforces this misconception. The better thing to do is just to speak from your own personal experience of watching your mind and seeing how many of the things that were holding you back were just appearances, and once you came to appreciate that, their hold on you was loosened.

Finally, a lot of people have (very roughly speaking) brain chemistry issues, and all the therapy and mindfulness in the world can only help so much with that.

My general advice would be to be very wary of projecting your personal experiences onto others, even when you are sincerely trying to help (which I believe that you are!)