

Exercise Does Not Make You Less Depressed - odddogmedia
http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e2758

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DanBC
The title of this post does not match the title of the paper.

The report does not say "exercise does not make you less depressed".

The report mentions some of the weaknesses; some comments to the article do a
good job at pointing out other weaknesses.

Exercise is not just pushed at people with depression to treat that
depression; it's to help with other stuff too:-

* medication side effects (sometimes include weight gain or overeating)

* improving social life

* improving general health

~~~
dlss
The title matches the results though...

"Results: There was no evidence that participants offered the physical
activity intervention reported improvement in mood by the four month follow-up
point compared with those in the usual care group; adjusted between group
difference in mean Beck depression inventory score −0.54 (95% confidence
interval −3.06 to 1.99; P=0.68). Similarly, there was no evidence that the
intervention group reported a change in mood by the eight and 12 month follow-
up points. Nor was there evidence that the intervention reduced antidepressant
use compared with usual care (adjusted odds ratio 0.63, 95% confidence
interval 0.19 to 2.06; P=0.44) over the duration of the trial. However,
participants allocated to the intervention group reported more physical
activity during the follow-up period than those allocated to the usual care
group (adjusted odds ratio 2.27, 95% confidence interval 1.32 to 3.89;
P=0.003)."

re exercise not being perscribed for depression. Current belief in Positive
Pyschology circles (the founder of which invented the above mentioned Beck
depression inventory) includes exercise acting as a treatment for depression.

"Besides training new habits and antidepressants, getting better exercise and
a healthier diet have proven to have strong effects on mood. In fact, exercise
is sometimes called the "miracle" or "wonder" drug - alluding to the wide
variety of proven benefits that it provides.[55][56]" --
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology>

~~~
xiaoma
>* The title matches the results though...*

And it disagrees with the results of many, many other studies, some of which
even quantify the exercise done instead of just relying on self-reported
number of days of exercise.

[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=exercise+and+depression&...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=exercise+and+depression&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=FG89UKX0DKTg2AWm1YDQDA&ved=0CCIQgQMwAA)

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SeanLuke
To me, more interesting than the study itself was the rather brutal criticism
it got from the scientific community posted on the same website.

<http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e2758?tab=responses>

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alecdibble
In my own experience, diet had a much more dramatic effect on my day-to-day
mood. Switching to basically a slow carb diet helped my mood and outlook
tremendously.

EDIT: I wanted to add that exercise also has a great effect on my mood, but
only temporarily. By following a consistent diet that (in my case) is low
glycemic and high in protein, the stability of my mood was much greater than
exercise alone.

I do not have time to read the whole paper right now, but one question I have
about the results is the prescribed exercise. In my experience, the type of
exercise I do can have very different affects in how it makes me feel
afterwards. For example, my mood is stabilized for much longer if I do 15
minutes of interval sprints rather than a 30 minute run. Cycling will also
make me feel much different than high-weight/low-rep weightlifting.

What I am getting at is that if the "exercise" routine was run for 30 minutes
2 time a week, I could easily see how that would not affect depression.
However, if it was a regime of HIIT or heavy compound exercises
(squat/deadlift/bench), I would be very surprised if people didn't see long
term mood benefits.

~~~
r00fus
On the diet angle, I noticed a dramatic improvement when I drank tea as
opposed to coffee. YMMV of course, but in my case drinking coffee even in the
morning kept me up later at night.

I do notice however, that regular exercise helps with my stress-coping
ability.

~~~
hnriot
this is the wrong crowd to be advocating tea over coffee!

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ebzlo
Exercise for exercise alone is reason enough to keep doing it.

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Lagged2Death
Would anyone be surprised to find out that externally facilitated exercise, as
offered in the study, has different emotional effects than self-motivated
exercise?

~~~
fbuilesv
Yes! Common knowledge says that exercise helps you fight depression. If we see
that some class of exercise is not as effective as another one (or is not
effective at all) then we can start to ask ourselves how they differ.

I think you imply in your comment that "self-motivated exercise" is better
than "externally facilitated". If that is true then we can start worrying less
about selling the idea of exercising and more about thinking how to motivate a
depressed individual.

On the other hand, if both cases of exercising offered the same results then
we could say that it's not the motivation but the exercise itself who's
helping us.

~~~
jackylee0424
[http://curetogether.com/blog/2011/05/03/23-surprisingly-
effe...](http://curetogether.com/blog/2011/05/03/23-surprisingly-effective-
treatments-for-depression-one-year-later/) I'm not using the curetogether
survey to argue against the results from a peer-reviewed scientific study.
But, if you look at the top-right corner, I think the survey "kinda" reveals
"self-motivation" played a big part in fighting against depression.

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DanBC
Rhino55 - your account appears to be banned, your comment is showing as dead.

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egypturnash
Anecdata: Earlier this year, I was exercising regularly. I had a lot of energy
and felt great about my body and my brain.

Some stuff happened that made me stop exercising. It's been several months. I
am generally kind of mopey, lethargic, and unhappy with myself. And putting on
weight, which only makes me grumpier.

YMMV.

~~~
bobbles
I found myself in a similar situation and decided to just 'walk' to get my
mind out of the funk.

I just made sure I was going for at least 30 mins and just listening to some
music with no real goal in terms of fitness.

Eventually I just got to the point while walking that I would get little
energy bursts and turn it into a jog instead of a walk. Now I'm working my way
through one of the couch to 5K style apps and loving it.

Forcing myself out the door the first few times was really key though (regular
times I could stick to easily was great as well)

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token78
In my own experience, casual or minimal exercise has done little to affect my
mood and since my early twenties depressive periods have been a very real
problem, even effecting my employment at one point.

But going hard, and really pushing my body and pushing myself beyond my
preconceived limits has done wonders. There have been times when getting that
"runner's high" feeling has completely sidelined the depressive state I've
been in. When it happens, I'm still astonished at how much that endorphin
release can really make a difference to my mental well being. I realise this
is all only anecdotal, with a sample size of one! But I believe runner's high
is a recognised phenomenon:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorphin#Runner.27s_high>

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niels_olson
I almost wonder if the authors didn't read the analytic-rheumination
hypothesis. Adding another thing to a depressed person's plate, and then
hounding them when they don't do it, is exactly what they _don't_ need.

> The addition of a facilitated physical activity intervention to usual care
> did not improve depression outcome or reduce use of antidepressants compared
> with usual care alone.

I wonder, did they think this was a good idea, or did they see no other way
for the clinician to increase the incentive to do physical activity?

Any depressed entrepreneur out there: if you're thinking about exercise, do
it! Outdoors if you can, but by any means, listen to Nike: just do it!

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enraged_camel
I'm annoyed that the study does not go into details about what the "physical
activity" consisted of. The only thing it says is "self reported level of
physical activity (≤1, 2-3, ≥4 days per week, with at least 30 minutes of
moderate or vigorous intensity physical activity)" which does not mean much.

Anecdotally speaking, lifting heavy weights vastly improves my mood. This is
in contrast to, say, cardio, which simply makes me feel tired. I wish the
study had accounted for this too.

~~~
cglace
I agree. I always feel great after a heavy set of power cleans or deadlift.

~~~
Xcelerate
Interesting; I usually feel tired after a bunch of weight-lifting but
invigorated after a long hard run.

~~~
sliverstorm
The key, I find, is that you have to be on a schedule of lifting; for the
first few times, you feel pretty crummy after.

~~~
4r10r5
having a schedule and pushing yourself as hard as you can is probably the
point. When you lift you are pushing yourself. When I run hard for 30 minutes
I am pushing myself. It is pure self motivation. Why would you not feel good
after that? At the very minimum you are helping to sustain a certain mental
focus. Additionally, if you think about CBT and how that is used to treat
depression it is easy, in my mind, to glean how thinking about your thinking
for good, particularly during exercise can be a positive on your mental
health. I know when I am 22 minutes I am thinking a lot of positive thoughts
about making it to the end and that I am strong enough to finish. This shit is
CBT.

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fbuilesv
This is all my personal experience, but while struggling with emotional
problems I tried exercise (cardio/weight lifting at the gym) for a period of 6
months. Although the exercise itself was not helpful in lifting my mood,
having something to do (a routine if you would) helped me keep my mind off the
"bad stuff". That itself was a plus but I could have easily replaced exercise
with WoW, gambling or piano lessons and the result might've been the same.

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ngokevin
Note this study was targeted towards clinically depressed people. Whether or
not it relieves stress in non-depressed people is a different topic.

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icegreentea
This study is not about 'making you feel good', it' about improving cases of
clinical depression. If this study is sound, it would generalize to saying
"exercise in addition to usual care is no more effective than usual care alone
at reducing self-reported levels of depression measured by standard means".

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drumdance
I've often wondered about this. I've been through a couple major depressive
episodes even as I was in peak physical condition. I was doing high-intensity
boot camps 4-5 days per week.

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davidbanham
"three face to face sessions and 10 telephone calls with a trained physical
activity facilitator over eight months" does not make you less depressed.

~~~
fisherwebdev
yes. it seems that this detail has been missed by many.

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pella
similar:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4432343>

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emini_guy
Exercise does relieve, at least, some stress, but that does not mean that it
will make you less depressed in the long run. I think these are somewhat
different things, the depression being a more complex issue that seems to
depend on more factors than stress.

