My current "routine":

- 30 minutes of bicycle and 30 of walking, daily (work commute)
- 3 sessions of one hour with heavy weights (mon, wed, fri)
- 2 sessions of cardio, interval 20 min (tue, thu)
- Random sets of calisthenics (chinups, pushups...etc) and stretching every day except sunday.

Some may say I overtrain, but it doesn't feel that way to me and that's what counts.
In the past I've been a very sedentary person. I always did sports moderately when I was young, but when I hit 20 I had surgery involving the legs and had to stay in bed for months. When I was fully functional again I had gotten accustomed to not moving at all, so all I did was sit on my ass all day for years (my field is IT so that didn't help).
Needles to say, I looked like shit, felt like shit and started to notice serious health problems. My concentration, willpower, studies... all down the gutter. I was really depressed and after a while I decided I needed to get out of that hole. One of the things I saw mentioned everywhere for fighting depression and improving life quality was exercising so... I exercised, and it has helped inmensely. I started slow and now I'm really into it (despite developing some injuries... lol), it feels ***** great. It does wonders for your life, and I think people that chose not to exercise are missing out. If you think you hate exercising maybe you just haven't found the correct sport yet. For me, it's just working out, basic strenght stuff.
You may think you are alright without exercising, but believe me, the difference is huge.
Our bodies are made for running, jumping, climbing, punching... anything but sitting on the couch/computer chair. Your body -suffers- when it's not being used correctly, and when your body suffers, your mind suffers too. Maybe in a billion years we will evolve into blobs of meat with fingers, tailored for sitting in front of a screen, but right now we have limbs, muscles and a heart and if you don't use them, you're going to feel bad, and you can't enjoy or achieve shit when you feel bad.
Mens sana in corpore sano.

The wise words in the last post are why I started this thread.

zachandhobbes Wrote:I don't think I'm internally very healthy, but I'm pretty thin and athletic on the outside and I rarely go out to do sports or things like that.

I mean yeah I walk like 20-30 minutes to/from the bus stop to and from school but that's really not exercise I guess.

But yeah like on Spring Break last week I barely went out at all for the whole 9-10 days and I felt fine.

30 minutes walking definitely counts as exercise. Dosage studies show that 30 min. of at least walking accumulated per day (in greater than 10 min segments) for 5 days a week is enough to improve your heart. And speaking from experience, I got a lot happier in my everyday life when I moved to Finland last fall and started walking to and from my new courses an hour a day. Walking is great exercise!

DKnight Wrote:Some may say I overtrain, but it doesn't feel that way to me and that's what counts.
I[...]
Our bodies are made for running, jumping, climbing, punching... anything but sitting on the couch/computer chair. Your body -suffers- when it's not being used correctly, and when your body suffers, your mind suffers too. Maybe in a billion years we will evolve into blobs of meat with fingers, tailored for sitting in front of a screen, but right now we have limbs, muscles and a heart and if you don't use them, you're going to feel bad, and you can't enjoy or achieve shit when you feel bad.
Mens sana in corpore sano.

Thanks for this great story! I believe the same!

jettyke Wrote:The wise words in the last post are why I started this thread.

Thanks for starting it by the way, it's heartening to hear all the exercise going on.

[ファブリス]

Just to make us feel ashamed... WOW

The yoga supergran who can still assume the lotus position... at the age of 83
http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=3676

DKnight Wrote:Needles to say, I looked like shit, felt like shit and started to notice serious health problems. My concentration, willpower, studies... all down the gutter. I was really depressed and after a while I decided I needed to get out of that hole. One of the things I saw mentioned everywhere for fighting depression and improving life quality was exercising so... I exercised, and it has helped inmensely. I started slow and now I'm really into it (despite developing some injuries... lol), it feels ***** great.

May I ask what you did to start slowly and how you kept up with it even though you were depressed? I'm asking since I'm at them moment more or less in the same position, and the usual "just start doing it" doesn't really work for me. In the past I loved to work out and did a variety of different sports (Jogging, Judo, Rowing, Juggling, Aikido, Rugby, Kayaking, etc.) but since I've become more and more sluggish and depressed (currently even on medication), I just can't really work up the motivation to go out and do something. Once in a while I'll go out and do my 6km jogg, feel great afterwards and promise myself to do that at least once a week, but then several weeks/months pass by without doing anything. Well, I've started to walk to and from work for which amounts to about one hour, but I don't really consider it "workout".

And why wasn't I surprised that that granny wears pink and eyecatching jewellery? Though the photos are impressive, even at the age of 9 I wasn't able to do the lotus position ... Yoga does look kind of interesting, though.

Hey Biene.
Well, I'm not DK, but here's a few pointers.
First, try to stop medication if you can. Bad habit, and it can be highly detrimental in the long run.
Second, try to find an activity that motivates you: capueira, break dance, rollerskating... If you don't feel like going out, you can work out with weights in front of your tv (Bruce Lee did it).
Also when you walk to work, try to wear ankle and wrist weights (respectively 1k & 500g)(Dragon Ball gave me the idea). Either you like it and start going out (besides work) to do it properly, or you'll feel stupid and will want to find a proper activity.
The well being you get from a training is what motivates you to retrain soon, but in your case that might be hidden by medication.

I do 432 Prostrations most every morning. It is a Buddhist exercise, but it doesn't have to be. Students are taught to imagine Jesus in front of them and say the Lord's prayer if they are Christian, or just say something kind, "May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness. May all beings not have suffering and the cause of suffering" and imagine a sunset or something else pleasant if they have no religion.

Unlike the monks in the video, I wear gloves and have a pillow under my knees, and do it at a much faster pace to get good cardio going. On days I skip, I feel like crap, and don't concentrate well.

EratiK Wrote:First, try to stop medication if you can. Bad habit, and it can be highly detrimental in the long run.

Stupid, irresponsible and possibly dangerous advice.

People don't take medication for depression for fun. They take it to survive. If that's what you call 'detrimental' then you have some explaining to do.

Yes, the need for medication can be lessened by exercise and other lifestyle habits. But many people are alive and functioning only because of their medications.

And no, before you ask, I do not suffer from nor take medication for depression.

In cultures where medication is not given for depression, there is no spike in suicide, so I tend to agree with abandoning the medication, or at least slowly phasing it out.

there are many many factors that go into whether people commit suicide, culture, religion, etc. Also, suicide risk is high when first taking medication. I don't think you can use that as a blanket dismissal of medication.

I also think the advice given is stupid and irresponsible. Please keep taking your medication. If it doesn't help after 6 weeks or so, ask for a different one. Clearly the one you're taking hasn't kicked in yet, because otherwise you would feel more like doing things. Excersise is good for depression though, and increases the effectiveness of the medication so once you feel a little more alive, make sure you take advantage of that and try to get out and do things!!!

For now, walking to and from work is probably enough though. Just give yourself a break and go easy on yourself til you feel like doing things again!!! If you have the right medication, that will happen!!!

IceCream Wrote:Clearly the one you're taking hasn't kicked in yet, because otherwise you would feel more like doing things.

For now, walking to and from work is probably enough though. Just give yourself a break and go easy on yourself til you feel like doing things again!!! If you have the right medication, that will happen!!!

Do these pills work for us regular people when we lack in motivation? :S I think telling someone to wait for a wonder pill that will make them want to get off their butt is a bit naive too. People only feel like doing things when they actually start doing them. Depressed people are no exception to this.

Just as the cause of obesity is a lack of self control around food in most cases, idleness is the cause of depression most of the time. You have to take control of your own life and stop looking for miracle cures, because the problem most likely is your lifestyle and attitude, not your body. Otherwise, it wouldn't be the case that it's a first world phenomenon.

There really isn't any clear borderline between getting in an unhappy rut and clinical depression. I'd say that encouraging people to think they have an inherent illness is just making matters worse. I know I've been down for weeks/months at a time during times I've been doing nothing productive as a teenager and the only thing that's ever worked is being forced to get into a better lifestyle routine or taking control myself.

I can hardly believe what I'm writing. The ignorance expressed above is breath-taking.

Idleness is the cause of depression most of the time? You have determined this how? Oh, you just made it up. In recent times in my country, for example, a small number of parliamentarians have had to resign due to clinical depression. Like them or not, politicians are hardly idle. They work long, stressful days.

Depression is not a first world phenomenon. It's just better reported.

You might well have been 'down' as a teenager, but that has little to do with depression. Depression is not 'feeling down'. It is, in many cases, a complete lack of control over one's life. If only it were as simple as someone saying 'pull yourself together'. It's not.

The moral superiority expressed here "I can pull myself up so you should be able to also" is disgraceful. And wrong-headed. And ignorant.

Go ahead and take a pill for every obstacle that you are too lazy to make the effort to overcome. Politicians may sit at a desk and work all day, but they tend to be physically idle. Depression also seems to be highest among nations that can afford to medicate their emotional pain away.

thankyou onafarm.

It's so tiring to have these kinds of conversations every time the topic of depression is brought up in these forums. "Depressed people are lazy" "depressed people are just weak" "they're selfish" "they should just get off their butts and pull themselves together" "i did it, so they can".

It's just utter ignorance.

1stly, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cou...icide_rate

many of those countries at the top of this list are not the kind of 1st world countries we think are at the top, and many probably have less access to medication.

There are very clear distinctions between being in an unhappy rut, and being depressed. For one thing, if you are in an unhappy rut and change your situation, your mood will change.

In a depressed person's case, this isn't so. Doing things like excersise may help in the very short term, but the effects somehow don't stick. You feel just as bad again soon after.

One thing i think people don't realise is that there are very clear physical symptoms in depression. You feel tired all the time, and lack energy. Your body and limbs feel heavy, like it's difficult to hold your head up, or walk, or speak. There is a noticable slowing of motor action, speech, writing, everything is done more slowly. And your head feels somehow like it's been filled with wet sand, and your vision is sort of closed in, like there's some sort of dimness around your peripheral vision.

It's not a case of just "getting off your butt" because you aren't just being lazy!!! It's hard even to get out of bed every morning. Normal people honestly appear to have no idea how difficult it is for a depressed person to fulfill even basic daily tasks.

I think that telling someone that it's all their own fault, and they just need to try a bit harder is far, far more damaging. People who are depressed probably have a higher tendency to think that way even to start with, they don't need people like you giving them misinformation, and making them feel even worse.

The guy already said he's walking an hour a day, so give him a break!!!

The fact is, medications help a huge number of people, change their lives, and prevent unnecessary deaths. And no, it won't have an effect if your simply lazy.

How Depressed Is Your Country?
True compassion means sometimes kicking the crutch away from someone to prove they have the power to walk themselves.

bodhisamaya Wrote:How Depressed Is Your Country?
True compassion means sometimes kicking the crutch away from someone to prove they have the power to walk themselves.

to have true compassion, you have to fully understand and empathise with what someone is going through first.

you're speaking on an internet forum, to someone you don't know, about something that you're possibly a little biased about. How can it possibly be true compassion to tell him that he just needs to try harder?!?

I also am someone who battled with suicidal tendencies as a teenager and I know that dark haze that permeates your mind when experiencing deep depression. It is something you must fight through nd defeat on your own. It is one of the hardest battles a person will ever fight, but the power to win is within each of us without the crutch of medication. It takes tremendous effort and skill, but this idea that the person is a helpless victim in need of medication is EXTREMELY harmful to their long-term well being.

But it's NOT something you MUST fight and defeat on your own. This idea is just silly. There's absolutely no reason that a depressed person has to put themselves through hell just to live a normal life like everyone else does. They should just take the medication and when they start to feel better, make any changes they need to at that point.

It's not like anyone's suggesting that everyone has to take medication forever, it can be a relatively short term thing for many people. And no, it's not ever going to make your life perfect just by taking medicine either, you'll probably have to make some kind of effort alongside it. But the medication makes things, so, so, unbeleivably better when it works.

Clearly, the power to overcome depression isn't in everyone, since so many people commit suicide every year. I honestly don't see how it can be more damaging to tell someone to carry on with the medication until it has an effect.

And no, it's not "fake happiness" and so on. It just makes someone's brain work a little more like your own does. Taking medication also vastly decreases the risk of relapse.

bodhisamaya Wrote:but the power to win is within each of us without the crutch of medication.

You know this how, exactly? Based on your experience of one?

My wife has recovered from cancer, for which she was treated with chemo-therapy.

Would you have said to her that "the power to win is within each of us without the crutch of medication" and enjoined her to just tough it out? I'd be a widower today.

onafarm Wrote:My wife has recovered from cancer, for which she was treated with chemo-therapy.

Would you have said to her that "the power to win is within each of us without the crutch of medication" and enjoined her to just tough it out? I'd be a widower today.

Really?
Yes, and I also suggest you stop eating food because the two are completely related.

We are all born with challenges, be it physical, mental, financial, emotional...
Life is difficult. It requires strenuous effort to overcome those challenges. I am liberal in my political views but am tired of hearing how everyone is a victim in life and no one needs to put forth effort. No one is a victim in life and everyone must put forth effort!
People need to draw on the power of anger when fighting internal enemies, not believe the brainwashing put forth by the pharmaceutical industry that we are all helpless ants unable to take on life's challenges ourselves.

Quote:tired of hearing how everyone is a victim in life and no one needs to put forth effort

Care to point out where anyone has said that?

As someone who has been diagnosed with clinical depression, I'm thankful my parents fought against my taking any medication for it. Supplanting an emotional imbalance with a chemical dependency sounds like a crappy tradeoff to me.
There may well be people who genuinely need those pills, but I think they account for a small fraction of the people who are using them.

Happiest places have highest suicide rates says new research

Goodness me, I didn't mean to change the direction of this thread in such a dramatic way!

First of, I'm not a sever case of clinical depression and stopped my suicidal preparations shorty after New Years. The mediaction, very very low dosage of an Paroxetin derivative, which I started about two months ago, is meant as an aid to help with changing my lifestyle and not as the cure per se. Prescribing this drug to someone with suicidal thoughts would be actually more harmful than helpful, since it can tend to increase those thoughts. Just as a sidenote. As I said, the drug is very low dosage, and meant as a helpful push in the right direction. It certainly is still up to me to work my way out of the cause of the depression, although with the encouragement and help of friends/coworkers/family and a therapis. Oh, and therapy doesn't mean talking about my life as a kid etc., but it's behavioral focused which helps me a lot, since I prefer to DO things rather than talk and talk and talk about them.
I already wasted two years of my life by thinking that I could do it on my own and that I just had to get a grip and stop being a lazy bum. It didn't work out and I ended up being less and less productive and lying to almost everyone around me, and in avoiding social contact as much as possible. Anyway, I'm defnitely better now and working hard to get things going and done, and am actually making progress, so I hope to stop being on medication soon.

Still thank you for your encouragement and also for some of the critisism. I do agree, that some people tend to wine about their situation and expect other people to solve their problems for them. That's why it took me so long to actually look for help. So even though I'm happy that I see the knot slowly unravelling, I do feel ashamed that I need(ed) the help of others to get to this point, as I see it as a kind of weekness. But that's probably just me.

Secondly, thanks for the ideas for possible workout. I especially like the idea about the weights for walking to and from work. In addition I undusted my inline scates, so that they are ready for use after easter holidays. Also my training clothes and shoes went into the luggage for easter holidays, and I'm sure my mom will be delighted to kick me out of bed early in the morning and send me off on a nice morning-jogg (~ 7 km). So I'm going to try to build up some kind of morning-routine over easter holidays, and hope to keep in (at least partially) up even after going back to work.

IceCream Wrote:The guy already said he's walking an hour a day, so give him a break!!!

Thanks IceCream, but last time I checked I was female.

I wish you the best, Biene.