people who workout to help with anxiety or depression:

[Admin]

people who workout to help with anxiety or depression: do you find that it has to be a certain level of intensity or a certain type of workout, for it to work?

 

[Romie]

I like lifting weights but I suck at it. I think I actually get more depressed from lifting as I want to look good and be strong but for how long I've been training, I don't even look like I go to the gym.

 

[Puggy]

Haha, all I can say is don't over do it. Remember resting is just as important as the valuable endorphin's and fitness gained from the workout!

 

[Grunta]

I don't suffer from anxiety, but gym does not take out stress or anger like in the movies, you know where a kunce gets his whole family murdred or whatever, he's in a rage so he goes to a gym does a set of preacher curls and hits the bag twice and now he's singing koombaya.
I find I just put everything on hold when in there, focus on training and when finished I walk out and pick up exactly where I left my mental state when I walked in.

 

[kaz]

Hardest part is getting TO the gym when all you want to do is curl up in your comfort zone at home.

 

[RyanF]

I like lifting weights but I suck at it. I think I actually get more depressed from lifting as I want to look good and be strong but for how long I've been training, I don't even look like I go to the gym.

That used to be me. Chemically, training helps. Mentally, it's a bit more complex than pure chemicals, and this is one of the reasons why.

To advance the problem, the fitness industry thrives on selling certain types of physiques and the hope of looking like them. This isn't evil in itself, and I generally think that people need to stop being such whiny cry-babies when they go blaming marketing for all their problems. But when you go ahead and hang your value as a human being on your body image, or on how much you can lift, or some such measure, you're never going to have the self-worth that you're looking for. You'll keep digging into the wells of fitness in the hopes that it will make you worthy and acceptable, and it will disappoint you 100% of the time. Moreover, training with such motives (as many do) with depression or anxiety is a good recipe for body dysmorphic disorder or an eating disorder -- the people who seem most likely to get such messed up disorders tend to be high achievers who stake their value on some kind of success (not necessarily business success (there's another rant there)).

I reckon depression and anxiety affect my training more than the other way around. That's partially because the ideal protocol for training for mental health is basically to train as if you're using ice as a pre-workout, whereas I go ahead and do stupid things like rest between sets. And it's partially because, as I said above, the mind is more complex than chemicals. Dealing with my mind always works way better than dealing with my chemicals.

 

[RyanF]

I don't suffer from anxiety, but gym does not take out stress or anger like in the movies, you know where a kunce gets his whole family murdred or whatever, he's in a rage so he goes to a gym does a set of preacher curls and hits the bag twice and now he's singing koombaya.
I find I just put everything on hold when in there, focus on training and when finished I walk out and pick up exactly where I left my mental state when I walked in.

Train 24/7. No more emotional issues

 

[myst]

Heavy squat / deadlift session and HIIT give me some great endorphin release.

 

[Grunta]

Train 24/7. No more emotional issues

I don't think I have any issues, many will disagree though.
its more the frame of mind on the day when you walk into the gym and when you walk out is the same.
A workout doesn't change it at all, so I can only speculate that it'd be the same deal for anxiety.

 

[Romie]

That used to be me. Chemically, training helps. Mentally, it's a bit more complex than pure chemicals, and this is one of the reasons why.

To advance the problem, the fitness industry thrives on selling certain types of physiques and the hope of looking like them. This isn't evil in itself, and I generally think that people need to stop being such whiny cry-babies when they go blaming marketing for all their problems. But when you go ahead and hang your value as a human being on your body image, or on how much you can lift, or some such measure, you're never going to have the self-worth that you're looking for. You'll keep digging into the wells of fitness in the hopes that it will make you worthy and acceptable, and it will disappoint you 100% of the time. Moreover, training with such motives (as many do) with depression or anxiety is a good recipe for body dysmorphic disorder or an eating disorder -- the people who seem most likely to get such messed up disorders tend to be high achievers who stake their value on some kind of success (not necessarily business success (there's another rant there)).

I reckon depression and anxiety affect my training more than the other way around. That's partially because the ideal protocol for training for mental health is basically to train as if you're using ice as a pre-workout, whereas I go ahead and do stupid things like rest between sets. And it's partially because, as I said above, the mind is more complex than chemicals. Dealing with my mind always works way better than dealing with my chemicals.

You pretty much hit the nail on the head with everything you said, I lift I feel good but I start stalling all the time, dont make progress and start to get drepressed mentally. I actually dont train for looks but it would be nice to at least have some muscle, it's my progress that constantly hits a brick wall which drains me mentally. My biggest problem with not progressing is my stomach/digestion problems witch makes me hard to get the calories in every day. Did you ever have stomach problems when you were depressed/anxious?

 

[Arfwit]

I'm not going to self diagnose and say I have anything specific but life is certainly better when I'm lifting consistently.

I asked the Dr about a few things when I had my last medical for firearms endorsement and he said he could refer me OR give me clearance to carry a firearm in public, obviously I took the medical clearance solid work doc.

 

[vonfram88]

Not lifting makes me want to die. Lifting makes me want to make others die. For some reason the heavy exertion cures depression but stimulates anger, which in turn necessitates further heavy exertion to quell the anger. Sad, angry, tired, angry, tired, angry etc.....binary cycle is ok just as long as sad is not in there.

 

[RyanF]

You pretty much hit the nail on the head with everything you said, I lift I feel good but I start stalling all the time, dont make progress and start to get drepressed mentally. I actually dont train for looks but it would be nice to at least have some muscle, it's my progress that constantly hits a brick wall which drains me mentally. My biggest problem with not progressing is my stomach/digestion problems witch makes me hard to get the calories in every day. Did you ever have stomach problems when you were depressed/anxious?

When I go through cycles of depression, I just stop caring, so food doesn't taste as good, progress doesn't seem either viable or even interesting, and attitude towards training consequently also becomes pretty meh.

Anxiety, on the other hand, has very physical effects. When my anxiety gets really high, food that is either sweet or savoury (so basically anything with any flavour whatsoever) becomes hard to swallow and my likelihood of throwing up whatever I eat (if I can actually force it down) sky rockets. It'll take 24 hours of starving myself in order for hunger to overcome that feeling enough to fit in a light meal. The first time I got to that stage I saw a doctor about it, and he said that basically what's happening is my body is going into shock because of what's going on emotionally. I've gotten to that stage three times, and the last time it took two weeks to subside to manageable levels, followed by two months before I could eat normally and train properly again. Some other emotional side-effects lingered for another two years.