How to establish a healthy relationship with your MENTAL HEALTH & EXERCISE
“I know exercise is supposed to help me fight depression, but how can I find the motivation to work out when I'm depressed?” This is the main question I get from the people dealing with depression. For that reason, today, i'm looking deeper into a relationship between depression and exercise.
Of course, first thing I did I went and put in 2 main words in our dear Google search bar – exercise and depression. Sadly enough, most of the websites discussing this topic were very skin-deep - advices that definitely caught my attention (not in the best way) included “Just go for a walk”, “You have to fight laziness” or the best so far was “just snap out of it!”. Honestly, I was horrified, you just can't say that, any more than to someone with diabetes or pneumonia just needs to snap out of it; and it’s not helpful.
Personally, I have never suffered from depression, but I always wanted to understand it more and even try and help to build a healthy relationship between a person with depression and exercise. The lack of helpful tips and knowledge is a bit scary, so I have decided to do my own research, use my own knowledge and information gathered from the people with mental illness.
The good news is that actually starting an effective exercise routine isn’t as unpleasant or difficult as it seems. Just because you're depressed doesn't mean you'll to have to spend weeks or months forcing yourself to do something you don’t feel like doing. You just have to start by taking the first few steps on faith. That’s because motivation is actually a mental muscle that works a lot like your other muscles—the more you use it, the stronger it gets. And just like there are good (and bad) ways to train your other muscles effectively, there are good ways to train your motivation so it gets stronger as you go along, and makes it easier for you to establish and maintain a good exercise habit.
In my opinion motivation is the key. But how would you discover/rediscover it, when you are heavily depressed and can't make your self do anything? Dream! FIRST STEP is to let your imagination run wild – think of what do you WANT, to be, or to achieve. Usually, when I start dreaming about the future and what I want to achieve I get butterflies in my belly, the big excitement imagining and knowing what extraordinary things await for me in the future. SECOND STEP is to write down your goals on the paper, 100 of them! Yes, 100! Write down ANYTHING you want, from the smallest things like buying a new book or visiting new coffee shop, to the big and crazy ones, like travel to Bali or learn how to pilot a helicopter! I did it few days ago, and, honestly, it's not hard at all and so much fun! Once you start dreaming big you cannot stop and it just flows!
Once you've done that, THIRD STEP is to pick 10 of them from a list, most realistic to pursue in a short-term, like try out a new coffee shop, start working out 15 minutes a day or learn how to swim. The key in this step is to be realistic and honest with yourself. Think what your current situation and mindset allows you to do.
Unrealistic Goal for a sedentary/depressed Person: “I want to go to the gym every day.” There are two main issues with this goal. First, it's not specific—what activities do you want to do and for how long? After all, just showing up at the gym doesn't accomplish anything unless you get your body moving. Second, it's not realistic. I love to work out and even I don't want to go to the gym every day. Plus, taking a day off here and there helps give your muscles time to repair and rest, and it gives you a break mentally.
Realistic Goal: “I will be active for at least 15 minutes each day”. While this goal isn't specific when it comes to the activity, it is specific and realistic with the time constraint. While going to an hour long spinning class every day would be impossible, not to mention not very healthy for you (cross-training is important so that no specific groups of muscles get overused), doing something active for 15 minutes a day, whether it's a walk after work, some push-ups or sit-ups over lunch, or a doing house chores with loud music and dancing is very doable. Exercise doesn't have to mean 60 minutes of heart-pounding, heavy-breathing activity that leaves you sweaty, sore and exhausted. Also, note the addition of "at least" in this goal, which helps to emphasize that 15 minutes is just a minimum. Over time, this goal could progress to have a minimum of 20, then 30, then 40 minutes. And you don’t need any special equipment or a gym membership to get started. You can start with something as simple as a walk around the block, going up and down your stairs a couple of times, or just taking some time to stretch your muscles while you’re watching TV. The important thing at first is to make a deal with yourself that you’ll do something every day rather than nothing. Once you’ve established a good streak of doing some activity every day, you can take the next step of trying to do a little more today than you did yesterday, and setting yourself some realistic goals or physical challenges that will keep things interesting.
STEP FOUR is to pay attention to how your efforts make you feel. One of the chief benefits of exercise, especially if you’re dealing with depression, is the way it stimulates the release of endorphins and neurotransmitters in your brain. These are your body’s natural feel-good chemicals, and they can provide a significant mood boost at the same time they’re helping you generate some motivation to keep moving. You can make it easier for your endorphins to do all this for you if you pay attention to how your exercise makes you feel.
Notice how you’re feeling before, during, and after your exercise.
Did your energy level pick up once you got started?
Did you feel better afterwards than you did before you started?
How do you feel after you decide to skip your workouts, and how does that compare to how you feel when you decide to just do it?
On days when you find yourself, take a moment to ask yourself how you’d rather feel today and which choice seems most likely to help you make that happen?
STEP FIVE - reward yourself for successes, small and large. One of the best ways to turn one good decision into a string of good decisions is to reward yourself. Earlier I mentioned starting a streak of days on which you decide to do some kind of physical activity rather than none. You can help yourself achieve this goal by setting a specific and reasonable target of consecutive days (let’s say seven) and then setting up a reward you can earn by achieving that goal. The reward can also be anything from your goal list you wrote before - maybe there’s a book you think you would enjoy or a movie you’d like to see, or maybe it’s been a while since you’ve gone out for dinner with a friend. It can be anything, really, as long as it won’t bust your budget or add any stress to your life. And if you can pick a reward that involves something you used to enjoy before becoming depressed, all the better. Once you’ve achieved your first goal, set another one that’s a bit more challenging, like working your way up to 30 minutes of exercise, and find a new reward. Keep your goals specific, relatively short-term, and reasonable, and always keep in mind that progress doesn’t require perfection. If you miss a day of exercise that doesn’t end this whole project—it just means you start counting your seven days over at one again.
STEP SIX - share your efforts with someone else in the same boat. One of the factors that can make depression especially difficult to beat is that people who haven’t been depressed often don’t seem to understand what you're going through. Often, they seem to think (and will be happy to tell you) that you just need to snap out of it or pull yourself together. One thing that does seem pretty clear is that people do a lot better at overcoming depression when they have the support and company of people who do know what you’re dealing with—because they’re also trying to do the same thing. So if you’re struggling to establish a regular exercise routine, find others in the same boat. Most communities have in-person support groups focused on depression recovery, and there are many online resources that include social communities. If you find it difficult to find any social groups, I will happily help and introduce you to a few or even offer you my help too, just drop me an email or message!
Be aware though, that exercise isn’t a substitute for other forms of treatment you might also need when you’re dealing with a mental illness. Rather, it’s a way you can help increase the positive effects of those treatments.
Anyway, I DO really hope you found this article helpful and that you will take my at least few of my advises into action! :)
References:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-depth/depression-and-exercise/art-20046495
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/exercise-is-an-all-natural-treatment-to-fight-depression
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/depression-and-exercise