Physical Strategies for Fighting Depression Part I: Exercise

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“A lot of what passes for depression these days is nothing more than a body saying that it needs work.” ~ Geoffrey Norman.

Before I get into the various physical strategies for dealing with depression, I just want to make a few short comments to enhance your success in implementing these strategies.

Why we get depressed

It is very likely that every single person will experience depression at some point in their lives. We are all exposed to severe stressful life events, such as loss of a job or a loved one; and these are likely to propel us into a depression. Some of us are just more predisposed to become depressed than others. This might be genetic or it might be the way we were brought up or that the strategies we learnt as children are inadequate.

None of that really matters. It does not matter why you get depressed or why you feel blue all the time. What matters is how to make it better. How to improve your life now so that you can enjoy and appreciate more of your life. And that is what these strategies are aimed at.

Use several depression-fighting strategies

You can implement as many or as few depression-fighting strategies as you find helpful. You can combine them with visits to a mental health professional, or other tactics that you learn elsewhere. If you only use one depression-fighting strategy and it helps you that is what is important. The goal is to help alleviate your depression – to help improve your mental state and feeling of well-being.

Resistance to change

It will seem very difficult at first to change your habitual response to depression. The human mind and body is averse to change, even positive change. It tries very hard to maintain a homogenous state. You will find it a huge challenge to change your habitual way of thinking, or your habitual actions in response to depression. It may even seem like you are conducting a physical struggle with yourself.

Keep trying. And measure only your progress. Because each time you try and struggle to implement a new depression-fighting strategy you are getting closer to success. Your body and your mind is becoming a little more familiar each time with a new technique, although it might not seem so.

My own resistance to change

I found myself in tears on one occasion because I just did not want to stop thinking the thoughts I was thinking in response to my depressive episode. Even though those depressive thoughts were making me feel worse and worse, they were familiar and comfortable. I was so afraid of the unknown that I got angry at myself for trying to change my depression response, even though it had not worked to help alleviate my depression for years.

But slowly, I got better at it and now those depression-fighting strategies come much easier to me. I have mastered some and am still working on others. And you will experience the same.

Persistence is key to fighting depression

The primary tool you need is persistence. Keep trying. No matter if it feels like you are not making progress. No matter if it hurts mentally. Keep trying. Make a promise to yourself that you are going to try this. That is all you need to do. If you fail this time, never mind about that. Just pick yourself up and try again. That is the secret to freeing yourself from depression.

So now that you are good and ready to fight the good fight, let’s get to the physical depression-fighting strategies that will help you win this war on depression.

The Physical Symptoms of Depression

Although for me depression is mostly a mental battle, I am dealing with the physical strategies first because they can help you most immediately in the midst of the depression.

When you are depressed, chances are that you are experiencing some physical symptoms that you might not be completely aware of, such as a change in your sleeping pattern. You might be sleeping more or less, or not sleeping through the night.

You might also find yourself moving slower, talking slower, even thinking slower. You might find that you lose interest in doing the things that usually excite you, like going to the movies or talking with friends or even watching your favourite tv show. You might also find yourself feeling tired and lethargic. This combination of physical and behavioural symptoms of depression is quite common.

Fight depression with physical action

The fastest way to give your depression a kick in the butt is to get moving. Deliberately change your physiology. Deliberately move faster, walk faster, talk faster, change the tone of your voice and the energy of your voice. Sit up straight, pay attention, focus.

Do it consciously. When you are depressed, you won’t feel like doing it but do it anyway. Try to keep it up for a while and it will soon become natural and not so much of an effort. Once you can do this, engage in some form of exercise. Go for a run, do some aerobics, jump on the bike and take a ride, hit the gym.

If you are in the office where exercising is not an option, then take a brisk walk around the building or block, do some deliberate stretching exercises or push ups or rapidly touch your toes 50 times. Anything to get the blood moving – even jog in place. Movement, the faster the better, is the most immediate way to fight depression.

It causes the release of endorphins in the body – ‘feel good’ chemicals which will start to counteract the physical effects the depression is having on your mind and body.

Control your mind

It important to remember that fighting depression in this way is really a challenge of the mind. You will not feel like moving around, or talking faster or exercising. But you must overcome this feeling of inertia and make a conscious decision to get moving.

This is your first line of defense against depression. Make it. Don’t think about it much. Just make it!

Regular exercise as a protection against depression

For those of you who suffer long-term depression, you need to make exercise a way of life. Scientific studies have shown that 30 minutes a day of exercise helps reduce the number of depressive episodes and increases your overall feeling of well being. So you need to make a lifestyle change here and start making regular exercise a part of your day.

This won’t be easy but you must do it. Look out for a future article on how to make exercise a routine part of your life but for now, try to slot a particular timeframe everyday for exercise. Vary the type of exercise to keep it stimulating but make sure to exercise daily. It is key to your defense against depression.

I cannot overemphasize how important regular exercise is to winning the battle against depression. Depression is related to improper brain chemistry – it is my belief that exercise directly counteracts that and balances out the brain chemistry bringing it to a normalised healthy state.

Personally, I find that once I exercise regularly, the occurence of non-event-related negative thoughts are greatly reduced. Even my sleep is less disturbed by anxious thoughts. If I go one week without exercising, I begin to feel nervous, anxious and depressed for no reason at all. Sometimes I will even awaken feeling depressed. Once I start exercising again, I start to feel like my normal balanced self again and unwarranted depressive thoughts do not occur.

So make regular exercise a welcome routine part of your lifestyle and it will become one of your key weapons in the fight against depression.

Look out for the next article on physical strategies for fighting depression which will discuss in detail how changes to your diet, your vocabulary and your activities can reduce the incidence of depression.

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” ~ George Eliott.

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Related Articles:

• How to Fight Depression Naturally
• Physical Strategies for Fighting Depression Part II: Diet, Vocabulary and Positive Activity
• How to become an Optimist – Part I
• How to be Happy – Training yourself to enjoy life
• The Power of Realistic Positive Thinking
• Your Capacity for Change
• Optimism vs. Pessimism
• The Different Explanatory Styles of Optimism and Pessimism
• Achieving Your Goals Part I – Goal Identification

Posted in A New Start, Depression, Optimism and Positive Thinking, Self Discipline |   4 Comments »

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 1st, 2006 at 6:04 am and is filed under A New Start, Depression, Optimism and Positive Thinking, Self Discipline . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.