It feels pretty weird to me that people are almost programmed to recommend Therapy or Gym as the ultimate solutions.
Despite the fact that not all people are capable of doing both.
Further more, there is no study, as far as my knowledge go, that show any ultimate cure for depression. Matter of fact I had seen a study that suggest a very high percentage of people are drug treatment resistant (meaning that there depression would not get better with any prescribed drugs).
I had seen studies that say that training or even just daily walks can highly improve mood, but I had never heard that they fully cure depression.
Depression is too vague to recommend anything. And then, a lot of people will call depression them just feeling depressed… it’s complicated.
I’m not much into therapist myself, but physical activity is the one thing that allowed me to get over a decade+ long depression that almost got me killed. More specifically, daily walks.
So, yeah, if I’m discussing potential solutions with someone and I see they are not much into gym already, I will suggest they give it a shot.
Sure but also don’t forget ‘physical activity’ doesn’t mean running a marathon or lifting weight. It means using one’s body as much as this body allows.
When I started walking, I was barely able to walk at all. Not exaggerating, It would take me hours if not days to rest from the effort (and the pain) of getting the mail at our door. It was even worse to go buy a fresh baguette (yep, I’m French ;) at the bakery at the corner of our street. For that I would spend a lot of time preparing for this huge effort and then would I would spend the rest of the day lying down, resting, exhausted. There are worse situations than mine, obviously, but you get the idea: I was in a real bad shape. Nowadays, a few years later? I walk miles every single day. And those days when I can’t walk? I feel like an absolute shit.
And it all started by deciding to walk a few more steps. Not much, really.
I’m still not an athlete and I’m still chronically ill (no cure available) but I’m also in such a better physical condition it’s night and day. Even the specialists that are taking care my medical issues where floored to see the change, back then. Two of them even asked me to start talking to some patients so I could encourage them to endure the least… pleasant parts of our condition, by doing some physical activities.