Activity and Depression

One of depression's symptoms is exhaustion, which partially may derive from the fact that the patient has already invested so much of their energy to fighting off anger or frustration. While medicine can be quite an effective way to boost that and help to stay awake, without any therapy it can develop into insomnia, at which state the patient will be better off without the medication.

One way to deal with that would be to engage in activities like physical exercise. Even merely walking about 3 km a day can boost that and provide a much better sense of self.

On a similar note, a few hikes a week in nature has proven to be much more effective as nature is calming and visually less stressing aka less to be constantly observing. To quiet the stress in a more noisy environment, it\s also good to take a pet or a friend along. This will cause the patient\s focus to shift on the things that they'll be constantly reminded of.

Understandably not everyone has options as such, but regardless of the earlier information not all moving is always effective. In fact going to gym can damage it more, the focus in activities in gyms are mostly strength based, yet a depressed mind usually lacks most of the strengths. That would mean that cardio or other forms of movement would be more welcome. A lot of forms of depression usually come hand in hand with anxiety, the best tool to harness anxiety would be to meditate or put high emphasis on breathing. Cardio takes the mind off those aspects and puts the patient into a situation where they'll be forced to keep their body moving and breathe accordingly. Too much down time can also undo some of these.

"Swimming Cartoon Drawing" https://pixy.org/828529/

It's important to keep in mind that a sick body also requires rest, so the idea of constant exercise will wear the patient down even further. It needs to be moderate and most of all consistent aka it needs to happen regularly.

The best form of exercise, no matter the situation regarding mental health, would be to swim or move in a body of water. Especially with depression. The density of water will cause a lighter feeling and patient's own body will move much more smoothly, granting a generally enhanced mood both in short term and long term.

So the best advice would be to get a depressed person in a body of water, granted that it is secured with life guards (depending on the person and whether they have regular panic attacks for example).

More info:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-depth/depression-and-exercise/art-20046495

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC474733/

https://www.usms.org/fitness-and-training/articles-and-videos/articles/4-reasons-why-swimming-is-great-for-mental-health

Comments

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