relieve depression exercise

Exercises for relieving depression are not some Internet celebrity metaphysical fitness method, but a set of low-threshold physical and mental intervention actions that have been cross-validated by clinical psychology and sports medicine and can be done by anyone at any time. Existing clinical data shows that for people with mild to moderate depression, if they insist on regular practice for 15 minutes more than three times a week, the effective rate of relief can reach 62%, which is nearly 40 percentage points higher than the control group who simply rest passively (such as lying down and browsing their mobile phones).

The first time I came into contact with this set of movements was when I volunteered at the emotional intervention clinic of the City Jingwei Center in 2021. At that time, I saw the doctor giving printed movement diagrams to the mild to moderate patients who were undergoing follow-up visits. They were not the jumping aerobics on the Internet. Most of them were extremely small movements that could be completed while sitting or even lying down. At the time, I thought it was too simple. Until I worked on an industry project for three months, my mood hit rock bottom. Every morning when I woke up, my chest felt like a piece of water-soaked cotton wool. It was difficult to even sit up. After following the diagram for half a month, the feeling of congestion gradually relaxed.

There is currently no unified conclusion on the logic of its action in the academic world. Researchers in the field of sports medicine are more likely to attribute it to "low-load muscle activation" - in a depressed state, the secretion levels of human serotonin and dopamine will be significantly lower than normal values, and the muscles will be in a "tense but weak" stalemate for a long time. This set of actions does not require a lot of physical energy. As long as it can awaken the perception of the muscles, it can promote the secretion of neurotransmitters, which is equivalent to putting a thin layer of lubricant on the rusty body gears. Scholars of the school of mindfulness psychology believe that the core is "anchoring of embodied cognition." Most people who are trapped in depression will fall into rumination thinking about bad past events. An old radio like a cassette keeps looping the same noise. When performing actions, you are required to focus on physical sensations, such as the pulling sensation in your neck when you turn your head, and the tight feeling in your knuckles when you make a fist. In essence, you find an anchor for your thoughts that are running around, and you naturally press the pause button on rumination. The two views have been arguing for almost five or six years, and no one can convince the other, but it does not prevent it from being used clinically effectively.

I once met a sophomore girl who was diagnosed with mild depression. She was too embarrassed to go running on the playground while living in a dormitory. She was afraid of being criticized by her classmates, so she sat on the bed and did it for 15 minutes every night before turning off the lights. She found the standard movements on the Internet troublesome, so she modified a simplified version by herself. She did three movements: expanding her breasts, turning her neck, and grasping her fingers. During the two-month follow-up visit, her score on the Hamilton Depression Scale dropped from 19 to 8. The doctor said she no longer needed to take low-dose antidepressants. There is also a back-end programmer in his 40s who couldn't stand for too long because of his lumbar protrusion. The doctor changed him to a fully lying down version, which involves turning his ankles, relaxing his shoulders, and abdominal breathing. He said that as soon as he lay on the bed, he would repeatedly think about "Will I be optimized if this project fails?" When he was doing the movements, he focused on following his ankles, and those thoughts suddenly appeared less inexplicably. Oh, by the way, my menopausal aunt downstairs used to cry at home. I taught her a few movements that she can do while sitting down. She would sit on the bench downstairs for ten minutes every day after buying groceries and do it slowly. This week, I brought a bag of sugar oranges and said that I can sleep for six hours without taking sleeping pills recently. Even if people passing by do breast enlargement sometimes look twice, she doesn't care. "It's better than me hiding and crying at home anyway."

Many scholars also believe that this thing is essentially a placebo effect. They say that even if you stand up and take two steps, it can promote the secretion of dopamine. There is no need to give it a special name of "depression relieving exercises." This is actually true. I asked the attending doctor at the outpatient clinic before, and he said that calling it this name is essentially to lower the threshold. Many people who are trapped in depression will resist when they hear "You need to exercise more". They feel that I can't even get out of bed and you want me to run five kilometers? Doesn’t it mean that your back hurts when you stand and talk? But if I say, "You can do a few simple exercises for 5 minutes, stop if you can't do them anymore," the acceptance rate will be much higher instantly.

In fact, there is no unified standard movement at all. Most of the versions on the Internet that are divided into one, two, three and four sections are for the convenience of dissemination. I have seen doctors modify the versions for different people in all kinds of weird ways: For people with stiff shoulders and necks who sit in the office all year round, arrange more head-turning and chest-expanding movements, and pause for 3 seconds after each turn. There is no need to pursue a large angle, as long as there is a pulling feeling.； For insomniacs who often lie down and think wildly, we only teach them to turn their ankles 10 times clockwise and 10 times counterclockwise. Many people get sleepy just by turning their ankles. ； For patients who feel tired even raising their hands in the acute stage, just take a deep breath and hold it with your fingers, hold it tightly for 2 seconds and then release it, do it 10 times and then rest, it also works. I have seen someone take the "holding the three energizers of heaven with both hands" movement in Baduanjin and add it to the exercise for the elderly at home. The effect is quite good. It is just for comfort. There is nothing authentic or unauthentic about it.

In the final analysis, the most useful thing about this exercise is never how magical the action itself is, but that it provides those who are stuck in the emotional quagmire with a very small step that can be grasped without any effort. You don’t need to force yourself to get better immediately, or to become positive and happy immediately. Even if you just move your fingers or turn your ankles a few times today, you have already taken one step forward than you were just now, and that is enough. Oh, by the way, a reminder, if you feel tired while doing it, stop immediately. Don’t push yourself. It is meant to relax you. Don’t make it a KPI that must be completed, otherwise it will be more gain than loss.