i have clinical depression and hit the gym at least three times a week. i also have a bff kick boxing pal with incredibly bad clinical depression. it doesn't help all depression. it doesn't help me or my friend. medication kind of helps but no, exercise isn't a paragon.
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2026
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Agreed, this headline is facile, and perhaps even harmful. Depression comes in many varieties, and exercise may even make some forms worse.
Yeah, I started working out every day this year, not heavy just bike and aerobics and some bodyweight stuff to tone up some, and while I do feel better and feel a lot better about myself, the depression is still there it didn't go anywhere, but it's just diminished I guess. It's certainly not a panacea but it's worth a shot for sure and most people could use it
- Because it requires the patient to get off their butt and it's hard.
- Because it makes no money for the pharma industry.
- Because a patient who feels better sees their shrink less and shrinks like money.
We need big gym to fight big pharma and big shrink.
Your first point is the big one.
Everybody wants an easy button for everything. Exercise is hard, requires consistent effort over time, and the results are subtle and take a while to see.
Not hard per se. While being physically healthy was obviously more of a blessing than a common possibility in the past, most had no qualms putting in the work if they knew something to be necessary or desirable. That goes for now too, albeit with a new set of obstacles.
The main problem comes with the sheer ubiquity of incentives throughout the “civilized” world to practice a sedentary and physically low-effort lifestyle. Add in the typical work schedule, and many have barely any time to exercise while still having more than the slightest margin of consistent free time, if they even have that privilege. Not saying laziness can’t be a factor, but it’s less of a trait that’s inherent to people and more so a result of what someone was taught or experienced.
No it’s hard. There’s absolutely no question about it. And I love lifting and working out. It’s hard.
But that’s also a product of a sedentary generation where physical labor is not the primary means of making a living.
I grew up in a blue collar family and did it myself until I joined the military. Physical labor is hard.
My dad, my grandpa, and most of the rest of my family didn’t have a choice. Making money and raising a family is hard. They all did it with hard manual labor. Plumbing and being mechanics and doing paint and body work. They didn’t need to exercise because they were lifting weights all day as a job.
Most of us don’t do that today. We drive to work, sit around at a computer, drive home, and then sit around being exhausted mentally. I get it. It’s hard to say “go lift weights for fun” or “ok now go run 5 miles.” It’s a lot easier to be exhausted and healthy when your day job is physically intensive because you knock out that basic requirement. You go home tired but physically fulfilled.
I’m in an office now and I hate it. I miss being physically exhausted just from work. I miss when going to the gym was extra trying to grow more and not just a necessity to not rot into my chair.
It’s hard to go to the gym now when I’m mentally exhausted doing shit I hate. I hate that the office drains my energy doing bullshit.
It’s hard. That’s not a knock on people today. But it is still necessary. And there’s no easy button like for everything else. You can ozempic your way out of being fat, but you can’t ozempic your way out of depression. Antidepressants are far from an easy button and often cause more problems. Being skinny doesn’t fix it the same way as working for it does.
There is a big gap between doing nothing and running 5miles or going hard in a gym. You don't need to go all out to see the benifits of exercise. For a start simply walking more will help a lot. That is something relatively easy to do. Something that could almost be a passive thing with better designed cities. If they were made more walkable rather than requiring a car to do anything then people would naturally walk far more then they currently do.