RFK, in collaboration with your insurance company, has just discovered the medical breakthrough of the century! We call it: Walk it off bitch! This exciting new treatment allows for significant improvement in shareholder value by eliminating needless medication.
Depression - Walk, Anxiety - Pace, Bipolar - Walk then run. Suicidality - Resistance swimming.
But wait, there’s more! We’re currently conducting, let’s uh, call it “research” that indicates shareholder values would increase even more by applying the Walk it off bitch, system to common disease too!
-Obviously not at all biased researchers
What if I’m depressed because I can’t exercise because I have a medical condition that fucks up my muscles’ ability to act like muscles?
Checkmate, optimists.
I feel this in my delayed calcaneoplasty.
Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.
– Søren Kierkegaard
↑ Friluftsliv & Allemansrätten 🫶🏼
I wasa literally going to comment that if you can’t exercise, that for me walking daily for at least an hour has made an improvement on my life.
Both my body and my mind have improved. It’s not a runners or heavy lift “high” but more like a fog of the mind is gently lifted.
Walking is exercise though no? Gotta start somewhere, but every step counts :3
if you can’t exercise, that for me walking daily for at least an hour has made an improvement on my life.
This is still exercise. That’s over 30 km of walking per week assuming a roughly average speed. It’s mild-intensity exercise that doesn’t target all muscle groups, but it’s nevertheless exercise. If you’re walking outdoors, that’s another factor that can help depression.
I agree. Personally, I find it meditative. Cleansing.
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That seems like a pretty unhealthy perspective. It reads as though the speaker is so unhappy in some way that they cannot stand to simply sit with themself and hear their own thoughts. As though they have to run away from thoughts that trouble them and can never have the peace that comes from confronting them.
And yes, I know who Kierkegaard is and I am in fact a bit of a fan. The above is just what I thought while reading this. I imagine it comes from perspective based in mindfulness, wherein you learn to let your thoughts come, acknowledge them, and let them go without suffering.
I do agree with the point he was aiming to make, though.
> “study finds”
> Doesn’t link to or name the study
> Links to a generic stock image of two people walking
Who upvotes this swill?
Edit: okay, here’s what they meant to link to but accidentally just linked the thumbnail image instead. Reassuring that this got upvoted 20 times, 0 downvotes, and multiple comments before someone pointed it out.
Here’s the Cochrane systematic review in case anyone wants to cut past Morning Edition’s (reasonably good) commentary on it.
Well it is far(!) better than all the usual “I feel so bad” post in its various forms.
When you’re severely depressed, exercise seems impossible. You need help to get to the point where you can start really exercising, but try to walk until then
Does pacing count as walking?
I would like to point out that we also shouldn’t judge people who are too depressed to even get started with a walking routine. If they need therapy, if they need medication, if they need encouragement from friends or family–we should try to be supportive.
Walking around the block can seem like climbing a mountain to someone in the depths of depression.
On my feed this post is about 30 posts below one with a study that shows exercise helps reduce the size of cancer tumours.
We constantly find new benefits of exercise, but why are we then so lazy and don’t exercise (mostly speaking to myself here).
We’re not lazy.
We’re overwhelmed, overburdened, and exhausted. Our lives should not be this stressful.
I don’t think it’s laziness. Even if you leave out all of the burdens of modern life, it’s clearly somehow in human nature to avoid exercise. Almost everybody has natural inertia that prevents them from getting started. (Obviously this does not apply if you already have an ongoing and active exercise routine. I’m talking about the getting started part.)
But way harder!
