Exercise and (my) mental health - part two

 part two: a book review (content warning: dark. depression, potential sui ideation) This part is not really a review, more like a recommendation, relating my personal experience to what I read.

Well, it did start out with Krav Maga. The more I went and trained, the more I would hear about bettering our coordination, and through that, our self-confidence, and isn't that what we all want? I did get a bit interested in biomechanics, the effects of exercise on our nervous system, and, of course, bettering myself. And because I also got an instructor diploma in early 2018, I feel it's my duty to learn more and more about anything that might be related to my field - especially since I want to teach one day.

I did get the opportunity to teach, in the fall of 2019, a mother contacted me and asked me to teach her kid, privately, so of course, I threw myself into the thing. Coincidentally, I also had a friend visiting Budapest at that time, and she asked me what souvenir to bring. That's how I found Anders Hansen's book, The Happiness Pill, or, to use a translation of the Hungarian title, Your Brain on Exercise. I asked my friend to bring me this book - and her being in Hungary at the time is crucial to me, since in the Transylvanian city I live in right now, it is quite difficult to buy books in Hungarian, especially quality books.

I did get my book. And threw myself into it.

I've just found out that Hansen is a doctor, but I've already seen that he cites a ton of studies for the book (in fact tons and tons, for each chapter). What was a thousand times more stunning, personally, was finding out how small our brain is: in the introduction, we are instructed to make both our hands into fists and put them together (as in, palms facing each other) - this is the size of our brain. I did watch an autopsy once, and therefore did get to see a human brain outside of the skull, but somehow my own "brain" was much more interesting. Just imagine: in the space that two of my fists make up, there is all I know, all I've been. My whole life, from the "disgusting" and "perverted" parts to the ones worthy of reverence and pride, takes up about as much space as the biggest hamburger I've seen in my life. I know I'm small, and yet it continuously surprises me.

The book is a wonderful piece of popular work; it is very clearly intended to hold the interest of a wide audience and give them basic, but useful information. My calling it basic might sound dismissive, it is not the case: I believe there's so much more currently being studied by neuroscientists and psychiatrists and anyone else who studies nervous systems in some way... obviously we cannot get all that info to the public, it will not interest everyone, but all I've read in the book could form a great basis for further reading. For example, I've found a study I want to read, referenced in the seventh chapter: C. Davis, 2011, Exercise improves executive function and achievement and alters brain activation in overweight children. I haven't yet read it, and because I'm already working, I'm not sure when I'll get the time, but it is on my list and it sounds super useful.

I do recommend reading, because, to be really short, this book describes some ways for exercise to be your ultimate lifehack. It can help us with a bunch of things, learning, some types of mental illnesses or neurodivergence, or better aging.

For me, personally, the parts on depression and ADHD have been most relevant, because, even though I have no formal diagnosis, I believe I have strong tendencies towards these. You might say that memes aren't a diagnostic tool, sure, but they do give you space to think about what you're going through, and how "normal" it actually is.

Actually, no matter how much I or others who have depression feel like I have it; I've been to a psychiatrist and will tell stuff about it here. Circa since 17, I've been feeling flat, uncaring. I think it was also that year that each day after school I'd go home and sleep an hour (which was especially bad when I had private classes after school, and had to get there, but I was too sleepy and needed some rest before). I actually thought I might have Antisocial Personality Disorder, which, to me, seemed to explain the flatness I'd started to feel towards life and my classmates. I'd go out and laugh with friends, but it'd also feel a bit fake. It was also that year that we learned Hamlet, and I identified way too strongly with the parts where he talks about death. I went through my entire graduation ceremony thinking it was a waste of time and money, absolutely nonsensical - I look back at the photos and mementos now, and do actually feel some sort of fondness or nostalgia, so it ultimately wasn't. Then I had a trip to Turkey, lived out a few absolutely harmless, but "crazy" impulses, and started university.

I had the same sleepiness issues here, I had classes from 8 and could not wake up for them, or when I did, I'd get so sleepy in the middle that I would leave to go back home. Well, to my dorm. But, one day, I kept falling asleep on the bus on my way back from class (at around 9 am).

This, on the one hand, feels like I'm constructing a narrative and cherrypicking my experiences. On the other hand, would an actual diagnosis require all my experiences? All the dreams and whatever that I'd gone through? If i were to describe my self-care at the time, would that invalidate things? Would it be an attempt from me to invalidate it all? Or would it simply be a larger picture?

Because, I'm gonna note, I did take care of myself. I did eat, did shower, I specifically bought a six pack of two liter mineral water bottles each weekend, so I'd have my dose to drink through the next week. I was just very sleepy and out of it. I was also trying to get involved in student life and organizing. I did go to a party, and drank very little, because the party was much more fun while I was sober.

I did have a girlfriend. I did go out. When my parents visited me, I think in the first or second week of studying there, they noted how much I'd changed - so I was acting way more social. Then, in March of my first year, I started training Krav Maga, too. That either energized me more, or just gave a legitimate "excuse" for the tiredness I'd felt. But even after, I do recall moments when I would be walking uphill to my dorm, and then there would be this overwhelming sense of needing to stop. So I'd sit down on the side of a concrete planter, and just stare out of my skull, and getting up to walk the rest of the way was an even greater challenge than the hill itself.

It was in April of 2019, so after years of this tired, feeling-like-a-mess thing, that my parents actually told me to go to a psychologist, maybe they'd fix my mood up. So I did. And then, by October, I'd mentioned depression enough times for her to send me to a psychiatrist. I got an appointment - for December. She diagnosed me with dysthimia, not depression. Shortly after, I got a membership at this gym close to where i was already training at the time, so I could train something every day. I would run on a treadmill, and it made me very happy. When I went to do checkups with the psychiatrist, she told me there was no need for pills, if exercise and eating well were balancing my mood so well. And then the lockdown happened - we only did two months, from mid-March to mid-May, and I of course fell entirely off-track with all the training I'd done. I can't actually recall much from this phase, it was legitimately one of the most horrible times of my life, I've thought of things I'd prefer to not have thought of, I cried, I was so desperate for all of that to end.

I got back into the gym at the beginning of August, and since I'd gained a lot of weight, I didn't want to risk hurting my knees with running, so I trained on the elliptical. Two minutes in, my brain was fireworks. All this worked in some way until I lost my job in November - after that, I would spend each day in bed, doing nothing, just on different social media, wishing I'd simply disappear. I was trying to find a new job at that time, too.

Then there was the point when my last pair of jeans ripped (they do that, because of my thighs), and I realized I had no jeans to go to work in, and when I tried to buy a new pair, none fit me. That was it, I thought, I was gonna starve, or die of exposure, being unemployed and homeless in winter, because of the simple and stupid reason that no jeans would fit me, so I'd have nothing to work in, or to go to an interview in.

I tried to get vaccinated (by nepotism, haha; because I was really scared of the rona) in January, failed, and slipped right back into whatever miserable goo situation I'd half crawled out of. I remember, in the end of February this year, I got an actual appointment to get my vaccine, and I did sign up for it, while feeling entirely pointless. I was so sure I wouldn't live much longer that I thought I'd be wasting the vaccine. I desperately wanted to reach out, to get a psychiatrist, let them do whatever they needed - maybe if they stick me in a mental hospital, I won't need to work for a bit more; just please don't give me sleeping pills, because I didn't trust myself around those. And I recalled how long it took to get an appointment in 2019, I was not up to doing that, I needed the help as soon as fucking possible, hopefully yesterday. So I texted my boyfriend, and he told me exactly what I was feeling: that I sounded depressed, that maybe a psychiatrist could help. The validation helped a bit, but I still couldn't make myself ask for help. I got my first dose. I survived the symptoms. And then, my boyfriend started a training program. I saw him post on his insta stories, after each of his workouts, and then, one day, he also told me what program he's doing.

This reminded me of the Insanity workouts I had saved. Was it on my old, dead laptop, or on my USB stick? I checked the stick. It was there. So, that was it, I would be going to the gym (that space being my lifehack to get myself to exercise) and doing the Insanity workouts. I got everything ready for the next day, then looked at the program, and it started on a Monday. I was doing all this on a Friday - so, the intention was to start on a Saturday. Should I wait until Monday, to make the program easier to follow? I pondered the question for a bit. No, I decided, I should be going all in until I still have some sort of a momentum. So I started on that Saturday. It's gonna be so cliche, but my life did change.

In his book, Hansen describes how cardio is shown to help the symptoms of depression, at about the same rates as antidepressants do. It does take about six weeks to kick in, he says; but I didn't care for any of that, since pills take about four. Same difference, then. And knowing how exercise immediately sparks up my brain, I literally have nothing to lose. Well, fat. But even if I didn't lose a gram of fat, I'd exercise, simply for the mental health benefits I get out of it.

In fact, for me, the after-exercise "high" can get so high, that in the beginning, I'd cry. It felt uncomfortable to be that happy, I wanted to regulate it out. Now I'm far more used to the mood boost, the confidence, and so I don't cry anymore (I do, but about different things).

And another fact is, I've talked to people (very briefly) whose depression requires meds and exercise. I don't know if I have Actual Depression (it does feel like that, but the psychiatrist didn't agree), "just" dysthimia, or if life just sucks, but exercise helps me.

Honestly, never have I been as happy as I am at the end of a workout, basically collapsing into the floor, gasping for air. And another benefit is, when I exercise, I seem to want healthy foods after. I do get, of course, the cravings for chocolate or fried chicken, and I'm not gonna cut them out of my life (for now?), because that just has worse effects on my mental health.