this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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Hiking.
I cannot stress this enough.
One of the biggest loops of depression is feeling anhedonic and drained of energy, which keeps you from doing stuff, which keeps you anhedonic and drained of energy.
Go for a hike literally every single day for a whole month. Rate your depression on a scale of 1-10 every day a week before you start, every single day during, and then every day for a week after. You'll see the trend, and hiking will be your new antidepressant.
It's easy. It's walking. It's not competitive, you can go hilariously slowly and still accomplish your goal. You can add hobbies to this hobby, like photography or bird watching. You're probably not getting enough exercise, and being depressed all the time blows.
If you're nerdy and depressed, you may have heard about EMDR, where you sway your eyes back and forth rhythmically while you think about trauma. The doctor who came up with the treatment (that's showing crazy good results) went down the rabbit hole they went down because they noticed walking in the woods helping their depression. They currently think the mechanism has something to do with bilateral stimulation (walking) and constant reframing of your perspective (tree on my right, tree on my left, rock on my right, rock on my left).
Other physical activities are great too, but hiking seems literally taylor made for the depressed.
Do you struggle with anxiety and destructive ruminative thought patterns? Guess what you won't have the energy to do when you're panting for air?
Hiking is a legit way to maintain depression indefinitely. Don't get cozy, though. take a break and your brain will find its way back to it's old antics.
Walking, or running, is good for your brain in almost every way. My depression was/is coupled with social anxiety so it was hard to get myself to do it but things like walking to the grocery store instead of biking/car helped me change that into 'I'll take a detour'.
The worst hobbies for me are the ones that are done sitting still, or anything that 'creates' a different 'reality/world'. For me that was anything behind my pc. Woodworking is better for me and allows me not to worry about social stuff but walking is definitely better for my brain.
Damn I don't even have the energy to get out of bed, how am I supposed to go hiking?
Start with a walk around the block 😊
Real talk though? Google "no zero days". It's a reddit post from like 10 years ago. That guys post still helping people get away from where you're at. Helped me back in 2012.
Here
In case Reddit goes down, the account/comment gets deleted, or you just don't want to click the link:
What a comment! Love it so much. Just trying to do something today - the act of trying is the most important thing
This was an amazing help last year when my wife was had really bad PTSD symptoms from a medical crisis she had. We walked 3+ miles almost every day last fall through January. She started getting better around then, and we started shortening our walks to 1 mile a day throughout the spring.
Now it's over 100°F every single day and we are stuck inside for at least another month. Luckily she's doing well these days, but I do miss our walks.
Save up for a hiking trip together 😁
If you want to throw stuff while hiking, Disc Golf is for you. Honestly I owe playing disc golf much appreciation to getting out of a big slump I was in and losing weight. It’s like hiking, but with a mini game built in.
I used to hike. Been feeling down lately. This is a great reminder, thank you
Came here to say this. If you have anyone in your life who would be willing to keep you accountable by being your hiking buddy, that helps me a lot. Before my partner and I got together, she was my friend who liked hiking and got tips from a Facebook group on good locations. Every weekend, she had picked a place for us to go. Since I didn't want to let her down, I got my ass out the door. I never regretted a single hike because they were all to great nature spots.
I realize this is limited by geography. I'm lucky to live in a place with a lot of great trails. I used to live in a place that was flat and uninteresting, so this depends on having access to nice trails.
Oh wow, I didn't know the theory behind EMDR, but I've had great success treating my anxiety and depression with both EMDR and hiking. Makes a lot of sense!
Little things that make solo hikes even more enjoyable:
Running too. Almost every activity that makes you sweat can trigger the EMDR effect, and of course has a load of knock-on effects too
The key component of EDMR is bilateral asynchronous stimulation.
So not anything that makes you sweat can give you the benefits of EMDR. It must engage your left and right hemispheres over and over.
i.e. bench pressing will make you sweat, is in no way EMDR.
+1000
And if you like to compete with yourself, dish golfing. It's cheap(at least it can be), and it's basically competitive hiking :)