I know what it’s like to be depressed. I was so depressed I could not work. So depressed I could hardly get out of bed, and if I did manage to exhume myself from my grave and out of my apartment, I would always wear dark sunglasses to hide my sad eyes. Talking to people was very difficult in those very bleak weeks and months. It was as if I didn’t have the strength to talk; the depression was draining all the life from me. But I knew I had to fight the depression, so my daily mission was to talk to someone, anyone. That’s all I could handle. So off I would go to the nearest grocery store and select the cheapest item I could find, and then, with my dark sunglasses affixed to my face, I would force a smile and say hello to the cashier. Once my “mission” was accomplished, I would trudge back home to be alone in my gloom.
Yes, that was me, and it really was that bad.
My mental situation started improving when I started exercising regularly and vigorously. Why? Well, I didn’t know it at the time, but I was “fighting fire with fire”. You see, depression is less a crisis of self than a neurochemical imbalance in the brain. When you exercise, the body discharges a payload of chemicals and hormones into the bloodstream and brain (dopamine, endorphins, testosterone, human growth hormone), and that tide of “happy hormones” (as it’s often called) effectively neutralizes the bad chemicals of the brain. At least temporarily. You need to exercise regularly to beat the blues down, doing both cardio and resistance training with weights. In my experience, it’s a better solution than popping prescription pills, and recent studies are suggesting the same as well.
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