Exercise

C10H12N2O, or 5-hydroxytryptamine (or just 5-HT for you chem-nerds out there), can be found in the gastrointestinal tract as well as in the central nervous system in the human body. The majority of the substance is located in the GI-tract, and the rest is scattered in the CNS and platelets. The substance takes part in regulating mood, appetite and sleep as well as memory and learning.^[1]

The substance is of course serotonin. While low levels of serotonin in itself isn’t proved to cause depression, the symptoms might play a big part: sleep deprivation, loss of appetite and therefore loss of energy and concentration, among other things. Higher levels of serotonin affects the mood and can be an effective method to battle depression. To raise serotonin levels, there are a few different ways ^[2]:

• Light therapy
• Changing diets
• Medication
• Exercise

This post will be about the last item on the list: Exercise. Just putting a cliffhanger here: high levels of serotonin can actually lower your sex-drive/libido, which is a common side-effect of SSRI:s - and I’m planning on writing something on that topic in the future. Because, you know, sex sells.

A brief history During my first real encounter with severe depression a couple of years ago I tried fighting it with exercise, in combination with a massive amount of alcohol and SSRI medications. If I weren’t at the gym doing weird exercises, I could be found outdoors jogging instead. At my peak, I exercised 6 days/week; and ate a bowl of cereal instead of dinner. This went on for a couple of months, and when I think about it - my body have never looked so good. I think my rather obsessive attitude towards exercise were caused by multiple reasons:

• I was (very) insecure about my physical appearance, and I wasn’t exactly thin
• I couldn’t sleep when I went to bed and wanted to tire myself out
• All the medical staff I spoke to said exercise were a good way to fight depression
• Whenever I were at the gym or outside, I wasn’t sitting at home feeling like shit - I had to act “normal” since I was with other people

Combine heavy exercise with a low intake of nutrients and little to no sleep and you get a rather beat-up person. Needless to say, my concentration was low and my memory was that of a senile old man. But, I had a fierce body, so I had that going for me - which was nice. I knew my habits were bad for me, but since everyone said I looked good and complimented me on my weight loss, I didn’t want to stop - it was really nice to actually feel good about something, no matter how small a victory it felt like. So this kept on going for 6 months or so, and my body protested by getting sick and I got more and more tired.

The reason I’m bringing up my past is because I’m going to do a small segment on exercise and depression. And it’s my “screw-you-depression”-blog, and part of the “screw-you” is getting my past of my chest and sharing it with you, anonymous reader. So please, bare with me on my small personal stories.

Exercise you say? There are a couple of recommended exercises that actually aim at raising the serotonin levels. It seems like most of them are aerobic-centered exercises e.g. running, swimming and cycling. Whether it’s a coincidence that aerobic-centered exercises also affects the CNS where a large part of the serotonin can be found, I don’t know.

Exercise instead of medication can actually be a more long-term solution, since the effects of exercise hold on longer than medication and there’s a lower risk of relapsing into depression if you keep on exercising³. The good news for people who enjoy the couch is that all you need to do is to take a fast walk for 3-5 times/week (60 minutes vs 35 minutes per walk). The bad news is that it isn’t as effective against severe depression, but more effective against mild/moderate depression.

That is pretty much all there is to it: take a walk once a day, and sunshine will stream out of your every pore. If you really want fast results; combine the walks with some SSRI:s or something similar. It might seem like I’m a bit sarcastic about it, which I’m not - I’m jealous if anything. I would love to get better just by talking a couple of walks every week, but I’ve tried that and it doesn’t really do anything for me (I’m still trying though, so it might still happen). I actually have one small problem when it comes to exercise nowadays: Since every time I exercised in the past I was feeling like shit and were trying to escape from my thoughts, I get the same feeling now whenever I’m exercising. It seems like my body (or brain) is associates physical strain with negative feelings and thoughts; so every time I exercise now - I feel (a bit) like I did a few years ago. That is not helping.