Ack! Frustrating!
It's especially frustrating when someone in authority finally gets ONE THING RIGHT, and then halfway ruins the correctness with bad details or counterproductive attitudes.

Good example in this Slate article by Scott Douglas.

He makes a STRONGLY CORRECT POINT that exercise is the FIRST remedy for depression. After you GET OUT AND MOVE, it's quite possible that nothing more is needed to break the vicious cycle. He's also correct that medical professionals rarely prescribe exercise because there's no profit in exercise.

But Douglas partly ruins his point by implying that running and calisthenics are the ONLY useful forms of exercise. (He calls calisthenics "weight training", which sounds even more brutally hellish.)

Depression begins with a sense of low status and blown expectations. Learned helplessness. The people who can handle running and calisthenics are TOP STATUS PEOPLE. Attractive muscular people who look good in Spandex, who can afford daily appointments with a Personal Trainer and a Personal Life Coach.

Depressed people have been SLAMMED TO THE GROUND by the Spandex types and the Life Coach types REPEATEDLY. We don't want ANY KIND OF ASSOCIATION with gym class or calisthenics.

Walking is the OPPOSITE of gym class. The Personal Trainer never allows you to "dawdle" or "smell the roses". If you dawdle, the Life Coach grabs you by the neck and slams you to the ground. GIMME 5000 PUSHUPS NOW! If you can't do more than 50 pushups, you're SLAMMED TO THE GROUND AGAIN.

Memories of failure last forever. Any activity that stirs up those memories shouldn't be prescribed.

Better and CHEAPER prescription: Get out of the house. Move. Walk. Look around. Dawdle. Smell the roses or whatever else is here. Even if the only smell available is dogshit, savor it. Connect with your senses, not your memories.


  ¶ 2:37 AM