I can't speak to anxiety, but for depression, you're still going to wind up needing something in addition to exercise.
Not because it's not helpful, but it's sort of like the case of the person who needed the exercise of "normal" walking with a brain implant bypassing his damage to recover enough to gain partial mobility with it turned off[1] - if the whole problem is "I cannot convince myself to do things", "force yourself to do this thing non-depressed people find hard" is a nonstarter as an initial treatment, after a certain point.
Sure, one can argue that the correct way to do this is prevention, but that's somewhat like saying the best treatment for an infection is prevention - that's technically true, but you're still likely going to wind up with people needing an acute treatment sometimes.
(This also gets into complicated territory rapidly with people with comorbid problems that preclude "more exercise" being a thing that their doctors would recommend...)
I'm sure the drug companies can't wait to fund more studies that might show their drugs are a waste of money.
With rampant depression, rampant obesity, this isn't a fringe issue. Consider the differential in national productivity between drugged depressed people and fit active people at the same level of treated mood.
Furthermore, I strongly suspect the long term prognosis of depression treatment from consistent application of fitness is far better than the sort of static state of people on antidepressants.
Fitness improves over years of application, modifying brain chemistry, increasing pain tolerance (which is a sneaky factor in depression), improving self image both in relative terms and in absolute comparisons with societal "standards".
Where is the NIH?
With the epidemic of male suicide and painkiller abuse, this could be millions of lives on the line.
I can't speak to anxiety, but for depression, you're still going to wind up needing something in addition to exercise.
Not because it's not helpful, but it's sort of like the case of the person who needed the exercise of "normal" walking with a brain implant bypassing his damage to recover enough to gain partial mobility with it turned off[1] - if the whole problem is "I cannot convince myself to do things", "force yourself to do this thing non-depressed people find hard" is a nonstarter as an initial treatment, after a certain point.
Sure, one can argue that the correct way to do this is prevention, but that's somewhat like saying the best treatment for an infection is prevention - that's technically true, but you're still likely going to wind up with people needing an acute treatment sometimes.
(This also gets into complicated territory rapidly with people with comorbid problems that preclude "more exercise" being a thing that their doctors would recommend...)
[1] - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06094-5
I'm sure the drug companies can't wait to fund more studies that might show their drugs are a waste of money.
With rampant depression, rampant obesity, this isn't a fringe issue. Consider the differential in national productivity between drugged depressed people and fit active people at the same level of treated mood.
Furthermore, I strongly suspect the long term prognosis of depression treatment from consistent application of fitness is far better than the sort of static state of people on antidepressants.
Fitness improves over years of application, modifying brain chemistry, increasing pain tolerance (which is a sneaky factor in depression), improving self image both in relative terms and in absolute comparisons with societal "standards".
Where is the NIH?
With the epidemic of male suicide and painkiller abuse, this could be millions of lives on the line.
> Consider the differential in national productivity between drugged depressed people and fit active people at the same level of treated mood.
This puts a new spin on Apple's "1984" ad.