“She feels her feelings when she feels them.” – Robert Downey Jr. in Home for the Holidays.
Those who know me will be shocked to hear that I’ve struggled with depression all of my life. Those who really know me won’t be shocked at all. I’ve always had a tendency to laugh at everything, make a joke of life, and be the life of the party. This can trick people around me into believing that I’m a “care-free” guy. I’ve never been that. I never will be. But, I DO have a happy life. And now, because of the ways I’ve learned to manage my depression, my smile and my laughter represent me far greater than they used to.
A decade ago, I had few coping skills and was a rabid Nihilist. I believed there was no point to anything and I lived my life that way. I couldn’t hold down a job, I couldn’t finish college, and deep down I was always deeply sad and lonely. Today, I’ve learned to manage a disease that can be horribly debilitating. I have my degrees, my business, I’m getting married in a week, and I can honestly say that I love my life. I’d like to tell you HOW I changed so dramatically in the hopes that my methods will help you like they did me.
NOTE: I’m writing this essay to you as though you are like me. It is a personal account of how I have dealt with (and continue to deal with) my own depression. If you suffer from depression, it could be that yours manifests itself differently than mine, and has causes different than mine. However, I suspect that the underlying reasons for why my own methods have worked for me have a universal quality to them that should apply to most people. Also, my methods are good for you regardless of your mental state: exercise, meditation, a rationalistic view of emotion. These things, I believe, will help anyone, depressed or not. The point: this is personal. Take it as such.
The Painting of Your Life
Most people have no conception of what day-to-day life is like for a person with depression. You can think of a persons life as a painting. The average persons canvas is covered in paint of many colors. Each small part of that canvas is a moment in their life. Sometimes the colors represent sadness, sometimes happiness, sometimes boredom. But, the colors always blend together, and at no point is there a space where the blank white canvas shows through.
For a depressed person, their life is a stippling painting. It is made up of many (a great many) dots, all of different colors. When seen from afar, it looks just like the normal persons painting. It appears to be that the colors are blended together. They have colors representing all the same emotions. They are genuinely happy in some moments. Sometimes exuberant. But, if you zoom in really close, every moment is surrounded by the blank emptiness of the white canvas. The colors do not blend together. Each moment of color is an isolated event punctuating an undercurrent of emptiness.
Normal people have an undercurrent of contentment. That is the natural state for them. They have acute moments of real depression and sadness usually brought on by a particular event (justified). They strive for things, they long for things, they have ups and downs in their emotional life. However, deep down they feel content. This is why most people can feel “bored”. A depressed person can’t feel bored. They feel empty. There is a difference. Only a fundamentally content person can feel boredom.
What makes a person a depressive isn’t that they are sad all the time. Most of us aren’t. It is the emptiness. There is a giant hole in the middle of yourself that you can’t fill. No matter how hard you work, no matter how many times you “change things up”, you cannot possibly fill that hole. Trying to fill it can bring its own sense of fulfillment. But, the instant you stop trying, you go right back to where you started – empty.
Anatomy of the Depressed Mind
The trouble we have here is that a Depressed person is not worrying about something or sad about something. They are just sad and empty. Period. No reason. No justification. We haven’t the ability to make that feeling go away by rationalizing to ourselves that the reason we are sad isn’t a good enough reason. There is no reason! At least in the sense that the sadness wasn’t caused by an acute event.
The only real reason is that our brains are broke!
People with true depression have a different brain anatomy than the rest of the folks out there. This physiological difference is at the root of our trouble. I come from a family of depressed people (my Mom’s side). So, for me, I know there is some genetic component at play. While no one is completely sure which comes first (brain difference that causes depression, or depression that causes brain difference), the fact is that we aren’t like other people.
In a study that appeared in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they found “a 28-percent thinning in the right cortex — the outer layer of the brain — in people who had a family history of depression compared with people who did not,” and that this was associated with problems with memory and attention.
“If you have thinning in this portion of the brain, it interferes with the processing of emotional stimuli,” Dr. Peterson said. “We think that’s what makes them vulnerable to developing anxiety and depression — it essentially isolates them in an emotional world.”
The Prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain that deals with (among other things) the regulation of mood states. If it is atrophied, then your ability to deal with these tasks gets downgraded. This becomes particularly problematic given that without the prefrontal cortex running at full speed, you can’t dampen the negative emotions generated by the Amygdala. The amygdala is that part of your brain that deals with Fight or Flight responses. It is your brains Fear Factory. To add fuel to the fire, in depressed people the amygdala tends to be overactive.
Think of the Amygdala and the prefrontal cortex as the brains Yin and Yang. You need both to be strong and healthy to have a strong healthy brain that is in balance. Depressed folk ain’t in balance. Generally, the prefrontal cortex is responsible for saying, “Hey, Amygdala, I got your message. We’re cool here. No need to freak out, dude!” But, when your brain is broke (like mine), you can be flooded with negative emotional responses that can result in despair and overwhelming helplessness.
The above was a gross oversimplification. There is a lot more going on here physiologically, including a reduction in hippocampus volume, an increase in amygdala metabolism, an altered blood flow and metabolism in the limbic system generally, and much more. (For instance, the contribution of Glucocorticoids (cortisol, the main stress hormone for humans) on neural death in the hippocampus implies a snowballing situation where negative moods beget a brain more prone to negative moods!) Also, it is unclear whether these changes are CAUSED by depression or if depression is CAUSED by them – Correlation NOT Causation!
AND, not every depressed person has all of these symptoms. It is a highly complicated disease. My advice is to not get too hung up on the physiology. Instead, focus on the practical solutions people have used to combated it.
NOTE to the Overachiever: Much of the justification for a behaviorist approach to handling depression – over pharmacology (for people like me) – can be found in the article I cite below by Dimidjian, S., et al. (2006)
EDIT : I want to make it VERY clear that I am NOT against medication for the treatment of depression. There are a great many people (some of whom are close friends of mine) who need it. This is a brain problem. Medication can, in some cases, be the most direct way to deal with the issue. And the more severe your case is, the more important the medication might be. What I’m offering are some other ways to deal with our depression – that can be used in conjunction with medication if that is what works best for you.
Objective Reality: How You Feel Is A Lie
There is a line that gets bantered around in Olympic weightlifting circles (often attributed to Glenn Pendlay or John Broz): How you feel is a lie. In weightlifting, what we mean is that some days you’ll walk into the gym feeling totally dead tired and yet you will hit a Personal Record (PR). Other days you will feel amazing but have a horrid workout. You just don’t know till you go for it.
This maxim applies equally well to how a depressed person should think about their own emotions. How you feel is a lie. Your brain is messed up. It will thrust upon you emotions like sadness and loneliness that have nothing to do with reality. And if you entertain them, you will make things worse.
I ended up having an interesting “Facebook Discussion” with some friends of mine on this very topic, and I wrote something there that bears repeating here:
Most of the time, sadness, loneliness, etc. are totally irrational feelings when you are a depressed person. Finding ways to “fake it till you make it” goes a long long way. It’s how I can be so disciplined about exercise and meditation. I don’t wait for it to be a good time. I do it no matter what I want.
I’m afraid that the vast majority of depressives never learn this. They honestly believe (in the moment) that the way they feel is – at least to some small degree – justified. But, it almost never is. That sadness, sense of helplessness, aloneness … all bullshit (most of the time!). Your brain is lying to you. Mine certainly does. Nothing has made a bigger difference to me than a full and total acceptance of this fact.
How I feel is a lie.
In the gym, if you let yourself stay home because you didn’t “feel up to it”, you wouldn’t have had that chance at a PR. With depression, if you let your emptiness and sadness control what you do, you will only become more sad, and you won’t have the opportunity to feel happy.
Until you totally accept that your emotions are NOT rational, and that you need to do those things that are good for you regardless of what you think you want in the moment, you will NEVER get better.
Depression is so debilitating precisely because of the trick your mind plays on you. It tricks you into believing that how you feel is valid. This sparks a downward spiral of sadness that makes life impossible. The more you play into its tricks, the harder it gets to drag yourself out of it.
You’ll notice that I was presuming something about the Objective nature of the outside world in relation to my own emotions and perceptions about that world. Keep in mind that to say that my feelings are “irrational” is NOT to imply that there are “rational” emotions that I SHOULD be having. All emotions are irrational if we accept that we are totally subjective creatures – which I DO believe epistemically. But, some of those emotions are also HARMFUL to you and to those around you. Love is irrational but great! Debilitating sadness is irrational and not so great.
Weightlifting, Meditation, And The Practice Of Self Care
I got into Olympic Weightlifting for a reason. I got into Mathematics for a reason. I got into Meditation for a reason. Those reasons are all the same: They are hard. Their being hard meant that they took my mind off of the undercurrent of sadness and emptiness that pervades the mind of a person like me. But, there is more to it.
These are also things you have to practice regularly to be any good at. Remember what I said about the empty hole inside of a depressed person like me. It is not something that will ever be filled. Other people have little holes with bottoms to them – like a well. They fill up the hole, they are satisfied by a job well done, and they move onto the next hole to fill. We don’t get to have that. We get one giant unfillable hole. Our only option is to find solace in the act of shoveling dirt into it.
That means Practice.
Ritual and routine are your friends. I’m not telling you to live a regimented life devoid of variation! Far from it. You need new stimuli. I’m saying that you need to have some anchors.
The most important is an exercise routine. A DAILY exercise routine (see my friend Bret Contreras’s article on the subject here). Other people can get away with doing 3 day/week routines in the gym and be fine. You can’t if you are like me. You MUST do something physical every single day. It may only be for 15 minutes. But you gotta do it!
Olympic weightlifting was what I found worked best for me. It is something that can be (and is best when done) daily. It is remarkably complicated to get good at which plays into my need for constant hole-filling! And, it has the added benefit of being (paradoxically, given my last sentence) simple and basic. It is simple in the sense that you only work on a few exercises everyday, always the same basic workouts, always done in the same way – that is ideal.
I gravitated to a “Bulgarian-influenced” style of training because of the Zen-like simplicity and its daily practice aspect. Because it actually produced remarkable results with my athletes is the reason I stayed with it as a basis for my coaching. I fully admit to some post-hoc justifying here. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the methods on their own, I do. But, my move toward using them started from an emotion and personal place.
Meditation should also be performed daily. There is no excuse not to do it. 5 minutes a day is plenty to start. Just sit, shut up, and try to think about your breathing. I have a proscription in my post on Happiness as a Skill. (You’ll notice that in that article I make the point that negative emotions should be controlled. Now you know the deeper reasons why I came to this belief!)
To quote myself:
Another way to get control of yourself is to meditate regularly. I don’t mean in some froo froo hippy way, I mean just sit there, shut your eyes, and start counting your breath. In and out, that’s one rep. Don’t think about anything else at all. Just counting. If you start thinking of something else, that’s OK. Adjust, and go back to where you left off. Start out by counting up to 10 every day. Once that is easy, add 10 more. Keep going till you can go all the way to 100. At this point, you can stop counting all together and just focus on the breath itself.
Doing this, at least a few times a week has a remarkable effect on how able you are to control your mental states. It is exactly like exercise. At first, you suck. Eventually, through practice, you get better. And one day, you find it just isn’t that hard anymore.
“Practice” should become the word of your life.
Ethics as Ethos
“You must learn the principles in such a constant way that whenever your desires, appetites, and fears awake like barking dogs, the logos will speak like the voice of the master who silences his dogs with a single cry.” — Plutarch
The Greeks believed that if you didn’t take care of yourself, first, then you would never be able to take care of others. They believed in Ethics as Ethos, a practice. That is, one takes practical steps to improve who they are as a person so that they can better take care of others. It becomes a part of your character. A basic Zen philosophy isn’t far off from this. I subscribe to it myself. In fact, it is the driving force behind everything that ends up on this blog and behind my coaching in the gym. I’ve found ways to help myself. And I want to help you to help yourself.
There is a sense in which you must learn to use your reason to your advantage. But, this is made doubly hard by the fact that in the worst moments of depression your reason is suspect. The goal then is to slowly develop the skills to distance yourself from your own emotions. Recognize the Loki-like mischievousness of them. And, be able to override your own mind.
That might sound silly, or unusually “meta”. You want to have a Meta-Mind that has veto power over your Mind? Come on …
I’m serious.
But, like everything in life that is worth a damn, it will take a lot of hard practice! Meditation and a regimented exercise routine act as character builders on one end, and as teachers of your “Meta-Mind” (forgive me the strangeness of such a term!) on the other. Each time you choose to engage in one of those activities when you really don’t want to, you’ve just practiced that act of overriding the negative parts of your mind. Sometimes it will be easy to do, sometimes it will be brutally hard, and still at other times you will fail.
Pushing forward is the goal. You will get better. Your mind will be stronger. And you will, without realizing it, be a better person more capable of helping others.
Conclusion: Nihilism As A Catalyst For Positivity?
I’m still a Nihilist philosophically, but my application of that philosophy to my life has taken a 180 degree turn. I used to believe that if life had no inherent meaning, then there was no point to anything. I know believe the opposite. Life has no inherent meaning, so it is incumbent upon us to create that meaning. We do this via loving each other, putting work into those things we are passionate about, and increasing the number of moments where we can feel some semblance of happiness and fulfillment.
I’ll never be a content person. I will always struggle with irrational moments of sadness, loneliness, and even despair. But I’m not the man I was a decade ago. Who I am today is a generally happy guy who laughs a lot, smiles a lot, and knows how to (most of the time) control the darker sides of his nature. That didn’t happen by magic! I built this person that I am now. It took years of hard work and I will never be done with this project. I accepted that to be the man I wanted to be it was going to take a life of constant toil. No pill, no moment of epiphany, no perfect experience was going to “cure” me.
I am who I strive to be. I want no less for you.
References
- Austen, James H. 1999. Zen and the Brain. The MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- Davidson, R., et al. 2003. Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation. Psychosomatic Medicine. 65:564 –570
- Dimidjian, S., et al. 2006. Randomized trial of behavioral activation, cognitive therapy, and antidepressant medication in the acute treatment of adults with major depression. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 74(4), 658–70
- Gillani N, Smith J. 2001. Zen meditation and ABC relaxation theory: An exploration of relaxation states, beliefs, dispositions, and motivations. Journal of Clinical Psychology. 57: 839–46.
- Hastings RS, et al. 2004. Volumetric analysis of the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus in major depression. Neuropsychopharmocology. May 29(5):952-9
- Herrington, John., et al. 2010. Localization of Asymmetric Brain Function in Emotion and Depression. Psychophysiology. 1-13.
- Kabat-Zinn J. 1982. An out-patient program in Behavioral Medicine for chronic pain patients based on the practice of mindfulness meditation: Theoretical considerations and preliminary results. General Hospital Psychiatry 4: 33–47
- Sapolski, Robert M.. 2001. Depression, antidepressants, and the shrinking hippocampus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. October 23; 98(22): 12320–12322
- Sheline, et al. 1993. Hippocampal atrophy in recurrent major depression. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Apr 30;93(9):3908-13.
I really enjoyed this post. Great insight and rationale to train & meditate everyday.
Thanks Steve! Doing this stuff daily has been key.
You’re really brave to admit this, Nick.
I had a psychological problem too, myself, but I got rid of it. Unlike you, I found my peace in the powerlifting movements. Perhaps it’s that I never had the chance to learn olympic lifting, but I feel that a parallel squat, deadlift and overhead press are the movements that I train for and which give me peace.
You’re a courageous man to write about your condition in public. Thank you for sharing your experience. Only people like me, who have gone through similar shit, can understand the extent of your words.
Thank you Clement,
That means a lot to me. We all have to find those things that work for us. I’m glad you found yours.
Word!
thx to weightlifting and the people who introduced me to the sport I filled up a big hole in my life, not that I didnt do anything (was playing soccer,basketball and floorball at the same time)
their all team sport and I didnt feel that I belonged in any of them.
I found weightlifting with my best freind and every session was totally awsome.
Weightlifting has done a lot of good things for a lot of good people, no doubt!!
Nice article, Nick. More good tips, and more we have in common. (Woo, depression!) Thanks for writing that up.
And congrats on the wedding!
We do have more in common than one would have originally guessed! However I’m never happy to hear someone else has had to suffer through this like I have. At least we have math
The wedding, yes, awesome! Thanks, Doc Fusion!
Thank you for writing this, Nick. I’m eager to read the references, but I’m going to go do something physical first!
You’re right, I would not have guessed you struggled with depression. I do too, although I suspect it’s more obvious.
Lifting-wise, I find squats particularly helpful, especially when my mind is stuck in a worry-loop. For a long time I didn’t “get” meditation at all, but there’s nothing like getting under a heavy weight to clear the mind! (I hear that running can do this too, but that’s not my thing.) I started lifting for my physical health, but it’s the short-term emotional benefit that keeps me at it, I’m sure.
Amy,
I did suspect as much. There’s a number of us in the same boat. I think weightlifting is one of those things that those of us trying to find solutions gravitate too.
Yes, I hear the same thing about running … but that is certainly not our thing!!!
[...] from: Managing Depression With Weightlifting? Or, “How You Feel Is A Lie … Share and [...]
Nick- Great article! I love your blogs. I too struggled a little with depression,but now have a much different outlook on life. I love the Olympic lifting also,and find peace in dead lifts when feeling stressed. Keep up the good work. Congrats on getting married! -William
I appreciate that William! Lifting heavy does wonders!
Nick:
I wonder if variations of depression lead folks to different types of exercise. Like Amy’s comment that for some people running does the trick. As a personal example, I know that the pool is always there for me as a therapy for acute depression…it always has been…really at this point, it’s just part of who I am. I can always slip into the water and feel comfortable staring at that black line on the bottom, while my body does the work.
Also, I am curious about how exercise is used. That is, exercise is generally associated with being healthy. But, I have spent enough time in boxing gyms to know that a fighter that is pushing himself, even pushing to a peak performance, has to have a very close eye kept on them to make sure they protect their health. Otherwise, they get colds, stomach problems, exhaustion, etc. There can be a dark side to exercise, where it becomes punishing. One type of community of athletes and trainers protect their athletes as they start to press into the danger zone or use exercise to behave in an unhealthy manner. Unfortunately, others tend to encourage dangerous behavior.
Q: Do you think that meditation is an exercise that strengthens your meta-mind?
I am partial to the concept that as your meta-mind grows stronger, it becomes more efficient at calming your little mind and re-introducing a willingness to see what emerges, with real neuro-physical effects…after all, meditation changes brain structure too.
Adam, that’s a fantastic comment!
Let me answer your questions one-by-one.
1) Different modes of exercise for different types of depression?
There may be something to this theory. After all, depression is really an umbrella term. So, it wouldn’t surprise me. At the very least, Cardio-based exercise will have a powerful acute effect on your serotonin levels. So, I can see how it could be medicative in the moment.
Strength-based exercises can be split between those that are of a “brute” nature like squats and deadlifts, and those that are skill-based like the snatch or clean. The brute strength exercises are certainly satisfying in that you are putting a huge amount of physical effort into a tiny span of time. It is not too unlike screaming really loud to “get it out of your system.” I imagine the effect here on your brain is similar to a hard run or swim.
For me, the skill-based quality of the snatch (particularly) has been the most helpful. It is a strength exercise, and at the top of the pull you are doing what may be the most powerful (in the physics sense) movement you can possibly do – satisfying. But, you have to work so hard over so long a period to get any good at it that you can feel a deeper level of satisfaction over time than you’ll get from any other exercise in the gym. Much closer to the Martial Arts that way.
I guess what I’m saying is that acute depression periods may respond best to a heavy deadlift or a hard run. But, chronic depression needs chronic work. The Oly lifts are almost ideally suited to this.
This could be a fascinating area for further research!
2) How Exercise is Used, or How Far is Too Far?
While I have a philosophical belief as a coach that most people should err on the side of overtraining (since most people don’t work hard enough – don’t even know HOW to work hard enough), there are athletes who I have to reign in all the time in the gym. If I didn’t, they’d really end up hurting themselves. But, these folks tend to be rare, in my experience.
Thankfully, it is really really hard to over train on the Oly lifts. For a depressed person trying to find an activity that they can work hard at daily, these lifts afford you the opportunity to do precisely that.
If you went in and tried to max out on a deadlift every day, you would quickly kill yourself!!! But, you can max out on a snatch everyday, twice a day, without any problems whatever.
3) Meditation strengthening the Meta-Mind?
Yes! In fact, that is the ultimate reason why I think it is important. I do think there are neruo-physical changes taking place that make the process of calming the little mind easier and easier over time. I don’t think it’s some mystical effect, but a physiological one.
The trouble with these types of approaches for the depressed person, is that depression is a constant battle against a huge snowball that you are trying push uphill. The hill, if you keep pushing up it, gets less steep over time. That’s the good news. But, if you stop, at any time, you fall backwards – fast, because of the damned giant snowball!! And getting that ball rolling uphill at the beginning is frightfully hard.
But hard does not equal impossible.
This is just an awesome article–thank you for writing it! Explains a lot about why I have felt like a different person since I have started lifting weights, as well as creating routines and better organizing my days/my life. Now I need to add meditation to the mix.
Gayla,
I’m so glad that it helped you! Meditation is something I’ve been doing now for a long time, and it really has been a wonderful addition to the mix!
This couldn’t have been more timely article. My depression has just driven me to have just had a huge argument with the love of my life. My inability to deal with my emotions head on could cost me my relationship. Breath in, breath out, one breath at a time right?
Btw, PR’ed on snatch thanks to your amazing instruction (was the weirdo that drove up from sf and ended up crashing at your gym for 2 days)
Thanks again
Matt,
It’s good to hear from you, brother!! And congrats on the PR!
I’m so sorry to hear about the fight you had, however. I have been in that same position more times than I wish to remember. If this is the love of your life, then make sure you explain – in your apology – about the depression and the steps you plan to take to make it better in the future.
It can be hard for the person who is in love with a depressed person like us. They have to be patient, but we have go out of our way to prove to them that we are never going to stop trying to get better and better. We owe them that.
Best of luck, keep me updated.
Though I do not consider myself a nihilist, but a Christian, I still love what you’ve written. I have benefited from your concept of a meta-mind, and can see it can be applied, not just to quieting oneself for superior athletic performance, but in many other circumstances as well. Much of life is a lie, including so much of what culture tries to tell us is true and will bring us happiness, as well as much of what we start to tell ourselves, especially about ourselves.
Awareness and self-mastery of the lies that stealthily grow and fester around and within us, may only bring us part way. To cancel the negative means we’ve only arrived at zero. Knowledge of and trust in the presence of God in our lives, I believe, can help us start to become part of something that will last beyond the instant-pinhead time-space continuum in which each of us otherwise live.
Put another way, we are a compass with no magnetic north – spinning toward only the finite truth we muster from ourselves or find in the fickleness of others. What if we can stabilize our concept of life, emotions, how we treat one another, how we treat ourselves, more of what we strive for, on what the Maker says of it all? To do so feels like losing everything and admitting defeat, because it acknowledges we can’t have the final say, and lack the power to order the universe ourselves.
The Myth of Certainty (Daniel Taylor), and Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis) both offer a glimpse into and justification of the interpretation of reality presented in the Bible – how our finite reality can intersect His infinite truth. They dare to propose the logos toward why there is a Creator, why we’ve been created, and even why our Creator would provide a way to know Him. How to fill the void He must have placed within us so we would strive to fill it until we find and know Him, because He loves us.
Webster’s first definition for the word logos offers a powerful augmentation of the mastery we can have over Satan’s barking dogs when applied to the quote from Plutarch.
Logos:
1. the divine wisdom manifest in the creation, government, and redemption of the world and often identified with the second person of the Trinity. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logos
“You must learn the principles in such a constant way that whenever your desires, appetites, and fears awake like barking dogs, the logos will speak like the voice of the master who silences his dogs with a single cry.” — Plutarch
Jim,
Wonderfully put.
Though I am not now, I grew up a Christian (both of my Grandfathers were Southern Baptist Preachers!). And that experience has certainly influenced my life a great deal.
In fact, I read Mere Christianity when I was in High School, and it was a game changing book. You don’t have to be a Christian to be moved by the ideas there. Great stuff!
Nick, thank you for a great article. I can speak more for mathematics as a way I deal with my own.
I am curious however to hear your thoughts on questions that arise from meditation. On the one hand you say that the depression is normally held at bay by activity, giving the strength to keep the amygdala at bay. This coincides with both my understanding of the science and personal experience. On the other hand meditation is about reducing thoughts. In addition there is some evidence that for many individulas meditation can be a harmful practice. For examples see this polemic:
http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/MaryGarden.html
As I said I am interested to hear your take.
Edmund
Edmund,
The idea that meditation is going to be harmful for some people is like saying that some people are allergic to certain vegetables. It is true, but beside the point.
You have some serious mental issues that will require more drastic medical treatments if meditation is harmful for you. For the rest of us, at the very least, it won’t hurt you.
The key idea for me with meditation is the practice of learning to be more patient. Much of the problem we depressed people have is the anxiousness that comes from that emptiness. You want to fill the hole NOW. You get frustrated that people around you (who are not like you) just don’t “get” you. Etc.
This can result in you lashing out at others inappropriately. And, you are the most likely to lash out at the people you love the most. Your relationships can take a real beating if you aren’t careful.
Meditation is THE #1 way I’ve found to help myself in this regard. It is a practice of patience building.
thx for this. i really liked it. i’ve got no depression working but tend to be a perfectionist and then start to think that nobody will like me anymore if i don’t perform at my very best. that’s totally silly. my mind knows that. my reptile brain part seems to have never heard of it. today in training – i tried to do heavy c+j and couldn’t get even 97kg (female, 75kg class; only pulled it… don’t know why) because of this stupid feelings and i cried, really hard, just because of some stupid emotion waking up inside me after a harsh comment by my coach (wan’t justified, but to his credit, he was really stressed out because of non lifting issues and he is the greatest very supportive coach most of the time).
this thing about “how you feel is a lie” really helped me to see what is going on here. nobody dislikes me when i don’t perform up to standard. it’s just me being a perfectionist and coach being stressed out. so – thanks for that! i’ll practice getting my mind unter control. breathing seems simply enough. i’ll do this every day.
Kecks, that’s fantastic! I hope it helps you.
You are right, no one is judging you when you don’t perform up to your own inner standards. I have a few athletes in my gym who are WAY too hard on themselves also. The problem is unrealistic goal setting. If you have a goal that you can’t realistically reach in the time you’ve given yourself, you are setting yourself up for failure. No good!! Just remember that it is OK to have bad days in the gym (in life!). You will have a lot of them. That are, in fact, a GOOD thing. They help make you better in the future. It’s all a process, and the process should be approached as fun.
hi Nick,
Very illuminating post. I too have been suffering with depression the past few years without even realizing it. It got really bad over the last year.
It’s a good thing I found lifting. Nothing like heavy squatting or deadlifting to really purge the demons.
Lifting in all its incarnations (first newbie stuff, then powerlifts, now the O-lifts) have saved me. I live for it and am forever indebted to it. It could be the best thing in my life right now.
– Han
Han,
I can totally relate! Weightlifting has changed so many of us for the better. It isn’t about how much we lift, or winning contests, or any of that bullshit (though that stuff is fun!). It’s about slowly making us better people who we can be proud of.
[...] Don’t!) Why Weight Training Is the Beauty Prescription Women Need the Most A Tip For Pressing Managing Depression With Weightlifting? Or, How You Feel Is a Lie Posterior Chain Strengthening Exercises Trust You Must Arming Yourself for the Zombie Apocalypse: [...]
Another generous, brave and valuable post. This is fascinating. Much of what you wrote I did not know about depression. I do not suffer from depression, but I do relate, as there is something about intense and frequent weightlifting sessions which keeps my kinks at a minimum.
As always, I’m honored that you liked it!
Depression comes in many forms, but the way I described it in the post is from both my own experience and from lots of conversations with those close friends of mine who also suffer from it. Getting across to others the details of how we feel is hard to do, and the hardness of it contributes to the sense of loneliness and isolation that is so common for us.
as a step in from the past – congratulations to you, Nick, on your upcoming wedding and the best of wishes, magic, love and a lifetime of and wonder for your future with your important, special someone. paige and mark wish you well.
Thanks Paige!!! It’s great to hear from you! It’s amazing how fast time flies … shocking really.
Oh, so it’s a really good thing I didn’t say I have no idea what you’re talking about? ;-P (Sorry Nick, I don’t know how you put up with my insolence sometimes!)
LOL!! I like your insolence
Great article! This is why I lift!
My biggest breakthrough in life came soon after I made the connection between the thoughts I choose to have and the thoughts that dominate my mind. While I can’t simply will my mind to be a certain way I can exercise patterns of thinking that discourage the black ink from seeping all over my mental painting.
Weightlifting and the challenges it gives me warms my mind. Then it does it again when I am reflecting on my lifting and yet again when I am thinking about when I will do it again. And if I don’t want to do it I know that if I do anyway I will be ‘warmed’ again.
But that said, weightlifting is incredibly frustrating at times and when it doesn’t go well for me it goes terribly bad *there’s no crying in weightlifting!* lol and then I have to put on the iPod and run a few miles to get out of it and trick myself into being positive again.
The main point however, I have a choice and control as long as I accept a bit of maintenance to look after what is important.
Great thoughts Debbie!!
I really like this line:
“While I can’t simply will my mind to be a certain way I can exercise patterns of thinking that discourage the black ink from seeping all over my mental painting.”
The idea of “patterns of thinking” is right on.
Thank you very much for investing the time & effort in posting this. Resonates with me.
I’m glad to hear that Ceri!
Really good article. Reinforces the process I’ve been undergoing with myself. Just a note, tho.. This:
++I used to believe that if life had no inherent meaning, then there was no point to anything. I know believe the opposite. Life has no inherent meaning, so it is incumbent upon us to create that meaning.++
It isn’t Nihilism, anymore. This is the position of the Dadaist and Surrealists.
Namaste’
You may be right. Though, I would argue that Dadaism is more closely related to art than to a moralistic/metaphysical view regarding the meaning of life.
If Nihilism is the belief that life has no Objective meaning – period – then I am still a Nihilist, as that is what I believe.
Any meaning is a totally arbitrary (abstract) construct created by us. But when I say “created” I do not mean that this meaning now somehow DOES exist. It doesn’t. We just act as though it does. It gives us comfort given the emotional nature of our species. I think we should embrace this side of ourselves, even if we accept that there is no objective basis for our beliefs.
Maybe a general Existentialism (or Existential Nihilism) would be a better word for what I believe in. Either way, it is an interesting topic!!!
What a great read, thanks a lot for writing this Nick. I used to get a lot of anxiety, but I think making the switch to training everyday has really helped me tone that down. Will definitely be reading this through a few times, Thanks.
Brett,
I completely agree that daily training is step #1. I’m happy to hear that this method has made inroads with your anxiety!
Did you know that Phillip K.Dick wrote in Simulcra of a world where pharmaceutical companies claimed they (that is, the only one or two left) had total control of mental health, with drugs?
That there was but a single psychiatrist left in the whole country (a US-German conglomerate), and a law had just been passed banning psychiatry because it was seen as a bunch of intangible witch-doctoring compared to what the wizards at A.G.Chemie were producing.
It’s a good, short, wild read- but then most of his works are.
I have never been the type to think I was without any flaws, but when hit with staggering depression, I began a slow recovery process which has identified life-long inabilities of mine.
For years I have been struggling to understand the emptiness inside of me.
I am a very passionate person; and I always get the best results when I embrace and follow my intuitions. Unfortunately, the holes in between what I perceived as my life, could engulf whole afternoons, further exacerbating my true sense of failure to be. Just as you describe. I would pursue my feelings and consider the consequences of life under those perceptions.
I did not know what was wrong with me; absent adult guidance I did not know what was normal (not like TV helped-save the Simpsons), and I wasn’t going to risk social rejection by sharing such yawning personal instability with anyone.
I began patching the holes, usually late in the day, when I was done school/work, and the coffee wore-off, with drugs.
The therapy available to me once these things came to a head in my early 20s was not working. The drug was not in my mind ever going to be a permanent solution, as I have developed my own personality with this, and attained the ability to function adequately in the past.
So I continued on by myself, but no longer alone. I have shared even deeper insights with the people who remain in my life, and this has added new growth to my life. Enabling myself to live with ever more freedom from the “policeman” inside all our heads.
One of the things that I know for certain, is I feel the best when I am physically active.
Nothing brings me more pleasure than riding my bicycle. While working through some stuff last summer, I took my new favourite albums for lots of long rides. I had occasion to see a doctor that fall, and they remarked that I have an excellent resting heart rate, and do I play sports often?
That was the greatest reward for me. Beyond personal satisfaction, it has become my understanding that the hard-won gains that I have made, have yet to be realized by younger people. Therefore it is my pleasure to do unto others as I would have them do unto me, and set a good example for anyone’s pleasure. To attempt to retain what I have found, but is not prevalent in our culture/society. Part of this is being good to myself, because I so cherish the fun times, so that I may try to live long and well, as a beacon for others.
It is my opinion that your article is a realization of my own personal goals, as it has shown me a clear path through much wilderness.
“It is better to light a candle, then curse the darkness.”- JFK
Thank you!
I’m glad to hear that! And, I love that JFK quote!
This article was such a great find, that I really plastered your comments board; thank you.^_^
I’ve heard that lincoln suffered from depression. While JFK suffered from the Cold War.
But I don’t know any good Lincoln quotes.
Here’s a good Lincoln quote:
“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Which extends to my own: Happiness is a Skill
Alternatively, “‘I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. …’
Bene Gesserit Litany”-Dune, by Frank Herbert
That’s my favorite line from Dune, too!
Thank you, thank you, thank you very much! I’m a 22 years old man with OCD and minor depression and this month i’ll start taking pills and therapy for the second time in 5 years, and this time i’ll till the end, fighting with my reason, my pride and my intelect, because I am so tired of not enjoying my life, inside my bedroom for days, fearing to go outside etc. And today I was thinking about it, planning methods, strategies, to conquer my life and happiness again, and then I found your insightful site.
The world need people like you, Nick, believe me.
I wish you all the best.
(Excuse my english, it’s not my mother language.)
Thiago,
I’m so happy that you feel like what I wrote can help you. Stick with it, my friend. I was in a bad way when I was your age. I’m proof that things DO get better.
I am a 23 year old rookie trainer from India. I somewhat struggle with the same issue of:
“We get one giant unfillable hole. Our only option is to find solace in the act of shoveling dirt into it.”
Like Thiago, I stay in my room have minor OCD and feel empty almost all the time when I am not “trying to fill the hole”.
I have now realised that daily physical training helps a lot, as does working (coaching).
I have tried meditation several times, and after reading this I am going to try it again.
Thanks for the insightful post.
Deep, as I said above, when I was y’all’s age, it was very very hard for me. Stick to it, and it will get better. Keep me updated on your training, on your life, and on your progress.
Hi Nick,
I came across this post as I was working on a post of a similar theme. I enjoyed it. If you have time, give it a read – http://squatrx.blogspot.com/2011/07/training-as-escape-when-habit-becomes.html
I enjoyed the reading list – I have Zen and The Brain and I’ve read most of Kabat-Zinn’s work. Good stuff. I’ll look into some of the others.
Read your post, and I agree. I’ve seen the same thing (Hell, I’ve DONE the same thing!). As a rule, training is good for you … but it can be its own form of escapism, no doubt.
Awesome. I really don’t have anything to add but that was a REALLY worthwhile read…
Thank you Matt!
Chronic depression caused my divorce a couple of years ago. The depths of that hell were such that I’ve blocked out most of it to keep sane. I lifted 3 days a week and attended daily Mass through all of it. If not for those two things, there’s no way I’d still be alive. Things are much better now….to the point that I only have a “black” day every couple of months as opposed to every day being black with occasional moments of light.
Brian, I’m so sorry to hear about what happened. I can tell you that I completely understand. And, that I’ve had my own periods of hell. Lessening the number of “black days” is something that has totally changed my life for the better. I’m happy to hear that the same has been true for you.
A few other simple things that continue to help me:
-Getting rid of cable TV.
-Reading only classic literature (mainly Shakespeare) and listening only to classical music (usually Beethoven, Bach, or Mozart).
-Limiting alcohol consumption to 2 drinks in any 24 hour period.
-Making sure to talk to or spend time with someone in my family every single day.
-Walking 1-2 miles daily.
That’s an interesting list. I’m glad it works for you. I’m with you on Cable TV, limited alcohol, and more Shakespeare.
[...] Horton on Managing your Depression with Weightlifting. The amount of very personal emails I got regarding this post was overwhelming, and [...]
WOW! This is a great article, Nick. This could have been written about me. Weight training and the LOVE and PATIENCE of my late wife truly saved my life but meds did help me feel kinda normal for the first time. I still get sad but no more deep holes of hopelessness or racing thoughts of gloom. I waited way too long to even tell my doctor about the depression because I thought it was unmanly. Stupid! I am glad that the stigma of depression is finally starting to disappear. It IS a disease of the brain. I will have to write about depression on my blog and include a link to this article. Peace and THANK YOU, bro.
~Barney
Everything Strength
IronBearFitness
Barney,
thank you, brother! I am also very glad about the slow lifting of the veil of secrecy that many people (especially men) have felt they’ve had to live under about this stuff. It isn’t unmanly to admit to something that you need help with … it is more manly to own up to your problems.
I look forward to your own post on the subject.
Thanks for sharing your story. I paid close attention to this article and the one on “Happiness as a Skill” (HAAS). Had a moment of zen earlier when I realized HAAS is perhaps more closely related to the brain anatomy you mention in this article than you might have realized.
You might wish to view this TEDtalk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_lewis_don_t_take_consciousness_for_granted.html
Basically, Simon Lewis recovered all of his cognitive capacity and then some after a car accident injured his brain. It took ten or more years of intense therapy, but it works. More examples of extreme brain anatomy that can function as normally as you or I: http://blog.ketyov.com/2011/03/why-we-dont-need-brain.html
The key thread in HAAS, this post, and the two links above are the brain’s plasticity. You (and probably I) have atrophied PFCs, and will likely never generate the brain matter to have normal mass in this region. But, with practice, the brain can re-route functions from one brain region to other regions, a process known as neural plasticity. For one striking example, see how Scott Adams recovered his ability to speak after losing it: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15446515/ns/health-health_care/t/dilbert-creator-recovers-rare-disorder/
HAAS requires practice, as you’ve said. With practice, the brain might have re-routed some of the function from your PFC to other brain regions, effectively quieting an over-active amygdala. Its something to think about, but I’m woefully ignorant of any neuro research on the plasticity of the PFC.
Jeffrey,
Thanks!!! That’s fantastic stuff. I hadn’t thought about it in those terms, but it makes sense. The plasticity of the brain is remarkable. I’ll bet you’re right. You just gave me some more stuff to go research! Love it!!
Thank you so much, IronSamurai, for sharing with us these feelings, so well articulated and honestly expressed. I am with you (all) and it makes me feel a little less alone too, with what so many of us manic depressive-types have to quietly suffer.
Mark from South Africa
So glad to hear that reading this, and the comments, has meant something to you. Keep fighting, brother.
Nick,
An amazing article. It’s close to my heart, because meditation and heavy lifting are important mind management tools for me as well.
Thank you so much for creating this. I bookmarked it, because I want to read this several more times.
-Nathan
I’m glad to hear that you are already doing both! Those two things have certainly changed my life for the better!
[...] Quarter-Life Crisis. 25 is the new 50? Yes, according to researchers at the University of Greenwich. It certainly was for me. At 25, I felt old, worn out, and like I’d missed too many opportunities in life. Now, at 33, I feel young, energetic, and that my whole life is ahead of me. (Of course, in my case, some of that has to do with my decades long struggle with depression, that I’ve finally gotten a handle on.) [...]
Olympic weightlifting, which is also known as Olympic style weight lifting, or lifting weights is one, modern sport Olympics program, where participants groped a maximum weight single lift barbell discs full.
[...] I attribute some of my daily ability to manage my own depression to my over-the-top coffee consumption. If YOU suffer from depression, make sure you read my article on how to manage depression. [...]
Gday, stumbled across you’re blog post (or should I say bloody insightfully hitting several nails on the head inspiring article) while trying to figure out why a few wightlifting sessions gave me a severe bout of depression, thankfully it seems to be a one off.
But yeah, after suffering from depression all of my life, a nasty inheritence, once accepting it will always be there and acknowledging your own irrational warped thinking and that it’s simply a physical illness to be supervised and combatted. Will definitely give this meditation business a proper go, and will keep up the constant gym sessions.
You make the generalisation of vain vacuous gym-junkies seem ridiculous, I look forward to reading more intelligent posts like this one, I just hope some of the more ignorant “mentally healthy” people do the same thing.
Keep up the good work mate,
Johnny,
Australia
Thanks Johnny,
I’m happy to hear that you got something out of it. While there are certainly a lot of vain vacuous gym-junkies out there (!), most serious lifters tend to be rather groovy.
Keep up the struggle, brother. And, definitely give the meditation a whirl. Like most things that actually work in the long run, it is not a quick fix. But, if you dedicate yourself to it, you’ll be surprised by how much of a difference something so simple can make.
[...] But, if you don’t, it is impossible (in my opinion) to honestly live life with the level of empathy, purpose, and compassion that we say we prize so much. When you are in the gym, it is much easier to take a heavy attempt, push yourself, and not give up if you are able to keep it all in perspective. [...]
So much of what you wrote rings true for myself as well. Such a great post that should be read by all.
Nice going, Nick.
ps – I’ve never heard of “Ethics as ethos”. Do you have a book or resource where I could learn more? Thanks.
Levi,
Ethic is derived from the Greek Ethos which simply refers to ones character. So, in that sense, one could see them as synonymous. But, in modern terms the words are used differently from one another.
Ethics is a substitute for “moral” and is more personal in nature and relates to ones ability to tell “right from wrong”; it is the defining of ones own sense of “goodness”. It is internal.
Ethos is often used in relation to cultural or communal dispositions. For instance, we could talk about the “American Ethos”. The Ethos of a person or people is determined largely by OTHERS. It is external.
So, if I use a phrase like “Ethics as Ethos” I’m saying that you start with the internal – fix yourself – and that act will have a positive effect on others. It is saying that the internal IS external.
But, this kind of linguistic fun should never be taken too seriously. It’s the underlying points that matter, not the turns of phrase we use to convey those points.
As far as books, any good book on Zen will have this concept in it, as it is the central driving force of the Zen Ethos!
[...] When I went back to school to get my own math degree I met A LOT of other guys just like my friend. Hell … I’m just like my friend. (… Though for slightly different reasons related to my having to learn how to deal with my depression.) [...]
As a 20 year-old struggling to manage my own depression, I thought this entry was amazing. Thank you for your work.
I’m happy to hear that you feel like it helps. Keep on keepin’ on, brother.
“I’ll never be a content person. I will always struggle with irrational moments of sadness, loneliness, and even despair.”
I also think of myself as having born prone to depression (I was depressed for several years, diagnosed and medicated) but I can honestly say my life doesn’t have a void any more. I’m pretty sure I will never go back to defaulting to “emptiness.” How you feel is not a lie, how you feel is very real, but it’s simply the product of brain chemistry and hormones. What’s a lie is that you have a “mind,” or that there’s any mystical emergence of a being that transcends the body. Any thought that pops up on a moment to moment basis is merely the consequence of some electrical impulses taking a random walk through your neural network. These impulses can be such that they lead to a continuation of an act; for example the initial surge of electricity that got me to start writing this post led to a series of brain events that made it so I would continue writing. And when I’m done writing I will have a split second of blankness and then another random electrical impulse will surge through my brain and provoke a series of other electrical impulses that will either get me to do something like stretching, shifting in my chair, or replaying a memory. Most likely, I’ll replay chigishev’s 211 snatch or krastev’s 216. Or I’ll finally decide to take that dump that’s been coming for the past 20 minutes. What’s important is that you realize that the mind is an illusion, all you have is a brain not a mind. And by trial and error, in the long term, you should get to where your brain’s random surges don’t really have a high tendency to default to “boo hoo im lonely,” but rather something else interesting and awesome. I’m no neuroscientists as I’m sure you will be able to tell, but I believe it’s a mistake to think that the fact that certain types of feelings and sensations are associated with certain areas in the brain implies that there is an actual driving force or any coherence behind these feelings and sensations. We only believe we have minds because we are told so and because our thoughts are great at making us believe so. But thoughts are just chemical reactions in a brain, many of them random, there is no actual mind. At least I’ve yet to see any compelling proof of an entity that fits the description of a “mind” anywhere; there are no arguments (that I’m aware of) for the existence of “the mind” that are incompatible with the notion that the mind doesn’t exist and thoughts simply arise in a semi-stochastic manner depending on brain structure. We simply assume that the mind is the driving force of our thoughts and then we tell ourselves that this proofs the existence of the mind, but I refuse this notion.
Forget that bs that you’ve convinced yourself of, let go of the mental paradigm that your “brain” has this or that flaw and that your “mind” has this or that characteristic and soon enough you wont have to fight any depression any more.
Good stuff, vic!
> I used to believe that if life had no inherent meaning, then there was
no point to anything. I know believe the opposite. Life has no
inherent meaning, so it is incumbent upon us to create that meaning.
Wouldn’t that make you an existentialist?
I would say both Yes and No to that.
The trouble with Existentialism, as a label, is that it is as much an artifact of cultural history as it is a philosophically clear description. If Nietzsche was the natural ancestor of Existentialism (as exemplified by guys like Sartre and Unamuno) then my own philosophical development fits in rather nicely there. Nihilist ==> Existentialist as a natural progression.
But … Existentialism is notoriously hard to pin down. It was/is in many respects more of a literary movement than one dedicated to philosophy. It is decidedly (and intentionally) anti-Analytical (I don’t mean that coloquially, I mean the philosophical school of Analytic Philosophy). That’s fine (though, my mathematician-self is quite inclined toward Analytic Philosophy), but this anti-Analytic stance leads it toward obscurity. Any time your go out of your way to avoid being TOO logical … you make less sense.
They believed rather strongly that philosophy cannot be approached in the same way, nor with the same tools as science. I agree with this. But, they instead chose the tools of the artist … that is where I diverge from them. I’m more in line with some of the Analytic philosophers who believed Philosophy was in line with Mathematics. Mathematics is NOT science. The theorems in mathematics are at once MORE true and LESS true than those in science.
2+ 2 is true not because we have any evidence for it …
Now, don’t get me wrong. The clearly Zen-like leanings of Existentialism certainly appeal to me. Non-duality being a big one. The idea that a thing is not the components it is composed of is clearly true. You are a human, not just a collection of cells or atoms. Those things are also just as true about you, but you are you: a whole.
I suppose the only point I’m making is that while there are things about Existentialism that appeal to me, there are other things that don’t. Not really sure what I’d call myself if forced, LOL
Oops, this comment was supposed to be in reply to a comment below which asked if i was an Existentialist
[...] have the highest rates of depression in the first world, and it is even higher than in many third world countries. (Though, in India it [...]
A very good read, glad to know there are others that have felt the way I do. I always try to push weight lifting and cardio on those suffering, it’s an exciting part of the day where the hole is subsided.
Drew, helping others to see the benefits of lifting and exercise on managing depression is a great thing. I’m glad to hear that you’re doing that! Depression is such a massively hurtful thing in a persons life, and yet, for many they can see remarkable releif simply from the act of moving their body more. Being serious about the mind-body connection can take us all far.
I read this article last summer and I continue to refer back to it. It struck a deep chord within me. I’ve always felt most at peace and focused in the weight room. Perhaps that’s what hooked me on lifting and kept me going long after the novice gains slowed. I’m fortunate to have a weight room in my basement so it’s easily accessible. Unfortunately, I can’t take it with me everywhere I go. Since I first read your article, I’ve taken up meditation. I’ve joined a couple meditation groups and practice daily. I can honestly say it’s gone a long way toward calming my mind outside the sanctity of my squat rack. Thank you.
Fred, thank you, that’s great to hear that you’ve started meditating and that it’s helping you! I think many people shy away from it for too long because of some preconceived notions. Once they realize that it isn’t that big a deal, and really get into it, it is amazing to discover how such a simple thing can make such a palpaple difference.
Brilliant!
[...] Horton How You Feel Is A Lie – Really great article on Nick’s struggles with depression and how he uses Olympic lifting and [...]
great stuff. but go and make a facebook page so that we are alerted when you make another article.
Nick…
I truly appreciate reading this article, because I myself feel exactly like you d(id). Recently I had a sudden depression relapse and went to my dark place again. My depression was ingrained in me since I was born, but an event just made it 10x worse…and almost nothing can ever cure or take away that pain, emptiness and lonliness I feel.
I made exercise my drug. The thing that makes me feel good (although frustrates me sometimes.)
Anyway, it’s good, for once to read an article about a depressed athlete who somehow understands what I (a stranger) go through on day to day basis.