Well, I’ve always been quite skeptical about the supposed huge mental benefits of exercising. I surely don’t feel immediate mental benefits while exercising, and the first time I heard someone else claiming this I seriously thought it was a joke (it must be one of those universal human experiences that I am missing).
Anyway, I can offer one reference digged up from SSC:
Although the role of poor diet/exercise in physical illness is beyond questioning, its role in mental illness is more anecdotal and harder to pin down. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of studies showing it works. But there’s also lots of anomalous data, like how exercise performed as part of your job doesn’t help. This has led some people to suggest that the physical effects of exercise are less important than the social role – the feeling of doing something to fight your depression and conform to a virtuous mode of life.
To me, this makes a lot of sense. If you are lucky enough to actually enjoy exercising, I have no problem believing it might as well lead to some mental benefits (for the same reason that having fun is generally better than doing nothing). What I find quite difficult to believe is the claim that exercising will improve your mood and mental health even if you exercise Because You Have To and hate every minute of it.
It was actually this post about nootropics that got me curious about this. Apparently (based on self reported data) weightlifting is just straight up better than most other nootropics?
Anyway, thank you for referencing some opposing evidence on the topic as well, I might try to look into it more at some point.
(Unfortunately, the thing that I actually care about—whether it has cognitive benefits for me—seems hard to test, since you can’t blind yourself to whether you exercised.)
Well, I’ve always been quite skeptical about the supposed huge mental benefits of exercising. I surely don’t feel immediate mental benefits while exercising, and the first time I heard someone else claiming this I seriously thought it was a joke (it must be one of those universal human experiences that I am missing).
Anyway, I can offer one reference digged up from SSC:
To me, this makes a lot of sense. If you are lucky enough to actually enjoy exercising, I have no problem believing it might as well lead to some mental benefits (for the same reason that having fun is generally better than doing nothing). What I find quite difficult to believe is the claim that exercising will improve your mood and mental health even if you exercise Because You Have To and hate every minute of it.
It was actually this post about nootropics that got me curious about this. Apparently (based on self reported data) weightlifting is just straight up better than most other nootropics?
Anyway, thank you for referencing some opposing evidence on the topic as well, I might try to look into it more at some point.
(Unfortunately, the thing that I actually care about—whether it has cognitive benefits for me—seems hard to test, since you can’t blind yourself to whether you exercised.)