I think I get the whole battling my demons with the gym thing now. I’m a girl but I’ve been through a really bad depressive episode and it’s breaking me. Nothing I do makes me happy. So I’m thinking of just being more active and doing home workouts and eventually going to the gym. But how exactly does the gym help “keep the demons at bay”?

42 comments

  1. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as each person’s mental health needs are different. However, some ways that the gym can help with mental health include providing a space for self-care and relaxation, helping to reduce stress levels, and improving mood and self-esteem. Additionally, the gym can be a great place to meet new people and form positive social connections, which can further boost mental health.

  2. I like the points in my workout where my brain can only focus on the task I’m pushing through. Even if it’s only for a minute the world devolves and it’s only me pushing.

  3. I find cardio workouts nice because it releases endorphins, which makes you feel high and really chill and that essentially does a lot to alleviate depression.

    Also having a good workout and getting sore muscles and such makes me feel a lot better about myself generally so less prone to thinking about every little thing that is bothering me in my life.

  4. It gives me a consistent place to go, where I can dedicate a set amount of time and can see and feel a small and immediate result (pump). Over a longer period of time I know and have seen a change too (clothes fitting, confidence, other sport related hobbies) which gives the incentive to keep going.

    While consistency is key, the overall goal is to keep going. It gives a component or one of many pillars to hold me up when other pillars may not be as strong (work, family, relationships, friendships, hobbies, etc,)

  5. Different setting but the most easy one to identify is, the rage demon, something happens or maybe you just need a outlet of aggressive physical energy, and I’ll go to the gym and usually try and que up a PR on those days, sets reps and all that doesn’t matter, I just go in fuck shit up I leave. Then there’s all the other feelings and emotions, I typically go to the gym when I want to clear my mind, when I want to escape, when I feel like shit, when I can’t sleep, even when I don’t wanna, I just drag myself to the gym and do something at least…. does usually make me feel better on the back end.

  6. Working out directly releases endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin. These are all “feel good” chemicals that have a direct impact on your mental health. Just increasing your levels of these and nothing else improves your mental health. Personally, this is the number one reason for me. It’s my main treatment for anxiety and I have found I start getting grouchy if I don’t work out enough.

    Getting your body in better shape also improves your general quality of life. If things like walking up stairs takes a little bit less effort, then there is a little bit less negativity going on in your life. For some people, this can be a major improvement. Significant changes in physical fitness can result in significant changes in things like sleep quality.

    There is also the fact that for some people a contributor to poor mental health is dissatisfaction with how they look. Improving their physical fitness can alleviate this and in some cases turn someone’s body from something they are ashamed of to something they are proud of.

    Finally, the process of setting goals and achieving them can do wonders for building someone’s confidence in general. If someone gets a bit of experience in setting achievable goals along the lines of “I want to be able to lift X lbs” or “run a mile in Y minutes”, they can have an easy and controlled way to be able to qualify goals and unquestionably achieve them. This can be important for helping someone reframe the idea that they can’t achieve anything. Once their confidence has been built in this way enough, it can start to spill over to other aspects of their life. This has the ultimate result of raising someone’s general confidence and self-esteem, which can be a great way to ease mental burdens and improve mental health.

  8. For me it helps deal with frustration, and also gives me a sense of accomplishment when I’m done. I also get to watch my progress, and take pride in having the discipline to keep going.

  9. I gots the spicy bipolar & schizophrenia combo

    It helps in every single aspect. I would honestly rather die than give up working out haha

    I’m a boxer so I very much enjoy the lifestyle. It’s something that leaks into every part of my life

  10. It’s a bit like when you go running up a tough hill or go swimming or skiing. The activity is so intense that it forces you to focus and you end up not thinking about whatever made you sad.

  11. It releases a lot of healthy hormones when you do cardio or resistance training.

    You feel way better afterwards.

    You also start looking better after a while. And your body becomes easier to use.

  12. Intense exercise is a mood enhancer. About 30 mins a day has comparable effects to some SSRI meds.

    The thing is consistency and intensity.

    Depending on your fitness level, I’d suggest a CrossFit gym or some other intense group fitness training.

    There’s orange theory and f45 and bunch of others. You can try them out and get a feel for what work.

    Or just do your own thing.

    But the idea is that you go and smash yourself and just clean out all the bad vibes from your day.

    You can also do restorative things like yoga or, if you like to learn, fight sports like boxing or BJJ or Muay Thai are all great.

  14. For one, it’s a great way to reflect and focus on a positive side of myself. For another, I know that exercising will increase my serotonin production. And the goals I set for my physical gains will aid in dopamine production as I meet those goals.

  15. When you will start to exercise, you see that your brain is focused on your gym aims. You should change your diet as well. In additional after gym your serotonin is on higher level which help you to be in better mood. Good luck 🙂

  16. I’m not sure whether I figured this out by myself or I heard it somewhere but “Workout never fails”. It’s just you and whatever you’re doing. If you succeed – you succeed because of you. If you fail – you fail because of you. There’re no external dependencies, no people to align with – nothing. So when you work out, you just concentrate on doing whatever you’re doing – because you don’t need to think about anything else.

  17. When I’m at the gym, I’m only an ape and my only goal is to lift heavy weights. For me personally whenever I feel stuck with a goal, i try to set a new gym goal for that day and accomplish that. Even if it’s small that’s quite alright, because there is only I and I is what matters at the end of the day.

    I like doing this because this keeps everything realistic, at a basic level every major goal can be broken down into even smaller goals. And by focusing on those smaller goals keeps me in the present. Being in the present and accomplishing my small goals helps me be kinder to myself.

    Remember it’s alright to fall down, we are the sum of all our imperfections.

  20. 100% there seems to be a direct correlation between the size of my biceps and tie state of my mental health

  21. Let me start by saying kudos. You’re one step ahead of the curve. It can be difficult to recognize you need help. It’s even more difficult to accept and implement it. Having an exercise routine will go a long way to rebuilding that mind-body connection so many of us lose as we grow up. Mens sana in corpore sano.
    That said, I strongly urge you seek the help of a qualified mental health professional. There’s a lot of good advice here, but nothing is going to replace the kind of attention and care an expert can provide.

  22. My ex blindsided me about 4 months ago, and let me tell you, I have had some emotional mornings in the gym since.

    Before the breakup, I would say yes, my mental state in the gym was that I was in a bubble and for an hour of my day, I had nothing to worry about besides pushing myself. I still maintain that mindset now, but on my last few reps of a hard set, I let that pain in and channel it to motivate myself. It’s nice to have that extra motivation. Before the breakup my only motivation was making myself better, now it’s that AND the pain from the breakup.

    EDIT: I also want to say kudos for starting your journey. Going to the gym was the impetus for a lot of great things in my life. Better diet, better sleep, meditating regularly, more discipline, increased productivity at work, more confidence, and I probably would have never had a relationship with said ex in the first place without going to the gym haha.

  23. Seeing progress, whether it be in appearance or in strength, is satisfying and helps you see that your hard work is being rewarded. Focus on the lifts and think or nothing else.

  24. Cardio + music. As long as there’s enough intensity (for your own situation and personal goals) that makes you somewhat tired as you leave, you’ll feel much better. I don’t have the science behind it just personal experience.

  25. Generally when I’m in the gym I forget about whatever issues are bothering me. Depending on how mad I am at something, I might put on a song that helps me channel some of that anger if I have a heavy lift in front of me.

    However, if IG (and the tik tok videos that wind up on there) is anything to go by, I think people are leaning a bit too hard of using the gym for stress relief where a therapist might be a little more helpful.

  26. Being completely honest, it hasn’t helped.

    I try to keep my routine of weights 3 days a week, and there are days when I’m feeling really depressed it actually makes my strength go down. And then seeing that I did worse than last time makes me even more depressed.

    That said, if you don’t care about how you are doing at the gym and just want to exert yourself, it may help.

  27. I totally agree that working out helps with the mental health. It can be simple 5 mins or a full hour. I never enjoyed the gym scene but workout in my home gym. I have a treadmill, spin bike and weight rack. I mostly use the peloton digital app for my workouts and enjoy the whole peloton community. It is very supportive regardless of the stage you are at in your fitness journey.

    Take a step back, and set an obtainable goal for yourself. “I am going to be active for 30 mins a day”

  29. Consistently going to the gym can help lower feelings of depression, stress, and anxiety. It also helps improve your mood and mind-body connection.

    It can also help improve your relationship with your body. As you get stronger and notice physical changes to yourself, your confidence in your abilities in the gym will increase and this confidence can carry over into every day life.

    Often another thing that is overlooked is our diets. When you are more focused on your progress in the gym, you tend to eat better (hopefully) so that you can perform and continue to improve in the gym. That means a more balanced diet, eating less sweets and processed junk, less alcohol, things like that. Diet also plays a HUGE role in gym performance. You can NEVER out run or out lift a shitty diet. It just doesn’t work, unless you’re some kind of genetic freak. (and you aren’t)

    Long story short: Any kind of physical training is good for you (granted you use proper technique). Both physically and mentally.

  30. The gym used to basically be the only way I could really regulate emotions. It’s decent for distraction, can help a little in terms of self esteem if you make gains, and a bunch of other stuff people have mentioned here. I was fucked when I couldn’t go to the gym through the pandemic and an injury.

    I will say though, this year I came out of basically a life long depression and going to the gym feels so much better now. I used to like going and it did help me feel better, but all of the other mental health work was far more important. My body isn’t as muscular and strong as it was 3 years ago but I feel so much better about it.

    Basically you want to be careful, just like substances, or dependence on a person, if the gym is a coping mechanism you’re gonna struggle when, as life often does, it’s suddenly not an option for some reason.

  31. I don’t know about other people, but going off my own experiences, it doesn’t help unless you approach it with the right mindset. When I started I had this mindset of “I’m gonna get so hot and everyone who curved me is gonna be so mad at themselves that they missed out”. But that wasn’t a healthy mindset. When I started going for myself and for self improvement, it felt better. Seeing yourself evolve and get stronger, then it feels great. Just my experience though

  32. I think about something that angers me then channel that emotional energy into physical energy. It helps in the same way that punching a wall does.

  34. It doesn’t, this is not why you should be working out. You need set a clear reasonable goal and work towards it, and when you’re done you stop. If you just keep doing it out of habit for the sake of routine you get nowhere and it becomes a crutch and an unhealthy coping mechanism which just eventually leads to body image issues and masochism.

  35. It has chemical benefits, as well as the entire process both mentally and physically about *taking the time to better yourself* does more then you can imagine

    And you will sleep better which makes every other part of your day better

    Then you also physically feel and look better, and have more energy?

  37. For some it’s the act of head down, earbuds in, and tuning out the world while you focus. The personal satisfaction of doing something that, IMO, a vast majority of the population needs to do but doesn’t. The best thing is, it’s all in the background. No one can see my joy when I hit a personal record or when I work myself to muscle failure and because no one can see it, it can’t be taken or diminished.

    It’s at that point when you’re better today than you were yesterday that the “demons” or whatever don’t seem so big and bad.

    Take my words for what you feel like their worth but know that my struggle with PTSD is some much more manageable thanks to the gym.

  38. For me it was 1) have a time where you think of nothing and actually just focus on the reps. The simplicity and routine really just helped to turn my head off for a bit and then 2) sport just eventually makes you feel better via brain chemistry and 3) eventually you do see results both in your body and the things you can lift so thats another happiness boost

  39. Keeping busy seems to “keep the demons away” for me. So it’s not just the time spent working out where I’m distracted. Things like meal prep, laundry, keeping track of supplements, planning the weeks workouts, all contribute to staying active. On top of lifting I also do BJJ and boxing, so my week is pretty filled in terms of exercise. If I’m home I try to keep on top of housework, clean bathroom/bedroom/etc. I find that if I’m idle for too long I’ll probably find an alcoholic beverage in my hand.

  40. You fight your battle with em at the gym, you win, they retreat to lick their wounds and leave you in peace for a while. Scientifically, exercise releases lots of endorphins

  42. Take negative energy and put it into gains. My best workouts have been when I’ve been sad or angry. Usually end up going harde than normal and afterwards my mind is clear

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like