Study confirms lifting weights reduces depression
This is a topic I&#x27;m interested in, because I have NO interest in exercise.<p>Do I think it would help my health?  Yes, outside of some absurd circles, absolutely.<p>Do I think it would improve my self-confidence?  Probably, if I stuck with it, but I sincerely doubt that I would because of the heavy incentives against it.<p>Am I just being obstinate and stubborn if I acknowledge it would likely help but am still not doing it?  I have no safe answer to that question.  &quot;No&quot; is clearly wrong, but &quot;Yes&quot; dismisses the problems.<p>Here&#x27;s my problem: Exercise is extremely uncomfortable.  It&#x27;s hot, humiliating, and painful.  If I push through that...it&#x27;s 10 seconds later and I&#x27;m more hot, more humiliated (even with no one else around) and in more discomfort.  I can push through again, but my brain is well aware of what to expect.  There&#x27;s no &quot;endorphin high&quot;, no sense of satisfaction.  Those are at least many days off in even the smallest of quantities (for me at least - people that cheerfully tell me of their &quot;good pain&quot; just make me feel more misunderstood&#x2F;disregarded&#x2F; a failure).  All the benefits are theoretical and in future, with benefits that equal the costs even further out, while all the costs and pain are up front.  Humans are bad at managing such equations - I certainly am.<p>Even this awareness is a sense of failure.  Am I making excuses, or do I really feel more pain and less &quot;good pain&quot; than other people?  Either answer is not good for me.  And these are what my brain focuses on while suffering.   Listen to music?  Read a book?  Watch a movie?  Everything is made harder because I&#x27;m literally struggling, and so every moment of discomfort progresses at a snail&#x27;s pace.  I&#x27;ve been exercising for...45 seconds?!<p>I know I can&#x27;t get a training montage that is effortless, but there has to be something that makes me far more able to sit down and struggle through a mental activity for hours than to struggle through a physical activity for 5 minutes, much less the actual time (and repeated time) needed for any improvement.  Not that mental exercise is easy - I have plenty of mental tasks I&#x27;ve been procrastinating on - but I have successes there where I have none in the physical arena.<p>I&#x27;ve tried various ways - small frequent things at home, team things, sport-focused, fewer high intensity things, just taking walks.  So far the closest success was fencing, where I started to feel some of my aches and muscle pains were satisfying while hurting...but every class was an effort, both to sacrifice the time and to face the pain, and once I dropped I stayed dropped.  That was 20 pounds ago so I know trying again would be MORE painful than before.<p>I&#x27;m left interested in the result while having no interest in attempting (again) without some reason to think this time will be different.