Fight With Depression Through Fitness

For a long time, my life was going through the motions. I couldn't focus on accomplishing something, I had no appetite to eat, and my emotions were always irritated. It was like I was in an endless black hole that I tried to struggle to escape from every day.

Depression is not a stranger to me, I've been living with it for five years. In those five years, I thought we are peaceful. But in the last year, it gained the upper hand and dragged me back into a dark emotional abyss. I had no choice but to start taking medication. The medicine did a good job of fight with my bad emotions, but the side effects were unbearable. Drowsiness, nausea, trembling hands, and heart palpitations — these symptoms tormented me every time I took the pills.

I wanted to change, I didn't want to rely on medication. So I went to the hospital again and the doctor told me if you don't want to take medication then you can try to do some exercise. When I got home, I thought about it for a long time because I'm not an athletic person and I hate the feeling of sweating. But after a constant battle with myself, I decided to try it.

I went to the gym. I don't know how to describe my feeling when I stepped on the treadmill. I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to keep it up, but I was more excited about the changes that exercise would bring to me. When I finished my first workout, I was surprised that I felt pretty good. Even though it was only fifteen minutes, I didn't think about things that didn't make sense during those fifteen minutes. I thought that was a good start, so over the next few weeks, going to the gym became a daily necessity for me.

Then I started to do a combination of strength training and cardio, which evolved into a two-hour-a-day fitness routine. Gradually, fitness brought me some physical changes: I gained some muscles, I slept better and I ate more. The physical changes were certainly gratifying, but more deeply, it was the changes in my heart.

Working out gave me back a sense of control that I hadn't felt in a long time. Every sweat and ache is my body's way to remind me, “I'm living life to the fullest.” This doesn't mean that working out “cured” my depression, that's not true. But it did give me a starting point to rebuild my inner strength. It taught me self-discipline and self-acceptance. Fitness didn't make me someone else, it made me rediscover myself.

If you're going through a similar struggle right now, maybe you can also start with something small.