This is a new one on me...one forum member posted the following: "During [exercise], I feel great and confident. Afterward, I feel like crap for a while. I'm starting to feel less depressed now. It just feels like I am depressed for no reason, and I'm just so moody and I don't want to be disturbed. I don't even want to do anything."
So, what's the deal? Is it possible that exercise could be causing this person's depression or is it something else? What do you think? Come join the discussion and tell us your experience with exercise and depression.
Everytime I try aerobic exercises my antidepressant don’t work. Everyone says it should be the opposite.
Thank you
Yes – I’ve definitely noticed this too. After exercise (treadmill, jogging) – particularly if I haven’t eaten anything – I spiral into depression that doesn’t have any other cause. I believe it’s related to cortisol, and my brain not regulating it the same way as other lucky people who feel great after exercise. I’m dealing with this by being sure to eat a little before exercise, and by not exercising to the point of feeling “stressed” which turns on cortisol and which I think my brain doesn’t know how to turn off!
This is exactly how I feel. Whenever I start to get back into an exercise program to “feel better” I end up feeling worse. I feel good while I am exercising, but later in the day I feel very fatigued and “down.” I don’t think I am over exercising. I may also be a little stressed or depressed because of depriving myself of foods that I enjoy to lose weight. This is all so discouraging.
This happens to me as well. Several years of regular “healthy” exercise (1+ hour jogging 4-5 times a week) has not helped my overall depression and possibly made it worse. While I am exercising I don’t feel good or energized. I can start out in a fine mood and find myself getting more angry with each mile. Music or other distraction helps, but I often finish in a terrible mood. And for several hours after I exercise, I notice I feel significantly more depressed, drained, and irritable. I thought I was the only person with this problem.
I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one here. What I would like to know is whats the solution? Is there something that exercise is taking out of us that can be replaced?
When I do abdominal exercise at the gym I often experience ‘tearniness’, and a welling of sorrow/anger/pain. I have started and stopped exercise programs on a few occasions lately and have experienced each time a powerful depression which has started the day after and lasted for a week at a time. My breathing becomes erratic throughout. I am experimenting with letting go of what I’m holding on to. Maybe as the body unwinds, its load hits the nervous system and causes problems.
But there are other factors. The timing is the factor which points me in this direction.
I feel the same way after exercising and have been doing research. When your blood sugar is low you can feel “depressed” or irritable. It is very important to eat right and drink a lot of water. Some people need to eat right before, right after, and drink water while exercising.
I’ve noticed this through my life. I am currently training for a triathlon. Yes I’m eating right drinking lots of water. But after a hard day of training I feel depressed, cry and irritable. While training I usually feel okay. Don’t think I’m overtraining since I’ve been at this for 7 months. Wish I knew what to do.
I think it must be due to low blood sugar. I also thought I was the only person who experienced this, but the other day a diabetic friend said he gets very angry afterwards. I just looked this up on the CDC website and they said exercise-induced low blood sugar could occur up to a day later.
I’m guessing that even if you generally eat right, a hard day of training can still drop blood sugar too low. Not all food affects blood sugar the same way–maybe a little more fat on those days would help.
wow! I thought I was a complete freak! I went through lots of websites touting the positive aspects of exercise until I found this one. I get really sad after working out and I usually feel like crying. It’s like the more calories I burn the worse it is. I eat fruit afterwards but it doesn’t help (I’m usually craving fruit and salad after cardio exercises). Sometimes I get nauseated and have to throw up. I want to be skinny so bad….but am I hurting my mental health rather than boosting my physical health?
So- What do we do. After a really hard workout, or a big race- I feel like I am hanging over the abyss!! I mentioned it to my Doc. and she said “huh, never heard of it”. I don;t want to stop excercising, but I don;t want to feel this way either!
I feel the same way. It is difficult when everyone tells you exercise is supposed to get you better. I believe it has to do with cortisol levels also. I’m going to try and test it in the future.
Hi Everyone. I get this same “crabby” leave me alone attitude after a strong swim workout. Always starts the day after the swim and can last 2-3 days. Figure it has to be something with blood-sugar. Switching to another exercise day after … bike/weight training helps.
I get really depressed even during the training. It’s usually when I’m really drained and my coach is pushing me. Then I start getting a little teary but I don’t cry. But after its done, I feel sick and depressed.
I know it’s really weird but I take a really cold shower and then force myself to smile. Then I ask myself what the hell am I so sad about. It kinda works….
I think it is more of what form of exercise we do and when. If it is rigorous exercising for a short period of time then we tend to feel hyperactive for like maybe one to hours of exercising. We can maintain the active state by eating like an hour after exercising and drinking some cofee or tea to stay in the hyper zone.
On the other hand when we do some slow moving-reptitive exercises over like a long period of time then its is best to go home and have a meal and tea/cofee right away. Coz these type of exercises burn the fat and your body would now be in a panic state since its fat reserves are being used and so it does its best to make you lie down and hibernate-sleep. This is something I have noticed with my body.
Thank heavens I’ve found this – like everyone else, I’ve been told endlessly to exercise to combat severe depression, and have felt worse and worse with an hour of aerobic/anaerobic cycling per day, even when it’s on the towpath with a lovely sunny view of flowers and birds by the local river.
I wonder if this has anything physiologically in common with post-marathon comedown? THat’s obviously an extreme case but it might help people understand the mechanism.
It’s been a long time that I’ve tried to get into an exercise routine. I’m not an athlete but I feel capable of what I’m doing at the moment I’m doing it. Walk/run/walk/run. I love that. I feel encouraged and then I start having trouble getting out of bed and facing the day. I’m getting the feeling that I’ll have to be content with a modest 1/2 hour walk a day. Not that that’s bad but I would like to be able to do more.
I have been noticing a pattern of getting very angry after I exercize. It could be dehydration, blood sugar or perhaps cortisol. I am a type 2 diabetic and I lost a lot of weight. I feel OK when I’m exercising, but sometimes within minutes of the excercise, even a 45 minute walk, I can be so angry it’s frightening. I do eat a lot of times right before I exercise, so it seems unlikely it is blood sugar, but you never know. While other share the problem, I’d love to know what the solution would is, or if there is one. I HAVE to exercise.
Interesting, I just started back walking on July 9, 2007 and am no doing 2.5 – 4 miles a day…. I have recently felt the depression and was wondering if the walking was contributing. Maybe Hydration will help…
I’m so happy to read that this happens to others too! I did a google search for “exercise causes depression” and found this site. After running last night, I felt so depressed! I’ve eaten fruit and starches since then, but I’m still so down that I’m in tears this morning. Good to know that it’s not just me!!
I would like to add one to the count. After exercise I do feel completely drained out of energy with my brain fogged. Usually I need to vegetate on the couch for an hour before recovering consciousness. This is more likely to occur after anaerobic exercise. Although that sometimes applies to jogging too, jogging in general makes me more lively but it destroys my concentration to the point where I cannot read.
I have to agree. I feel irritable, frustrated and just hopeless after exercising sometimes. How strange is that..
I exercised today again for the first time in over a year and when I was halfway through I felt like I wanted to cry. I remember feeling like this when I had a trainer and she said I was weird. Think I’m gonna just cry and continue to work out and see what happens…lol…maybe this is my body’s way of releasing tension.
I’ve been exercising/working 3-4 times a week for the last 2 years. No problem. I’ve recently added a basketball class to this schedule and since then I have been horribly depressed. I am so glad to see I am not alone with this! I certainly wish there was more research in this phenomenon as I certainly would like to keep up my physical health but without feeling like junk for days after!
A couple of things that has helped me; i eat a small healthy snack an hour before exersize. if you eat sooner before, your body will be using all of its energy to digest the food. a small sandwhich and a piece of fruit might be good.
Also, it is important to remember that when we excercise, we are releasing a lot of past tension and emotions. We are actually cleansing our body of built up pain and anxieties from possibly years ago. This may involve crying and a greiving process, it is important to allow yourself to feel this and accept the feelings that are passing through ourselves. I have suffered from a mental illness for years, so i can identify with the depression and pain that I have heard mentioned here.
Listen to your body and soul. When you become depressed it is important to soothe yourself by doing something special…Go take a nice shower, and wash down the drain all of this tension, anxiety and depression. Imaging the water rinsing the impurities down the drain. Let it heal you.
It is important to do a little at a time, but not give up. try a 10 min. walk instead of hour. While walking, biking, playing basket ball, ask you body to tell you how it is feeling. If it is feeling good, think of why it feels good. Relax your soul as much a possible during exercise. Be thankful for where you are.
Depression is awful, especially when it is keeping us from the things we enjoy the most, do not give up….i have many times, it is a cycle, but it will subside as long as you are communicating with yourself. Hope this helps. Yoga is my new thing….you learn to be ok with where you are and who you are.
I’m thinking this problem is due to blood sugar plummeting and possibly to stress chemicals produced during exercise. People who are more sensitive to these stress chemicals such as cortisol or adrenalin could have a bad reaction to exercise. Although I still think that the physical benefits over a long period of time might help with your problems. Although this is comming from someone that cant tolerate any of the ssri’s and is on wellubtrin which works on dopamine instead of serotonin and seems to make me feel better. Exercise seems to just increase this affect and makes me feel even better. But I do experience the ups and downs more mostly because I have alot of negative emotions correlated to exercise.
I just wanted to say I agree with all of the above. Depression after work seemed to make sense since after being so “high” and energized while working out, crashing after makes sense. The part I don’t understand is feeing so very angry afterword. And, why is this the only site discussing this? We all can’t be the only people that feel this way, why isn’t there more info out there? If anyone has any other links that could help, please post. Thanks!
Thank Goodness I am not Crazy…..Never do I get that good feeling from exercise. Only mean feelings. Has anyone found more information on this?
I have the same thing. I believe it’s blood sugar. I think a lot of us are hypoglycemic and don’t know it. Food lowers blood sugar, so does exercise. A solution I saw on a diabetes site said after a half-hour of exercise you should eat something that has 15 carbohydrates in it. Then you can continue exercising after that for another half-hour.
I know I have felt terrible two days later after exercise — wiped out, angry etc, etc.
The problem is that you can’t tell a doctor about this because they will never believe you. For years I have told them I have hypoglycemia and their solution is to eat chocolate to bring up my blood sugar. The worst possible thing.
I have known at least four very depressed people (two women two men)who exercised vigorously and were not in the least helped by the exercise. I’m not saying that exercise is not effective for mild cases or as prevention, but for severe cases it seems to really depend on the individual. For the depressed perfectionist or high achiever exercise is not always the answer.
I have a problem with anxiety, hyper, or nerves when I jog or exercize constantly. For years it used to cause me to relax, but when I got older it reversed. It also caused depression after a while, particularly when you deplete all the bodies minerals after a long bout of a couple of hours of exercize. I’m not sure why, but I think the body changes as you head towards 40 and also there is the tendency mentally make the excersize like a struggle of sorts and feel the tension causing mental stress, particularly if you compete. That could be part of the reason, IE making exercise the same battle that you excersize for–building a constant hyper stress mentally instead of relaxing. The only thing I can do now to relax is vacation completely away from everything–and everybody for the most part. Part of it has to be body changes as well. The anti depressants don’t last forever in a person’s body.
I’ve always experienced this with exercise, especially as I’ve gotten older. Not just depression but severe depression and hypoglycemia to the point of shaking.
I find that much shorter periods of exercise – 10 minutes being ideal – not only doesn’t cause this effect but is excellent for making the weight come off.
I agree with others its probably related to cortisol and low blood sugar. It’s not surprising since many people start their day with coffee – the ultimate cortisol producer – and then eat refined carbohydrates which spikes the blood sugar and then likely have more caffeine in the day.
Then again, when some hunter gatherer native types visited nyc a while back as part of a hospital program and saw people jogging around in circles they laughed. You got the impression they thought that was nuts.
For years exercise gave me a pretty reliable high, and then starting at around age 45, it all went to hell. In men my age and up, cortisol levels are permanently elevated, so any additional spurt, as brought on by vigorous exercise, could concievably cause moodiness by tweaking the amygdala. I think the blood sugar theory may be valid, too, because the day after vigorous exercise, and in the depth of my depression, my appetite gets out of control. I can’t speak for anyone else, but my life stressors have nothing to do with this reaction; it’s the other way around; the depression makes my life appear dark and sad when, in reality, it is anything but. I have a good life with plenty of friends, a wonderful family, great career, and very little stress. Like everyone else, my doctor cannot get beyond the dogma he’s been indocrinated with. He simply does not believe me when I tell him that I get depressed every time I exercise vigorously. Out of curiousity, could everyone please post their age? Maybe we can uncover some interesting patterns here.
I think our subjective definitions of “depression”, etc. can be overdone. It may be that our culture so heavily emphasizes the “right” to feel good at all times – as an American entitlement, that simply feeling naturally tired as a result of exercising can be misconstrued as depression. I’m not trying to be “flippant” here (after all, I am a psychotherapist); but we may be expecting too much from our resources and activities …. and eachother.
And I don’t mind telling my age: 46 yo man.
ps… Let’s not forget the importance of useful, constructive THINKING in all of this. What are we TELLING ourselves about our feelings after exercise? Are we expecting to be as “high” as we were when much younger; without accepting the likely immediate effects of exercise on an older body? I still notice that exercise LONG TERM is very helpful in dealing with mood problems (yes, I have them, too); but may in the short term make us middle “aging” people feel immediately tired. If we then interpret this feeling negatively, we’ll perceive it as “depression”.
This is fascinating! Like many others who have responded, I thought I was the only one who felt depressed after exercise. I have walked all of my life, and walking/hiking doesn’t seem to negatively affect my mood. However, if I do any isotonic exercises that work out my chest and abdominal areas, I can slip into a “dark mood” that starts the next day and lasts for up to 48 hours. It doesn’t take a lot of exercise, just ten minutes or so can bring it on, and my exercise-induced depression has been started by everything from yoga and push-ups to isotonic exercises with a pole.
Finally, a group that understands what I’ve been going through. I am 56 and noticed that in my early 50s after jogging for 30 years, I felt fine and elated that day, but then had insomnia and felt depressed and irritated, and had a mild flu-like sickness the next day. This always vanishes when I sleep that night; however, I eventually stopped jogging. Now this seems to be happening the day after I lift weights and also the day after I bike for 30 minutes keeping my heart rate at 110-115 bpm. So far mild walking does not cause this, but I have plantar fasciitis and can’t walk for exercise right now. I eat well and hydrate well before and after exercise and take electrolytes. So I think it has something to do with aging, menopausal hormone shifts. I see an acupuncturist, but so far her treatments haven’t helped. If it is due to increased cortisol production, which is my other theory, has anyone come across anyway to prevent cortisol from rising during exercise?
Well this all sounds familiar… wonder if anyone else feels great during and after vigorous excercise, sometimes great the next day too, and then two or three days after, boom, exhausted and moody with an inability to concentrate or even see properly. Is the answer to keep exercising to get used to it, or stop, or slow down? And why the delay in feeling bad? It’s been suggested to me that it could be a long term effect of having had severe glandular fever as an adult, liver dysfunction, or mineral imbalances after sweating too much… any doctors out there? Thanks for posting everyone
I experience this very same symptom. It happens no matter what form of exercise I do, strenuous or otherwise, despite the fact that I am relatively fit. It seems that the more strenuous the exercise, the greater the mood crash. With more prolonged, less strenuous exercise, the mood crash is reduced, but more prolonged.
I go on weekly hikes of about 10 miles each. These hikes take most of the day, and almost always result in at least a day of depression afterwards. I enjoy these hikes immensely, but the day afterwards I am completely without motivation.
When I play a strenuous game of basketball, within a half an hour or so afterwards, my mood completely and totally crashes, although I recover more quickly.
The conventional wisdom is that exercise is good for depression and I don’t doubt that that is true for most people, but that has not been my experience.
I just explained this symptom to my Psychiatrist today. His response was that he has never heard of this before.
So what is going on here?
I intend to look into this further. I really think there is something physiological to this. Is it nutritional, is it hormonal? I don’t know, but I intend to find out as much as I can about this.
Personally, I also suffer from what is often called exertional headaches, although as far as I’ve noticed this only accompanies strenuous exercise, but maybe there’s some connection there.
Next stop my physician.
Best to all…
I am also releived to find this forum. I have suffered from the symptons as listed here. I feel very depressed, angry, lack concentration and motivation after exercise. It feels like I am lacking in some form of brain chemical (if that makes sense), dehydrated feeling. I usualy get it after about an hour of exercising and it lasts for a day or 2 afterwards.
I was a keen cyclist upto 3 years ago when I raced to quite a high standard. I was a bit too keen and overtrained. I have never really got over this, I get ill really easily.
I would be so happy if there was a cure for this as it is forcing me to miss the training sessions.
My doctor prescribed anti-depressants for me but they have had little or no effect.
Please can anyone help?
Thank you to everybody who has made a contribution to this posting as I’m glad to have found so many people who are going through the same as me. I have a slender build and I’m 34 years of age. I used to be really depressed, but 5 years ago I found a book called potatoes not Prozac. After reading it I dropped all the simple carbohydrates and refined sugars from my diet and became happy as Larry. I’d have a small potato at night also to keep me feeling extra peachy throughout the day (it works wonders with your body chemistry when eaten at the right in the right way).
At the time I’d go on massive cycle rides and this made me feel even better, but years on I find myself having to be extra careful about the amount of exercise I do, otherwise I end up mentally crashing, feeling extremely depressed, and weepy. It happens like clockwork and I now have to plan my life around my crashing periods after exercise. I’ve been looking for a solution for a long time and I thought I discovered one a few months back but it wasn’t permanent.
It was creatine. All my lows went away, and I could do as much exercise as I liked. But when I finished the 1st course of the supplement, I felt very, very stressed and like the hulk for weeks after and prone to crashing. Needless to say, I haven’t tried it since.
From my experience with doctors, I find that there are things they’ve never heard of and new research they aren’t always familiar with. With experiment into creatine my personal conclusion is the reason why we crash after exercise is something physical that can be resolved and when I work out how I will post up the answers I find. Wish me luck.
ok! it looks as cortisol is on the right track as from what i’ve found it’s the stress hormone produced from exerise that is making us feel this way. with what i already know about the complex carbohydrates i eat, the effect has been greatly increased. now to find ways to counteract this cortisol increase
i found a lot of info. seems you make the condition worse if you eat frequently and have a low body fat ratio as well as exercising, and there’s a lot of ways to decrease excess cortisol, but the most best and most natural way seems to be a herb called Holy basil (Ocimum sanctum) or tulsi as it’s called in india. i’m going to try it asap. and here’s a link i found that explains it a little:
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/QAA346157
which is also where this final paragraph came from: I know that holy basil is being promoted as a treatment for reducing both stress and elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and to promote physical and emotional endurance. My feeling is that if you’re seeking to manage stress, breathing exercises and regular aerobic exercise are more important first steps. Practicing regular, mindful breathing can be calming and energizing and can even help with stress-related health problems ranging from panic attacks to digestive disorders. However, some practitioners tell me that they see good results with holy basil in combination with lifestyle modification and that this herb works quickly.
Andrew Weil, M.D.
I just turned forty this year. I have suffered from depression here and there, but never really gave it much thought. Over the last 15 years I’ve competed in marathons and a couple Ironmans, but betwen races I was fairly inactive. I began to notice that I never suffered from those depression episodes during those periods.
I just started training for another IM and the depression is worse than ever. It prompted me to search the Internet and that’s where I found this thread. Very good to know we aren’t alone! I plan to play with the diet and continue to train. Good luck to all and thank you!
I wept through a yoga class — and never returned.
thank you, thank you, thank you everyone! i am 39 and have lifted weights for 20+ years. i have also been told that i am depressed. and have fought like hell to tell them(doctors, nurses, psychologists,family etc.) otherwise. no, im exhausted from working out. no one has believbed me! it has been sooo fn frustrating. everyone touts working out to be so healthy. for me, it is the opposite and getting worse. i just went a month without working out because prior i did a month of hardcore weightlifting and cardio to lose size and was drained. cardio for me is the worst. it feels like all it is doing is draining me of life and energy. i finally went back to the gym last night and the whole time felt like crying and was light headed. my father who studied premed used to tell me i needed fat in my diet and i am very curious about this. i feel worse when i am on a low fat, low carb diet and much better when i eat carbs. i know everyone shuns carbs but they make me feel better. still, i stay away from them. not to mention my metabalism always feels like i am a burning constantly, like i can’t EVER get enough to eat. of course i dont listen to this cause i would be eating constantly and be incredibly stuffed with food if you know what i mean. i am incredbily unhappy. have tried antidepressants only to feel muscle weakness, drugged up, not to mention the side effects i do not want. when i don’t work out, i get soft and appear “fat” to people. i just want to yell at them and tell them, i am NOT fat, just soft. it is all muscle. no one understands! everything everyone is saying i wholeheartedly agree on. the hopelessness, can’t concentrate etc. in the month i didn’t work out recently, i did manage to go for a walk with my puppy and it did not drain me, it felt good and relaxing. i am thinking i just need to quit with the weights and just try and get a small ammount of exercise. the older i get the less often i can go to the gym. i used to be able to go everyday, now if i make it twice a week to lift i am lucky. i am sure it has something to do with the fact that i have burned off every ounce of fat on my body. please keep posting your research. maybe we can show this to our doctors. the more people that fess up the truth about what is happening, the sooner we can get help and anwsers. i recently was screened for diabetes and anemia. i doubt it will show anything is wrong. my tests always show up healthy! again, thank you. i feel better. thanks for reading my rant. good luck!
Mmm… the holy basil sounds interesting if cortisol is one of the culprits. My acupuncturist thinks it has something to do with diminishing “chi” energy, specifically kidney energy, according to the Chinese, that diminishes as we age. Presumably stress also diminishes chi. To increase chi energy, she has me taking a Seven Forests Astragalus 10+ formula. Astralagus is also an immune booster. Who know but diminished chi could also result in higher cortisol levels too. I suspect that these supplements take time to take effect so I will report back after a month or so to see if they make any difference. I would be interested in hearing too if those who try “holy basil” notice a difference.
All of the above + exercise causes me sleeplessness (that the usual dose of sleeping pills cannot combat).
With almost 50 people complaining above of exercise making them depressed or angry, I find this quote particularly unbelievable:
I just explained this symptom to my Psychiatrist today. His response was that he has never heard of this before.
I am 49, and exercise had always had negative psychological effects on me. I was almost expelled from school for refusing the gym classes, which made me angry and depressed. However, loving fine cuisine and not moving much has obviously led me to some mild overweight. So I now have to do something about it and I have been trying to walk 1 mile a day on a treadmill for the past month. Results (predictable, given my past experience): loss of sleep, angry, anxiety, going towards depression.
I am not otherwise depressed or psychologically unstable (except a few depression episodes in my 20ies).
Holy basil noted; I will give it a try.
Great to find these posts!
ok! i’ve been using holy basil in the form of tulsi tea for most of the past 2 weeks. it works but it’s been really easy to take/drink too much, so i’m trying to work out what the right amount is for me.
and to also mention..fish oil supplements (not from the liver) works also..although i prefer not to take them as with the amount of fish i already eat didn’t want to over do it on the omega 3 front.
I have a very similar reaction – exercise in excess of the norm (I cycle to work – 1/2 hour each way – no problem) leaves me literally suicidally depressed the day after. My experience has been that if I push through a couple of weeks of this, it settles down and I start to feel the benefits of the extra exercise.
I would love to have some way of mitigating this problem as it is a major barrier to building up the exercise regime that I love and that helps keep longer term depression under control.
Is holy basil available as a supplement in the UK, or should I just be making tea with the leaves if I can find them?
I’m sorry to hear you’ve been going through this. Sounds exactly what it can be like for me. You can buy holy from online.
I keep omega 3 supplements in the fridge which would help just in case but I eat fresh mackerel every couple of days, I’ve also put on road/race tyres on my mountain bike to decrease rolling resistance as another back up.
I haven’t had a mental crash after exercise since discovering this site and learning about this stress hormone cortisol. Many thanks for everyone’s input.
Sophia, I suggest looking at the website radiantrecovery which for me as well as oily fish like mackerel or salmon helped me cure long term depression.
it started to sound like you guys were revealing the magic number (40s) but i’m only 23 and have been experiencing severe depression and anxiety after working out. i just got a gym membership after starting a new job which has allowed me such a luxury. after noticing mood swings the first few times i thought there might be a correlation but all my friends told me that exercise can only make you feel better. i kept going but then i was sure: exercise was causing this. nothing new besides exercising was happening in my life. now i don’t know what to do. i want to keep exercising, but it’s causing me to call in sick from work and freak out. but i also have problems with digestion – maybe cortisol is the culprit.
Wow, I’m so glad I found this forum. I thought I was crazy and alone in these workout-related depressive episodes!
I think I found a solution for myself–and I hope it will help at least some of you. This is going to be very long-winded but I want to give you some background information.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with reactive hypoglycemia. Basically, my body produces too much insulin in reaction to meals and my blood sugar plummets. I’ve had symptoms all my life and my mother has it too but I never really knew what it was until last year.
I was able to control it somewhat with better eating habits and regular healthy snacks until I started working out regularly at a gym in September. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE working out now (which at 44 is a huge surprise to me). I would feel great at the gym but soon after, or later in the day would crash. I feel a wave of exhaustion and then severe depression. I’ve had postpartum depression twice and although the symptoms were similar, when I had the depression it would pretty much last most of the day. I would have better days but never a good day, if that makes sense. Now, I was fine most of the day but would get hit hard for a shorter period of time but just as severe.
I did some web research and thought it may be blood-sugar related, as hypoglycemia can cause anxiety/depression symptoms. I also read that exercise can cause hypogycemic episodes that may not show up till later in the day. I tried to see my doctor but she left the practice (and I don’t know where she went). The new doctor I saw doesn’t seem to know anything about reactive hypoglycemia (as many doctors don’t). She tested my blood sugar but tested my fasting blood sugar (which wouldn’t show the reactive type). She wanted me to see a psychiatrist and put me on an antidepressent.
Insted I spoke with the owner of the gym (who also sets up my strength trainingg routine and has helped me tremendously in other ways)to see if he had any suggestions. Thank God he did! I don’t remember the exact explanation but basically he said that when you exercise strenuously the first thing your body craves is glucose to replace what has been used during the workout. He told me to try drinking a sports shake immediately after the workout (the protein/carbohydrate kind–I drink Muscle Milk). I couldn’t believe there could be such a simple solution. Last night was the second time in a month and a half that I had an episode (the first time I forgot to bring a shake with me). Before it was happening pretty much daily. I felt so bad again that I googled “can exercise cause depression” and found this forum. I believe my episode was due to poor eating the evening before and that day since I did have a shake after strength training.
I’m meeting with a nutritionist to see if I can further improve my eating habits and control my hypoglycemia. Although my depressive episodes are better I do still have some problems with concentration/weakness/irritability if I don’t eat properly.
Please do some research online for “reactive hypoglycemia” and speak to a doctor to see if you might have it. I also try to have peanut butter crackers before my workout and the shake immediately afterwards. Make sure to drink lots of water too. I also try to rest with my feet up for a few minutes if I start to feel exhausted.
When I do go through the episodes I try to always think “this too shall pass”. I know it’s hard to feel like it will pass–I know I don’t think rationally when I experience depression–but thankfully it does.
I wish everyone the best of luck–I wouldn’t wish depression on my worst enemy–it’s just too horrible a feeling. Good luck to everyone!
I wish all of you the best
Oops, sorry about the typos and repeats in the last two lines!
It’s great to finally find all of this. I’ve been dealing with depression for a few years. I feel great if I stop working out for a couple of days. Like some of the earlier posts stated, my doctor said he’s never heard of feeling bad from working out. Has anyone used the Holy Basil? If so, what have you found the best way to take it to be?
Wow! Exercise is not enough to prevent depression, you need foods that have Omega 3 Fatty acids like in Fish, Walnuts, Fortified Soymilk with DHA, or any supplements with DHA Omega 3.
You also need enough Folate acid!! This is found in Spinach, Wheat Germ, Wheat Bread, Peas, Collard Greens, Broccoli.
Stay away from Junk food everyday, it’s okay to eat the stuff once a month, but eating it everyday and exercising can interfere with blood sugar.
Well, this is all I can think of for now, but just don’t give up you guys, you got to find ways to combat depression.
you can get holy basil in the form of tulsi tea from asian: indian shops, but i’ve been taking a daily fish oil supplement as its more easily available and very effective and i now never crash or get depressed after exercise no matter how much i do per day every day.
i think it’s to do with the omega 3 fatty acids “ala, epa and dha,” but i don’t have any scientific training and i haven’t read up how it works yet due to time constraints. sorry
With the spike in adrenaline that usually comes with excersize in combination with the crash in blood sugar that can sometimes follow excersize it makes sense to feel a little depressed after a good work out. As long as the depression evens out after a bit. But if you don’t feel that it is then you may want to speak to your physician about it.
Yep! I’m so glad this is being discussed. I had been exercising and watching my diet and BOOM the depression hit. So, I didn’t want to do anything… which was actually depressing cause I felt I was giving up on my diet. Finally, I was feeling well again, high spirits, excited about working out and losing weight. Well, I joined a gym and started back yesterday. Now today, depressed again. I’m thinking hormones may play a role in this. I know I’m not a doc or psychiatrist; but this is my guess.
lissa – try a fish oil capsule a day, and trust me. you’ll never get depressed after exercise ever again no matter how much you do. take care.
I’m so glad I found this discussion. I’m 32 years old and started to work out again having had a few years “lazy”-time. After the second spinning and body-pump lesson I was totally depressed and anxious for 3 days. I got really worried, because I don’t have anything else stressing going on in my life. I could not understand what was happening. I’ve felt depressive before, but it was because of loosing a friend in a car accident so it was quite obvious.
After I felt better again I went back to the gym and same thing happened, three days of “hell”. I will most definitely try out some of the tips you have shared. Thank you all!
Stephen, I’m not Lissa but I take one fish oil capsule a day and I still have the depression from exercise problem.
i’m really sorry to her that vicki..i though it would have the same effect for everybody..
are you still eating properly around your exercise. my previous radiant recovery link could assist and perhaps explain why it works for me.
maybe you could even try having one capsule in the morning and one in the evening also, but when i did this i had so much energy i began getting used to only getting 5 hrs sleep and not feeling tired like I normally would.
i’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.
Stephen, It would make sense that fish oil caps would help because I do think it’s related to blood sugar and fat. Healthy fats. Maybe I will try two capsules a day and see if that helps.
i tried looking at your link glen but it didn’t work for some reason youtube gave: the url contained a malformed video id.
i googled the subject adrenal burnout which i found highly interesting. a lot of what i found made perfect sense, and some others gave me a lot of food for thought.
so, adrenal burnout is what is actually causing the raise of the stress hormone cortisol, my own adrenal burn out is caused by too much exercise but not down to “poor nutrient dead food+ poor air quality+ car fumes+ living in a modern developed country” as i’ve one of the healthiest diets and lifestyles i know of: plenty of sleep, fresh air, good quality proteins, complex carbs, fresh vegetables and pulses, no alcohol, no nicotine, junk food, no additives, no refined sugar.
i almost certain now that my high cortisol levels and emotional crashes after exercise can be controlled with, to an extent holy basil/tulsi tea or much more effectively omega 3 fish oil/fatty acids,
here’s the radiant recovery link from the author of the book potatoes not prozac which is the book that pulled me out of a depressed period in my life and started me along the path of better eating. http://www.radiantrecovery.com/
the world is yours when you can control how you feel and think through what you eat and how you exercise
I’m so glad to get to this site. I’ve been baffled. I play badminton on Monday and Friday morning for about an hour and a half. About a half hour after finishing I get impatient, angry and then later depressed for the day. I love the game and have great fun at it. I am diabetic on insulin and find that my blood sugar goes up a little only after badminton tho once when it was unusually high it reduced sharply. I take salmon daily and 4 fish oil capsules. I eat well too. It can’t be blood sugar for me. I’m going to try water before and after. I suspect that it is adrenalin / cortisol since we have a highly competitive relatively fast game (I’m 68). When I played at a more leisurely pace I didnt get this. What to do? Is there anyway I could keep the cortisol levels from going down dramticallY? Has anyone got any more research on this.
I have the same problem. I feel great during and after a good workout, however if I don’t eat right after, I crash and burn with rage and depression. I try to eat a healthy mix of protein and carbs and feel fine for a while, but I am always on the verge of blowing a fuse and have a really hard time sleeping most of the days I workout.
I can say it seems to be worse when I forget to take my B12 which I find is very good for leveling out my moods.
The worst is that, that feeling makes me turn to alcohol and junk food for some reason. Like I just can’t eat enough when I get into one of those moods.
So I end up consuming far more calories than I would had I not had a work out.
What a godsend! I’ve been explaining to friends and family my frustration with this same issue. Exercise makes me either very depressed (ex: an hour walk) or highly agitated and angry (ex: hour of rollerblading). My husbands exercise experience is the opposite and he thinks I’m not exercising enough. My doctor said he has never heard of this issue and prescribed me Welbutrin, which I refused to take. My friends think I’m nuts. I’m 42 and post-menapausal due to chemotherapy 10 years ago. It’s even more frustrating because I would like to exercise everyday and add weight training. I am going to try the tulsi tea and fish oil omega 3 and see if that helps. Goog luck everyone.
Whom ever brought up the “holy basil” Thank you! I have been taking it for 4 days now and it’s working! I mean this is the first time in years that I have exercised and not felt bad the next day. I’ve tried every herb and just about every antidepressent out there and none of them worked. I am so thrilled about this. That awful feeling in the pit of my stomach is gone. I hope it lasts. I feel like it’s going to. If you all haven’t tried it yet, I highly suggest it. I found it in a capsule form at the vitamine cottage.
Ok..thank GOD I am not the only one suffering here! I have been exercising 5-6 days a week this entire year. And EVERYTIME I start to hit it hard in the gym..I get IRRITABLE..Angry…I get mad quite easily. AND…my libido goes OUT THE DOOR. I could care LESS about sex! But the mood swings are just AWEFUL. I know they are a strain on my family and my life..and the ONLY thing I can do to correct it..is to stop WORKING out. And I DO NOT want to do that! Has anyone been using the Holy basil long? Do you notice a difference in the mood swings, anger, getting upset easily?? I am 35 years old, have kids..the youngest is 5, and I work part time..my life is NOT stressful..I really have no worries..but I get upset and angry and I feel like i am on a CONSTANT PMS binge. It wont go away! HELP!!!!!
Just want to add further evidence that feeling terrible after exercise is not isolated to only a few. I developed this reaction of feeling terrible the next day after a strenous run a couple years ago. I’m a 38 y.o guy and want to keep an active lifestyle, but feeling this way the day after is starting to detract from quality of life not enhancing it. Will try the holy basil. One thing is apparent, doctors may know what they know, but they do not know everything. Sad that otherwise healthy people would be prescribed intolerable medications by psychiatrists to treat symptoms and not root causes.
I think I know what is casuing depression/hypoglycemia when or after exercising. Or at least what’s contributing to it. It’s coffee and caffeine. The caffeine spikes cortisol levels and insulin levels. So when you go to exercise, you are starting off with already high levels of cortisol which the exercise increases. The caffeine also cause insulin levels to rise and stay elevated. So its a double disaster.
I quit all caffeine (hardest thing I ever did – makes quitting nicotine look like childs play) and noticed a few months later that I could walk twice as far as I could before and not elicit this reaction. Another thing is – I lost 20lbs over the first few months with the only change being the elimination of caffeine – no exercise or dieting or anything. Though i did notice that I was naturally eating less – no hunger binges.
I’ve decided now to not exercise deliberately from this point on just to keep active and focus more on relaxing.
One thing I will repeat though is that quitting caffeine is very hard. The first week you’ll have headaches, backaches, fatigue and that will pass. But then there is a low level fatigue and depression that continues for about 6 weeks more. It can be very trying. Then its cool, you sleep good, you look better, you have even energy, and in my case, you lose weight without trying.
I think its the stress hormones and elevated insulin levels generated by coffee and caffeine that are the root cause of this.
I’m afraid that fish oil didn’t work for me, even though I was taking it three times a day at one point. I’m really curious to hear whether other people here also have problems with sleep quality. A study from the University of Chicago found that men in middle age lose all ability to fall into the deepest stage of sleep, which they attributed to permanently elevated cortisol and declining growth hormone. My sleep has been awful for years, and to combat it, I’ve taken virtually every sleep/depression/anxiety medication on the market, to no avail. I also meditate regularly and am very careful with my diet. The only thing that makes sense, then, for me, is hormones. Anybody else with sleep issues? I’m 50, by the way, but I’ve had this trouble since my mid thirties.
I think another thing about exercise is that it is completely unnatural. No animal in nature will for 20 minutes continually do one activity like running or moving in one pattern. Activity is done is stops and starts and rests (as a bird will glide).
Probably the whole idea of exercise is the problem. One common demominator that people of great longevity share is that they do not exercise. They are active but don’t do structured exercise. I think it is a mistake to think exercise and activity are the same. They are not. One is natural with plenty of start and stops happening in the context of getting work done. Exercise is mindless repetion for 20-30 minutes and gets nothing done. Well, it will make you hungry on a good day.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS EXERCISE CAUSING DEPRESSION UNLESS YOU HAVE SOME DISORDER. I am a healthy 22 yr. old female and the only times that I haven’t felt good is when I do not work out regularly, immediately after working out(fatigue), if I worked out too much (nausea), or if I’m not eating all the right foods. Exercise can cause tears, among many other emotions- it’s called endorphins (read about what they do- then you might understand better).
Unless there is some strange reaction your bodies are having to the chemicals released, such as not eating right, being toxic (try detoxifying), or some autoimmune disease, you should, over time feel better than you would if you didn’t exercise. Of course immediately afterwards you’ll feel tired and sometimes just gross, but overall you should feel better, thats what endorphins do. Either you people are reading way too much into your body or you have some serious health problem and should consult an expert(not just a regular physician either). This is not at all healthy.
After two years of no exercise I picked up running again 2 weeks ago and gradually upped it to 2 x 10k runs a week (9 min miles) + 2 x 5k runs + 2 x 45 mins swims. I have also been cutting down about 500 calories per day (I’m trying to lose about 4 lbs total). Since the start of my exercise regime I noticed the onset of severe dark moods about 1-2 hours after exercise, lasting into the next day. I also started waking up after about 6 hours of sleep feeling drained but not being able to go back to sleep. Instead of improving, the dark moods seem to be getting worse the more I get into my new routine. During exercise and about half an afterwards I feel elated and full of energy, but the dark moods afterwards make me want to slit my wrists. i’ve never felt this way apart from 10 years ago when I suffered from depression. The feeling is very familiar but I have no reason at all to be depressed. On the contrary, I am getting married in 5 weeks, and all aspects of my life seem to be in order for a change. Help
I’m glad I’ve found this blog, this is really insightful. I’d ignore the Catalina Buse comment though. Some people are just rude and find it easier to criticize something the can’t comprehend.
sadly yes, some people are rude and ignorant, assuming anyone who is different from them is lying (and others are scammers trying to sell people stuff)
Personally, I feel fine after slow, steady exercise like hiking, swimming, or cycling, but strenuous activity, especially activity that requires quick reactions (like sports) plunges me into an AWFUL depression afterwards. Not just “I’m tired”, but “the world is ending and I am unspeakably horrible”.
It’s so weird!! Between the heinous mood-swings/depression and belching on the elliptical I didn’t even want to say anything to my doctor (or anyone else!) because I figured she’d think I’m a hypochondriac. I know I drink to much coffee but I didn’t consider that it could be directly responsible for this nonsense! I’m glad it’s something so completely within my control. If I can drag my ass to the gym 5 days a week- and quit smoking ciggies- I think I’m ready to tackle the challenge of caffeine addiction. Shudder! Wish me luck
I tend to experience a little bit of this too. Overall, some things that appear to help are doing less strenous exercise, eating before and after, and taking time to relax at the end of the day. I’m not sure how effective this would be, but perhaps trying to do something like Progressive Muscle Relaxation or Yoga an hour or two after exercise could be helpful. I think it helps to start with a small, easy amount and intensity of exercise and work up without exposing yourself to anything you feel you really can’t handle.
I went for a three hour kayak ride, actually a beer run, and then ran about 4 miles after i sobered up from the 3 beers i drank. afterwards i felt like hell, depressed and worrisome, but i take medications for manic depression, those of the variety that are also anti-epileptic. After my workout, I felt really bad, figured food would make me feel better so I ate a medium portion of oatmeal hoping the starch would help stimulate serotonin production as well as provide a steady source of glucose. Didn’t work, i still feel bad a few hours later, of course I drink like a pot of coffee a day sometimes, and that doesn’t help. I am sipping on some chamomile tea right now, that makes me a bit sleapy, but I still feel anxious. There should be more research done on this subject. I feel so bad.
Like many of you I am comforted to see that I am not the only one that has this problem. I have been dealing with it for over 15 years. I first became aware of it when I started training for triathlons at the age of 35. I noticed that after an intense session I would feel absolutely awful the next day, lethargic, unmotivated with a lot of black thoughts about life and death. The day after I would bounce back and feel fine. The effect was clear, reproducible and clearly correlated to exercise. It appears to be related to anaerobic exercise rather than aerobic exercise – a session in the gym lifting weights for half an hour would make me feel much worse than a 2 hour bike ride at a comfortable training pace.
This has continued although to a lesser degree since then. I still cycle a lot but no longer competitively, and I make sure that I don’t push myself really hard, eat well and get lots of rest after excercising, however the effect is still clearly there.
I have mentioned the problem to several doctors over the years and have been tested for iron levels, diabetes and a few other things with no apparent abnormalities. I also found that SSRI antidepressants did not seem to fix the problem, I had a bout of depression after a personal loss about 10 years ago which where I took Zoloft for a year, but this did not seem to improve the exercise induced depression.
I suspect that the problem is related to dopamine levels, but what the mechanism for exercise depleting these would be I have no idea.
And to Catalina Buse, I just want to say that when I was 22 I also thought I knew everything too. Many years later I know a lot more, but I’m also much more aware of how much I don’t know. This is much of what the wisdom of age is about, learning that your own personal experience is not the sum total of the world’s knowledge.
And going back to the original question, I don’t think excercise causes depression for normal people. My guess is that what we are dealing with is a abnormality in brain chemistry that leaves one or more neurotransmitters depleted after excercise in a small percentage of peple.
Hey, Tens, you’ve got to help me through this caffeine thing. I gave up caffeine for about two weeks, and I was shocked by how rotten I felt—fatigued, unmotivated, depressed, and in fact, the first three days off of caffeine, my depression was more intense than ever. I thought I would die. Unfortunately, none of my health problems resolved or were mitigated, so I went back to caffeine. Have you read Caffeine Blues? Is there any real data showing that it can take as long as 6 weeks to get back to normal? Thanks for your help.
One more quick comment: Jack Lalanne, at 94, works out two hours EVERY DAY. We’re talking intense weight training, followed by an hour of swimming. Think he gets depressed? We need to talk to this guy, people. He’s not a doctor but he obviously knows his stuff.
I didn’t feel better till about 2 months off caffeine. I think if you are still feeling rotten after that long then maybe see your doctor. Caffeine is not required by humans… it’s a toxin meant to ward off predators. It’s an excellent thing to take (especially coffee) if your long term goal is to get fat and ugly. But you can certainly have things wrong with you that have nothing to do with caffeine.
Jack la lanne does work out quite a bit and does amazing things. He’s VERY anti-caffeine btw.
I think everybody is different. I know I feel much better just keeping active and staying away from stimulants. Its like dieting without dieting and it actually be effective.
Actually, according to this, lanne has never used caffeine in his life and stays away from dairy. In fact, his diet seems to play a large role in his fitness:
http://onthetable.net/lalanne.html
One thing I’ve noticed among friends who exercise regularly who haven’t stated whether they experience depression or not (they dont appear to) is that they seem to be very moody … at times angry or elated for no apparent reason…. I’ve seen this a lot and chalked it up to personality disorders…. but maybe its the exercise affecting them in a different way.
I had the same problem in the beginning of this year. I went through several tests and everything was normal (heart, lungs, blood, etc.) However when I went through a test where they measured my heartrate and breathing while jogging and cycling they found out that my breathing is too shallow= I don’t breathe deep enough. The reason for this was that my back was locked from two places. This caused a slight reduction of lung movement. I went through 6 sessions of physiotherapy and my back is now back to normal. Strangely this also had an impact on my trainings and now I don’t feel bad during or after excercise. The physioterapist told me that having middleback problems also has an effect on the sympathic nerve system (im not sure if its called that in english)that regulates heartbeat etc. and also has an effect on how good or bad we feel. During the tests they also found that my blood sugar levels goes a bit too low during exercise. So eating the right sorts of carbohydrates before, during and after is important. I’m not saying this is the case for everyone, but I thought it could be helpful to share my story. Have a nice summer!
I have to add that I DO have other health problems, namely chronic insomnia that has gone on for eighteen years. Unfortunately, it runs in my family. Contrary to longstanding dogma, though, my depression doesn’t cause the insomnia. It’s the other way around and, in fact,emerging data is revealing that this is more often the case for most people who are depressed. Chicken or egg? Insomnia first, in most cases, depression second. An Australian study showed that 80% of depressed patients who were treated for their insomnia, lost their depression. Anybody else have problems with either insomnia or depression? Anxiety? This might be an interesting avenue to explore.
I have problems with insomnia. Eliminating caffeine helps. A few thing I would try is:
Try to eat regular meals. At least 3 meals a day at regular times. Some think the insomnia is caused by stress hormones released due to hypoglycemia due to disordered eating schedules and skipping meals. The blood sugar gets too low for you and causes irritability.
Play around with your diet. It could be something you are eating. Some people are bothered by foods which gives them problems with all kinds of things including sleeping. Common offeneders are onions, garlic, tomatoes, things that cause GERD.
If it is a blood sugar issue you want to get rid of caffeine just to eliminate it’s potentiating effect in this direction.
Are you exercising? Stop for a while. Just keep active. Climb stairs when you can instead of taking elevators. Walk to the store etc. Dont sit at the computer too long. Exercise, like coffee and skipping meals, increasing stress hormones. These don’t mix with good quality sleep.
Here is an interesting article about exercise:
http://nymag.com/news/sports/38001/
If I push myself a little too far, I wind up tossing and turning and aching all night, and then I wake up early, as if I normally get up at 4:30 am. That’s not normal. I think it has to do with low cortisol levels and maybe low blood sugar levels, low, low, low. Every health expert seems to say to “exercise” for an hour each day. Are you kidding? I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m going to stop challenging myself. It’s not worth feeling sick and physically depressed over. Stretching and moving around is good, taking a little walk when the weather is nice. My grandparents didn’t run marathons and they lived to old ages!
Here’s the problem.When you’ve had a sedintary lifestyle for a long time,toxins build up in every cell in your body,especially fat cells. When you start exercising and losing weight those cells start releasing those accumulated toxins and your body can’t excrete them fast enough.So they float around in your system until the elimination catches up. You get achy,confused and fatigued but it’s all natural. Keep your colon clean and drink lots of water to get it through your kidney to flush them.Your body is going through a healing crisis and that’s a good thing as long as youcan deal with the side effects.Your body also enjoys homeostatis which menas it’s likes things the way it is. It fights change and you have to fight back. you have to “trick” your body into thinking it’s younger and healthy again.Avoid fast food at all costs,it’s loaded with unhealthy fat that sticks to your arteries and clogs your liver.
Insomnia is often caused by and unhealthy and clogged up colon with even parasites in there. Get a black walnut hulls,wormwood and clove complex.This will nuke to colon varmits.Get some fiber pills,psysillium husks and take a bout 5 two times a day with lots of water. After the vermin die off in your colon this will help it stay flushed out.Eat a lite fat free diet for a week and no meat.Tuna on rye or whole wheat for a week won’t kill you. Make your mind up to stick to it no matter what.Walk in fresh air in the morning as long as you have time for.Overnight your body does a huge toxin dump in your organs and lymph nodes..Walking helps flush these out.
I think I actually have an answer to this. According to the book “The Anxiety Disease”, during the 1940’s they found that some patients with severe anxiety/depression often had intolerance to over-exercising. One of the main by-products of muscle activity is lactate. Lactate levels in the blood of depressed/anxious patients was found to be elevated. It seems that for some reason the people either overproduced lactate and were unable to handle it chemically, or their bodies were abnormally sensitive to it. In 1966, one doctor found that giving an intravenous infusion of sodirm lactate to patients brought on spells and panic. Now get this, doctors later found that after giving patients alprazolam (anti-anxiety medication) then asking them to exercise – no anxiety/depression occured. I know all this because I get depressed and anxious after excercise also. Get the book “The Anxiety Disease” by Dr. David Sheehan.
I just found this blog and decided it might be a good idea to share my exercise experience with you guys. Pretty much over the past 4 years every time I started a work out program I get depressed for 2-3 days afterward, the harder I work out
Thank god I just found this blog and decided it might be a good idea to share my exercise experience with you guys. Pretty much over the past 4 years every time I started a work out program I get sad and depressed for 2-3 days afterward, the harder I work out the more I get depressed. The interesting thing is that once I quit working out for three days I am normal and no longer feel like this. For example, I haven’t worked out in 4 months and I have been fine, I started working out last week and now I am depressed and sad, the only thing that keeps me going is knowing that in 2 days this episode will be over. I have tried the carbs and protein after workouts it doesn’t help. Omega 3 doesn’t help either. The only thing that helps is to not exercise. final conclusion, screw exercise. I personally have concluded that depression and sadness is a price to high to pay for being in good shape, unless I understand why this is happening and how to solve it I am not working out any more. Maybe exercise is not so good for you after all, it increases stress and cortisol. Most people will tell you that you feel good after exercise because of endorphins, however, doctors that I have talked to informed me that endorphins are the bodies natural pain killer and actually do not cross the blood brain barrier. Has anyone contemplated this, that maybe doing a strenuous activity repetitively for 30 minutes is actually not good for you?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
As an engineer I realized many years ago that my mood was linked to exercise. Whenever I exercised the following conditions would creep up within 2-3 hours and last for about 3 days:
-sweating
-nurvousness
-anxiety
-irritability & anger
-stiff joints & muscle pain
-lack of sleep
-depression
Continual exercise would only exasperate the conditions above with what I would describe as an almost compounding effect. In my case even fairly light exercise would lead to drastic changes in behavior.
Several years ago I tried to get an explanation but was constantly shouted down by the zealots professing how wonderful exercise and diet is. I took several tests to no avail. No amount of food, drink, or other healthy lifestyle changes have ever made any impact on reducing my symptoms. Simply put exercise in any form is pure poison to my system.
I should probably mention that I was tested at one point for hypoglycemia but unfortunately that did not turn out to be the culprit. My wife’s pleading finally got me to give up attempting exercise as the behavioral changes were just too drastic in nature and were going to get me fired at work. Fortunately I’m in good health with weight in check.
Final thought… I do realize that exercise is good in most people. My wife for instance gets all of the benefits of exercise plus a behavioral boost… like a “runner’s high”. In my case however exercise sends me like clockwork “through the roof” into a violent near non-functional state. As an engineer I wish I had a solution but unfortunately I’ve yet to find a cause.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
As an engineer I realized many years ago that my mood was linked to exercise. Whenever I exercised the following conditions would creep up within 2-3 hours and last for about 3 days:
-sweating
-nurvousness
-anxiety
-irritability & anger
-stiff joints & muscle pain
-lack of sleep
-depression
Continual exercise would only exasperate the conditions above with what I would describe as an almost compounding effect. In my case even fairly light exercise would lead to drastic changes in behavior.
Several years ago I tried to get an explanation but was constantly shouted down by the zealots professing how wonderful exercise and diet is. I took several tests to no avail. No amount of food, drink, or other healthy lifestyle changes have ever made any impact on reducing my symptoms. Simply put exercise in any form is pure poison to my system.
I should probably mention that I was tested at one point for hypoglycemia but unfortunately that did not turn out to be the culprit. My wife’s pleading finally got me to give up attempting exercise as the behavioral changes were just too drastic in nature and were going to get me fired at work. Fortunately I’m in good health with weight in check.
Final thought… I do realize that exercise is good in most people. My wife for instance gets all of the benefits of exercise plus a behavioral boost… like a “runner’s high”. In my case however exercise sends me like clockwork “through the roof” into a violent near non-functional state. As an engineer I wish I had a solution but unfortunately I’ve yet to find a cause.
Guys It is such a relief to hear you all have the same problem as me. I am 34 years old and I am dealing with depression since ten years ago.
Before that I was doing exercise regularly and feeling prefectly ok
After a preiod of depression and using anti-depressands, I realized that whenever I am in a depressed mood, I cannot exercise. I have explained this to several neurologists and physicians and none of them really belive me. They think that I am inculating this to myself. Now I see that I am not alone. Why so many people have this problem and physicians don’t bother to study this issue ?
Is there anybody here who does NOT have Anxiety problem and just depression ?
i currently get the same thing.
one of my theories is that the Hipothalimus in some people is overactive causing a response to exersice that is over sensitive to cortisol production.
this can be due to either stress induced maladption of the hipothalimus or from an oversensitive hipothalimus.
closing the HPA feedback loop through medication (lexapro) helped me in the past
but would only be a solution for some. i also went on a low GI diet. got rid of sugar from my diet. and halved the amount of stress that i was under.
this respons to exercise seems to effect 2 different subgroups, one being people experiencing or (vulnerable to) effective disorders. the other being people who only experince depressive/anxious response after excercise.
the most likely specialsit to identify a solution would not be a GP. more likely an endocrinoligist.
on the website ” stop the thyroid madnes” they list “debiltaing response after excercise” may worth a look for some.
i found in the past dealing with my deprssion and anxiety was enough, but took some time.
interstingly under high stress when i exercised i would feel calm to begin with but would develop panick attacks and insomnia. as my stress improved it went to feeling depressed for a while , as things improved more i found it was more being irratable, and then went away alltogether i ended up racing endurance events when i recovered, so mine seems to be related to where i am at with a reactive depression. so the end of my rant is i would try
-lowering stress threshold ( the addition of increase in excersice produced cortisol to circulting cortisol levels may be enough to trigger a breakthrough episode of anxiety or depression)
-investigating thyroid health
-blood sugar management
-trying the suggested holy basil
-getting help with any depression anxiety
-talk to an endocronologist
-setting up a damn fine sleep hygene practice
-dont give up
cheers
Wow! I am so relieved to have found this. When I was younger, I was very active and got all the positive effects of exercise. I am now 35. But that has changed. I feel great during exercising and immediately after. But within a few hours, I am depleted and depressed. Being physically tired is expected, but not depressed, gloomy and angry. The worse part for me is that exercise starts to cause insomnia (even when I work out first thing in the morning). Like someone above mentioned, I end up waking up within 3-4 hours of going to sleep and can’t get back to sleep (but am exhausted). With a few nights of this accumulating, I end up plunging into a terrible depression and become very irritable as well. I don’t suffer from anxiety or depression normally.
A naturopath I saw suggested exercising (running) at a lower intensity (I use a HRM) and see how it goes. Does the intensity of the workout make a difference to others?
I’m so glad to have found this, and so distraught by the lack of information on this out there. The most fascinating thing I’ve read so far by a previous poster is the idea that extended, intense aerobic exercise is not natural … we’re more made for small bursts all day long. Interesting.
I tried Lexapro. I gained 34 pounds and completely lost my sex drive, and my blood sugar skyrocketed. And it did nothing for my depression. It consistently takes me 48 hours to recover from the blues and fatigue and poor sleep caused by vigorous exercise. As long as I don’t exercise, I’m okay. I agree with you all when you suggest giving up exercise and simply remaining active. I’ve found that a 30-minute walk is tolerable, but nothing more than that. I think going to see an endocrinologist is a great idea. Obviously something is awry here, and it’s not in our heads.
I’ve been trying to get answers for this problem for the past 15 years, from my early twenties when i noticed that I get all angry and moody after exercise. the only thing I got was some thing called post traumatic stress injury which had the same symptoms that I was searching at that stage, it was one study about the soldiers who came back from the Gulf War 1 and their “weird” reactions to the usual treatment of post traumatic stress syndrom which would be exercise, sleep and carb diet, they got worse so this new term was inveted and it suggested that the soldiers experienced an injury to their nerve system and that something else should be done to help them, I never saw anything else published on the net about this, but maybe somebody knows about this? I do not suffer from anxiety nor depression but I had a very bad time when my parents got divoced when I was 5, that was in 1975 and at that stage there was no help for children when their whole world come down crashing down due to such an event, i did not realize that it could have such an effect on me untill I read that publication in 1995, it helped to know where i got the symptoms from but to this day I’ve yet to find a “cure”. I will try the tea and I’ve also heard that it is better to exercise in the morning, I’ll try that too.
I had written once before about 50 comments ago. I thought I’d send an update. I used to have major issues with crashing/depression in the afternoons after working out in the morning. I had just started at the gym about a year ago and it took me a many months and doctor visits to get it under control. The most important change for me was having a muscle milk immediately after working out. It replaces some of the nutrients/glycogen that has been taken from your body during the workout. Also, I started on a low dose of Lexapro. I don’t believe this was a normal depression–I’ve had two fairly major ones in the past. I do think I am prone to them and have an anxiety problem and when I would start to crash I would start obsessing and make everything that much worse–and let me tell you the crashes were severe.
I am feeling so much better. I know that when I start to feel any crash coming on I immediately have a juice box (which I keep around for such times–which occur very rarely now)and within 15 minutes or so I’m feeling better.
I love strength training so much I am now actually studying to be a personal trainer. I believe that you can work exercise into your life but you have to find what works for you. If you can’t do regular cardio, try doing circuit training (one exercise after the other) with light weights at first. This will give you a cardio workout as well as develop your muscle endurance. If you can’t do this without episodes try some simple stretches and light walks. Anything that gets your body moving. It doesn’t have to be formal exercise and can be broken up into 3 or 4 ten minute bouts a day.
As I am learning exercise is so important and can help you in your daily life and as you age and can actually reduce your risk factor for many diseases especially cardiovascular.
It is important to eat healthily before and after working out. You should actually make sure to have enough carbs within 30 minutes after working out and again every two hours through the end of the day. Just make sure that they are healthy carbs and not just simple sugars. Also, have a lean protein along with the carbs. Peanut butter crackers, apples with peanut butter, etc. are good ideas. And be sure to drink plenty of water.
If anyone is interested I can give you more information. I am studying more about nutrition and how the body uses glucose/glycogen to fuel many of your workouts. If you don’t replenish the stores you will have problems. Your brain can only use glucose as energy (not fats/proteins) so if you are not replenishing your stores it will affect your moods, etc.
I hope this helps someone in some way. If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to try to answer them.
I just wanted you to know that I have gotten through this and hope that you all will as well.
Take care.
I feel the same way, it seems to make nooooooooooooooooooo sense. All the negative thoughts flood in right afterwards. Any negative thoughts I had repressed earlier throughout the day come flowing in. It may have to do with supplementation. I take lots of vitamins and protein shakes and whatnot but nothing crazy, more vitamins than anything. What does help is something I noticed earlier in this thread, that if you take a step back and say “look at all the great things in my life!” You’ll feel better, you’ll realize that the good really does outweigh the bad. People who truly care about their health (like the people on this forum) generally are very self critical, sometimes too much. Just take a step back, some deep breaths and realize what is good and sometimes you get a huge boost afterwards.
I’ve had the same problem for many years – in my case it went all the way into bedridden chronic fatigue, for which I have been prescribed sleeping pills, anti-depressants and HRT – none of whch made any difference.
Through huge effort it is now ‘merely’ this problem of exercise making me feel dreadful, brain-dead, irritable, flat for several days after, despite the exercise itself being exhilarating (and not at all exhausting).
I was diagnosed (through cortisol saliva tests) as having low cortisol output. As I understand it, cortisol is responsible for blood-sugar regulation amongst other things. So, I see my energy problems as like having a faulty recharger, far too slow to replace used energy and leaving me in danger of hypoglycemia for days.
I too had the unexplained anger and irritation, sometimes for days at a time. I think it was my body producing adrenaline or epinephrine in an attempt to substitute for the cortisol to bring my blood sugar back up. It worked, but with a side-effect of wholly targetless feelings of fight-or-flight.
The issue of negative feelings, stress etc is a tricky one. Undoubtedly they cause problems when extreme or chronic. However, it must be understood that wayward hormones can induce negative feelings that have absolutely no root. I spent hour upon hour therapising myself for negative feelings, and not able to find any real ones (beyond ‘life is impossible, woe is me’, which just appeared out of nowhere) – or simply finding that I was responding to situations with stress that I would normally barely have noticed. And I am talking about dropping pencils here, as well as conflict situations.
I’d have to say I would get extremely irritated (genuinely this time) with people who persisted in thinking I was some kind of Victim, when I knew how very hard I had worked on caring for my body, my nutrition, my emotional health – with so little result.
I’m glad (as far as it goes) to hear that men are experiencing this too – perhaps now the doctors will stop dismissing it as menopause…
This is great! For the first time I looked up exercise caused depression. I have been training in karate for a long time. I do have a low level of depression that started before my training. On days following training, I feel a little out of it and depressed. I start to question if my job is really what I want to be doing, etc. I have these thoughts on too many days. Early on I recognized the link and know that more sleep helps. Reading a lot of the postings here, I have to parrot what everyone else is saying. I am glad I am not the only one. I will definitely try a sports drink that has carbs and protein following my training. I do not know much about cortisol but I will look into that as well. Thanks for all the comments. Good luck to all who are just starting to tackle this problem.
I thought I was having a nervous breakdown. Twice in the last week while exericising I felt a terrible sense of sorrow and teariness for no reason. When I left the gym yesterday, I started crying and could not stop. I’m relieved to know its not uncommon and that I some options to check out. Anyone have any websites with more info on this?
There is quite a good article at: http://style.uk.msn.com/getfit/sportandexercise/article.aspx?cp-documentid=10033578
Personally I would be wary of ‘punishing’ yourself in the gym – particularly if you’ve been going less regularly. Sudden, intense exercise is quite hard on your body I think.
Wow James, thanks for the article. Do you know when this was published?
The author wrote about the brain using only glucose as energy. This is almost verbatim to what I wrote(see comment 106).
Also, she references Muscle Milk which I mention as well.
(she mentions that excess protein can be stored as fat–in actuality any excess calories (more than your body burns for energy) can be converted to fat including those from carbohydrates).
Just curious!
Joanne
I wonder if you can confuse being tired and sore with depression. I think when you first start out exercising at set times and sticking to it; it can get a little overwhelming and exhausting. But eventually, your body catches up to you and that’s when the good endorphins start to work and you are happier.
Use a heart rate monitor. When I exercise for 30 minutes in the range of 130 beats per minute, I feel amazing after my exercise. However, if I do intervals and end up getting bpm up to 155 or higher several times during the workout, then I am completely exhausted and depressed for a couple days afterward. I’ve found that moderation is the key to getting my endorphins. Sometimes when I’m exercising, I’m tempted to push harder, but I ALWAYS regret it. Hope this helps.
Well thank God I’m not crazy! I’m really trying to lose weight and I’ve gone from nearly zero exercise to nearly an hour every morning of intense running up hill. I feel fine when I’m doing it and felt fine the first couple of days but 2 weeks in I just feel confused and depressed. Everything is irritating me and I’m so demotivated. I’ve also found that I’ve become more accident prone and I often can’t sleep properly. I’m so happy it’s not just me. I’ll make sure I drink more water and eat more as suggested. Maybe vitamin tablets will also help.
Thanks
For the past 10 years exercise has aggravated my depression. Over that time I’ve asked 3 psychiatrist and 3 family doctors about this and none of them had ever heard of anything like this. I still don’t have an answer, however, I did print this forum and took it to my current psychiatrist yesterday. He had previously sent me for a glucose test (results were normal), however, now after reading this forum he believes that my norepinephrine level is not recovering fast enough after exercise. I’ll see him in a few weeks to see what he proposes as a possible solution.
Here are some more details:
I am a 45 year old male in generally good health. I have been on SSRIs since the late 80s when I first was diagnosed with depression, OCD and an anxiety disorder.
I was fine on the SSRIs and could exercise, get the endorphin high and would feel fine although they did cause me to gain some weight.
About 10 years ago I started to scuba dive. After one dive (well within time and depth limits, ie no bends) I woke up that night shaking, feeling like sea water was running though my veins and feeling very anxious. I went to Emergency and after a quick look I was sent home and told to get some rest. My heart rate was very high for about 2 days afterwards. I did not miss any work and slowly felt better but have not been the same since.
Ever since that incident I have not been able to drink alcohol or do any strenuous exercise without my head falling apart afterwards. I don’t have a better description of what I mean by ‘falling apart’, however, it could be described as a major depressive episode. At the same time I get cravings for hamburgers, omelets and french fries. I usually recover in a day or two.
The adverse effect seems to be related primarily to the level of excersion rather than the exercise duration. I don’t even bother to trying to run but I can walk and do mild physical work (eg light gardening) for about 2 hours without feeling too badly. I replaced a fence post last year which required about half an hour of heavy digging – that really hit me hard.
So, those are briefly the facts about me and my experience.
That is all for now. I’ll leave another comment after I see my psychiatrist and see what he proposes for testing his idea about the norepinephrine.
I’ve seen about a half dozen therapists over the years, and we “talked” my depression to death, without any kind of improvement. I also took every kind of antidepressant known to man, also with zero results. During this time, I was a regular exerciser, and I just didn’t want to recognize that my workouts were causing my distress. It flew in the face of everything the experts were saying. But after charting it out, the pattern was undeniable: workout, get depressed. Interestingly, though, whenever I get a solid night’s sleep, all my “troubles” miraculously vanish, and I feel on top of the world. So sometimes I do a little sleep restriction regimen to make my sleep deeper. There’s some great data out there showing that this can do great things for not only sleep but mood. Although I’ve found it can backfire at times, when it works, it works stunningly well, and I’m the very picture of mental health. Talk therapy will not help me. A good night’s sleep, on the other hand, does wonders.
Sleep? What’s that? I generally have a choice between an all-night hypoglycemic sweat-fest, or a ‘can’t get to sleep it’s like someone injected me with caffeine’ one.
Hi guys,
I am new to this forum exercise.about.com and hope that somebody can
give me an advice on the forex – I am looking for an introduction
for noobs. I have already some knowledge about shares. (Hope this is the fitting category.)
Any help is so much appreciated. Most important question: can a noob make money on the forex exchange market?
Thanks,
Jim
Wow, I’m not alone!
This is so amazing to find. People always look at me like I’m mad when I tell them I don’t exercise because I suffer from post exercise depression. This started when I was very young – I used to always cry after swimming and didn’t know why. I just felt so awful. Unfortunately my 12 year old son seams to have the same symptoms as I do. He feels sick and cries and wants to curl up and hide away from the rest of the world because he feels so bad after he’s done some particularly hard exercise.
I’m glad I found this blog. Well over 100 comments over two years should say it all.
I am a 40 year old man, formally obese (since I started drinking beer at 18), now I am fairly lean. I had been on a fairly intense exercise routine (mostly spinning) for about 16 months and had no problems at all. Then all of a sudden I became very lean and my weight loss was out of control. This is the point in my life when everything changed.
It’s a long story, but in a nutshell I spent this last summer with little cardio, much more strength training, and much more nutrition (3500 calories/day). The deperession had been with me all summer long.
About a month ago I had a Dr. visit and the blood pressure was high, all other blood work was normal. At this point I started more cardio, although not as intense as before, and significantly less strength training. This resulted in much better stress management, lower blood pressure, and much less frequent depression symptoms.
Yesterday I went to the gym with the intention of doing some intense strength training, and then I was having a little fun on a new cardio machine, so it got a little intense also. I spent about 2-3 hours at the gym really working hard. Then I spent the evening on the couch with intense depressive feelings. This just sucks…..
I ate a lot of carbs/protein/fat before and after the workout, so I’m not sure the nutrition itself is such the problem as is the speed of nutrition replenishment.
I can’t give up the gym, there are too many obvious benefits, but I think I need to find the right intensity/duration/rest day combo to make the depression go away. This is going to be difficult as my weight loss made me very weak and I really want to be strong.
My end goal is to be able to ride my bike 60 miles/day for 5-7 days so I can go on some adventure trips while I am still young and able. Not going to the gym is not an option. I must find a way to alter my routine.
I find it interesting that a lot of people in this forum are describing themselves as lean, semi-athletic, adventure types. This may be an important common thread.
Might want to think about having your blood sugar tested. You’d be surprised.
I am so happy to see that there are people having the same problem. I have been experimenting and it seems that the exercise leads to depression and a bad sleeping pattern, then to anxiety, and finally panic attacks. When I am working out I find that I can not push myself to the limit anymore even if I feel great because afterward I will get feelings of slight depression. I really feel sorry for elite athletes with this condition it is no fun at all.
I’m really glad I found these posts. I’m another who was basically told he was nuts by a variety of doctors. I used to be fairly active and I’ve always have a positive blood lust for exercise. About 10 years ago (age 35 now) I started to feel “bad” the day after exertion and difficulty sleeping. This turned into a couple of days of depression, anxiety, confusion and brain fog. As I suspect the people on this list know well, it was pretty terrible, especially since I was programed to exercise to get rid of those sensations. Well, after several dozen intermittent attempts it was clear: I felt significantly better mentally after now exerting myself physically. It has now gotten to the point that I avoid exercise all-together. I know longer run, lift, cross-country ski, do pushups, etc. A sad existence. I’m basically relegated to arm rotations and 20 yard jogs in the park. I’m careful not to break a sweat. After fairly exhaustive research and questions, I’ve had a couple of pros tell me that it’s either liver related (which I suspect) or thyroid. This was interesting to hear, because 1) my mom had Hashimoto’s, and 2) I’ve just recently and by chance found out that sometimes have a slightly higher elevated level of two enzymes in my liver; indeed, my symptoms are much worse if I’ve been drinking alcohol in close proximity to the exercise event. Apparently some people’s livers are overtaxed by exercise and cannot as quickly/efficiently provide the chemicals to form the positive neurotransmiters (GABA, dopamine, etc). While all the nutrient-dosing theories may link to this, I am convinced that there has to be some physical basis why most others do not have this problem. A cup of tea with a heaping tablespoon of honey mitigates the symptoms if I drink it after. In any case, I just wanted to say thx to everyone that has posted, and don’t give up.
I am so happy to have found this discussion…. I have this exact same problem, except I am younger than most people who have posted…
Here’s the important parts of my issue:
Age – 22, Female
-I have always been 10-20 pounds overweight for my height, but never obese
-I have been lethargic all of my life… not really lazy, but I just have a very slow metabolism (100/60 blood pressure, heart rate 60-70 resting). (got a thyroid blood test last year, but they said everything was normal)
-I have never had this problem until this year, after I graduated college and got a lab job… I used to do moderate excersize in high school and never had a problem (marching band… it’s not like soccer, but it’s a work out in itself).
-I am not stressed at all, compared to college, I am now carefree.
-I have not drunk any soda for 3 years, and have a relatively healthy, however probably not balanced, diet. Probably don’t drink enough water… don’t eat breakfast because lack of appetite, and if I do eat it makes me starvingly hungry by 10:30
- I DO drink coffee… 3-6 cups a week.
So in June, I decided to join Curves, for women (30 mintue circuit training developed for women who want to loose weight). It’s now January, and long story short, I had to stop working out (last time was September) because it changed my mood SO horribly afterwards, it absolutely ruined my day. I tried to start up again and again, but I just couldn’t do it more than two weeks in a row, simply because it made me angry and exhausted the rest of the day and days afterwards. Monday, I’d start off the day great, feel good, then work out after work, and it would ruin my entire week.
After reading everything here, I am going to try a few things:
-slow, not so intense workouts (walking, low intensity strength training, tennis with friends) with frequent breaks
-taking vitamins every morning: Multivitamin, as well as Calcium, Vitamin D, and Iron supplements. (read up on Vitamin D… deficiency causes a lot of seemingly unrelated symptoms)
-Eating immediately after my workout
-Drinking more water (this is going to be hard… I hate water…)
I am going to stick with my diet… like I said, it isn’t too bad, but I will watch what I am eating… not so many empty carbs or sugars. I have cravings a lot, mostly for either something salty or something sweet, and I won’t stop eating until I get it… so I have to stick with my cravings. Maybe the vitamins will lessen the cravings… who knows.
Thank you, everyone, so much. This has given me hope, and a lot to think about, but mostly motivation, because it’s not just me.
Wow! Great site. I too wonder why doctor/investigators haven’t taken this topic more seriously.
Over the past three weeks, as I’ve increased my exercise regimen I’ve also tried a switch from Cymbalta to Paxil. Wrong choice! Paxil has given me bad dreams, fatigue, and worst yet, ungratifying orgasms. I’m back to Cymbalta as I write this comment at 3:11 in the morning. The only tradeoff I expect is that my anxiety might return, which is the orginal reason my doctor wanted me to try Paxil.
Personally, I’m not sure if I really have a social anxiety problem. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion I don’t like being in crowds because, for the most part, I don’t like people. I’ve had a hard time squaring this with my newfound profession, surgical technician, which requires caring for people. But I’ve learned that ” not liking people in crowds is one thing”, caring about and even being able to love an individual who is sick is another thing. Secondly, the “crowd” of co-workers one encounters in the OR is, in the aggregate, a high IQ crowd. This makes them much more tolerable.
The final solution for me is to find the right women. I hope this doesn’t sound petty or obtuse to this crowd. Having sex in the context of love and intimacy with a women I’m truely attracted to will vaporize my social phobia’s and make me soar. The problem is my high standards for physical attractiveness. Just as so many people think this topic (exercise-induced depression)is for a bunch of crazies, so most people think that those who pursue physical attractiveness first, followed by “what’s inside” is the sign of someone with a characterter flaw, personality disorder, or simply someone who is shallow. But I digress.
Getting back to the topic, I think there is something to the comments people have made about cortisol levels and proper functioning of the pituary/hypothalmus glands. For the guys out there, I wonder what happens to testosterone levels after exercise and if this could explain post-exercise depression syndrome. Of course, that doesn’t help the girls, or does it? Women produce testosterone too.
I would be willing to bet my left foot that most of these people wouldn’t feel any sort of depression if they followed a healthy diet. They should be eating 45-60minutes before working out and again within an hour after working out. A king size Snickers bar doesn’t count as a meal either.
Well Skuzzy,
To make such a blanket statement while offering up a body part is so kind of you.
Most of these people are trying to lead a healthy and active lifestyle and you are inferring that they eat junk all day.
I’ve battled this problem, eat no simple sugars(haven’t had a snickers bar in a year and a half), exercise regularly, eat well-balanced meals and small healthy snacks to maintain my blood sugars, eat before and after working out (but not the time frame you mention–that’s not quite right), am now a certified personal trainer and on occasion still have crashes when I put too much stress on my body.
You should eat a healthy meal (high carb/protein but not simple sugars) before working out but it should be within 2-4 hours of working out–if you eat a regular meal within 1 hour out you are most likely going to have gastric distress. If you have to eat closer to the workout, it should be something such as a meal replacement shake or something easily digestable.
You should also eat a carb/protein snack within 30 minutes after working out–to maximize glycogen replacement–not one hour.
I hope you never have to face such issues–I also wonder why you ended up on this forum?
Ha ha, yes, some people just don’t get it. Let’s save our energy for those that do.
I’ve just been to the doctor for yet another hospital appt, after HRT made no difference, and any exercise still knocks me out for days.
I showed him these comments and had to emphasise heavily that this is not an average, passive population, but a set of highly motivated people. That in itself should make it something worth studying. I’m looking for some curiosity from the endocrinologists, not just a repeated “you don’t have Addisons so you’re okay”, or an implied “you’re probably over-emotional” [have they MET me?!].
Is it time we banded together and forced the issue?
Penelope did your doctor tell you anything? I really think more research money should go into brain research and discovering how to treat human behavior problems. Problems such as this are terrible.
I am going to try the holy basil. I tried the omega fats before and they did nothing. I actually felt a little weird when I tried them. I will report back with my findings.
1) I’d like to correct a mistype in my post a few back: it should, of course, read: “I felt significantly better mentally after NOT exerting myself physically.”
2) Skuzzy is an ideal example of the ignorance that has contributed to where I am now. I do not limit this to laypeople, which, for all’s sake, I hope that she is. A lack of insight and/or a lack of inclination to delve below the surface of these symptoms are a very worrying problem in this ara.
3) I tried various omega-3’s but they all actually made me feel worse. Sometimes much more so. The salmon oil especially, cod liver oil less so, while flax was bearable.
Everyone is talking about a problem not about a solution.Is there any medicine or other way to get cured pleaseeeeeeee ???????
This is me to a T, can’t believe that there are other people out there like me, as it goes against all the advice about how good exercise is for you.
I am 31 and for the last 10 years have suffered with anxiety and depression to varying levels, taking medication on a couple of occasions (Zoloft and Prozac). I am currently taking prozac and have been since September, which does help, but have also really cut down on the amount of exercise i do (three times a week an hours walk) and wonder whether the fact that i feel better is more connected to the correlation between exercise and feeling terrible.
Last year i started jogging and didn’t realise at the time, but think this is possible why my anxiety got increasingly worse and i ended up on medication. The doctor put this down to looking after too small children and getting tired out, but i don’t believe it is just this. Even my doctor told me that exercise was a good thing to do and helped with anxiety, when my husband and Mum have been telling me the opposite applies to me for years. Last Thursday i did a fast hour power walk that i havent done in ages and i suffered Friday, Saturday, Sunday as a result. Brain fog, lack of concentration, tiredness etc which leads to anxiety this got me thinking there must be a definate link between when i do exercise and how i feel.
My weight is fine for my age, if anything i seem to be able to eat well without gaining weight.
My family has a history of thyroid problems, but i have been tested and mine is fine. I am sure i suffer with reactive hypoglycaemia, i once had a boyfriend who was diabetic and my blood sugar was often very low, however i am not diabetic.
During my two pregnancies i have felt the best ever, which i also think is a little strange, maybe this is due to chemicals in the body that change etc
I love exercising nd find it very frustrating that i don’t seem to be able to do it without the after effects, starting a couple of hours later and lasting up to three days.
I am going to try the tea and sports shake to see if they make any difference. I also love yoga and touch wood have no problems after this.
It is a horrible thing to feel anxious and depressed for no reason when everything is good in your life, i started with this when i first started exercising on a regular basis, which only involved walking an hour a day, hardly excess!
Please keep me posted of any new revelations on this subject.
Lisa
Thank you all for your insite, I now know I’m not crazy, I love working out, and it is good while going, but boy can it really bum out your day, and those around you afterwards. I will be sure to try some of the above mentioned ideas and see if helps me any, would like to have a good day from start to finish, now that would be a real treat..LOL!
Thank you so much!!
So glad I found this site! I really thought I was alone with feeling rotten after excerise. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone!
As soon as the after-excerise exhaustion lifts (usually about 5 minutes) I become as depressed as hell and it doesn’t seem to shift until the nexy day. Whereas if I don’t work out I’m fine!
It’s horrible that other people suffer from this, but I’m so glad that I’m not alone. xxx
I am a twenty-year old female.
In my youth I used to lead a very unhealthy lifestyle. Fast foods, junk, and not enough of a balanced diet.
Luckily I smartened up and started to take better care of myself at 18, and I’ve slimmed down to a healthy, trim weight with nothing more than a better diet. I’m always on the move with college and my job, but I hadn’t decided to take up any form of extra activity until recently. I started some strength training workouts without much focus on cardio.
My fourth workout I decided to give the treadmill a longer go and I pushed myself harder than the rest, to the point where I threw up and had a fatigued night because of such. Quite distracted by the nausea I hadn’t focused on any depressive thoughts.
Today I decided to better prepare myself with proper nutrition before and after my work out, only for the onset of an unexplainable sadness and irritability a couple hours after. It’s lasted until this very post, although I’m now encouraged that I can change it.
I’m going to slow down my intense pace, look into buying muscle milk, start taking a proper daily multivitamin and fish oil supplement and hope for the best! I don’t want to feel like this again.
Thank you for all your posts, I read almost every one.
I am a Registered Dietitian who is pretty addicted to exercise. I do at least 60 minutes aerobic activity every day and weight lifting three times a week. I have also struggled with clinical depression for many years and always found exercise to be an absolute necessity for my mental health. When I stumbled on this site, however, I did start thinking that for the past few months I really hadn’t had that post-exercise high so I tried to pinpoint when I lost it. I’m pretty sure it coincided with the purchase of a new heart rate monitor that showed me I was only getting my pulse to about 75% of my maximum heart rate. Being pretty competitive and wanting to get the most bang for my exercise buck, I started pushing to get my heart rate up to 85% (sometimes greater). Bad move. After I read these comments, I decided to make myself keep it at 80% or less. Turns out my good feelings are back. (There have been no changes in my anti-depressant meds.) That’s not to say it will work for everybody since all our biochemistry varies a bit but I would suggest getting a reliable heart monitor with chest strap so you can see your average rate and compare how you feel with your pulse at 60%,70%,80%, etc. Oh, and in my professional experience, people who are meticulous about exercise usually educate themselves on proper diet as well – high fiber, complex carbohydrates, monounsaturated fats – but, just in case, make sure the person giving you diet advice has the proper credentials. It is illegal in most states for someone who is not a registered dietitian (RD) to call themselves a nutritionist but it still happens. Becoming an RD requires a pretty rigorous undergraduate program with much chemistry, biochemistry, physiology, etc. and post-graduate study which involves an internship. Many hospitals have outpatient dietitians with whom anyone can make an appointment and there are dietitians in private practice which you can find in the yellow pages. Check with your health insurance to see if nutrition counseling is covered. Sorry, didn’t mean this to turn in to an advertisement for the American Dietetic Association. I was grateful for the posts because I hadn’t even recognized I wasn’t getting the same benefits from exercise until I read them and I’m back to enjoying my endorphins!
This has been a lifetime question for me. My symptoms are heavy on the mood mostly the next day after an intense exercise routine. Through trial and error, I have found that caloric intake and everything else here is very important in recovery, but does not eliminate the brain fog. Quite the opposite for a while, but the body recovers properly at least. My theory to explain the effects on the mood is based on the depletion of the glutamine amino acid caused by the exercise and stress in general. This amino acid is also very important as “brain food”, regulating a number of things, including mood. I think that you are prone to feeling the negative impact on the thinking process after exercise if you start with low levels of glutamine in your body, maybe caused by daily stress and depression or genetic factors. Try some L-glutamine supplements and monitor the effects on your mood and your general post-exercise state. Good luck!
Is there annything the blessed internet can’t find? Like everyone else, most people think I’m either lazy or delluded. Used to be fairly athletic, but now after working out I have anxiety, depression (most symptoms) and brain paralysis, as I call it. Concentration and memory shot for 1-3 days. When I am relatively inactive I feel good. I was a child stutterer and during my symptom phase my stutter comes back, likely anxiety related. Tried a few anti-depresants, uppers, downers, but with only very small improvement. Docs now think it may be adrenal fatigue or some other organ-neuro chemical thing. But, no one knows. Wish I had one of those Dr. Bones body sensors
Tried supplements/vitamins galore, but same thing. I’ve given up on sports bec of the effects on work and personal life. Will continue looking and report any findings. Cheers.
I was chalking it up to burning fat (hopefully) and experiencing the hormones stored in fat. I seem to remember this coming up back (years ago) when aerobics first started. I find I really crave acidic food during this period, too. The other morning it was just o.j. and cherry tomatoes! It does eventually go away during the day for me. I also feel great during the exercise.
I tried the holy basil but it did nothing. However the holy basil caused my eczema to flair up. This is when I found out that using corticosteroids such a triamcinolone can only compound the problems of exercise induced depression and anxiety. These steroids in themselves may cause anxiety, confusion, and depression in addition to other side effects.
I was just reading Pate’s post up above and I also took the same liver enzyme test with the same results. I am starting to wonder if there is a connection like this with others in this discussion?
After searching the internet I found a condition called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that seems to mimic the symptoms that many of us are experiencing. The article discusses the impact of exercise and some information suggests limiting physical activity. Here is the link.
http://www.medicinenet.com/chronic_fatigue_syndrome/page4.htm#treatment
Thank you James for all of the information!
I’ve also included a link regarding hypoglycemia. Many of the symptoms are mood related! Hypoglycemia can show up hours after exercise.
http://www.hypoglycemia.org/hypo.asp
I’ve tracked my symptoms and find that I usually get the worst crashes after taxing my glycolitic energy system. If you are not familiar, this is the energy system that relies exclusively on glucose, the body’s usable form of carbohydrates which during exercise can come from either blood glucose or glycogen (stored carbs within muscle). The only form of food that can be used for this energy system are carbs–not protein or fat. This system is used during sustained high intensity effort lasting from 1-2 minutes.
As I’m typing this it is making total sense to me. As I’ve mentioned before, parts of the brain rely exclusively on glucose. This makes sense as to why many of the symptoms are mood related.
I actually had a pretty severe crash while training with the owner of my gym (who was the one that recommended the sports shakes that helped me immensily). He saw first hand that I couldn’t speak as coherently, started to get really emotional and physically couldn’t continue my strength routine. This was after beginning my routine (after warm up) with stair running, speed agility ladder and some lateral ice skaters over a box. We then moved on to strength moves and that’s when I started breaking down. I immediately had a Gatorade (which I normally don’t) and within 5-10 minutes started feeling a bit better. I did however crash that night and had residual effects into the next couple of days (depressed mood).
This makes sense too when Terry mentioned having symptoms when she increased her intensity into a higher heart rate zone. She is moving from the aerobic energy system (used during longer term, less intense exercise) into the glycolytic energy system.
I feel like I’m having some kind of breakthrough here but I’ll have to do further research.
The symptoms can come after longer, less intense exercise as well since your glycogen stores will be depleted eventually but higher intensity will deplete these stores much more rapidly.
It might help if people list what type of exercise and duration of exercise when they experience the symptoms.
As I mentioned, through eating properly before and after my workouts I have severely reduced my symptoms. After writing this I’m going to limit the time spent during the higher intensity phases.
As I mentioned, I am now a personal trainer and I LOVE my strength training. This does not seem to affect me if I eat properly (which I am thrilled about).
Sorry for the long-winded posts but I really hope that I can help someone to find a solution.
Joanne
By the way, last year I did go to an endocrinologist who was very sympathetic. The routine tests didn’t show anything unusual(tested my cortisol,fasting blood sugar, etc). Hypoglycemia is hard to diagnose however, unless you are tested while experiencing the symptoms. At the time that I saw her, she gave me a prescription to have that done but the labs were always closed when I did have sypmtoms (it was usually later in the day after exercising).
I had gestational diabetes and had been diagnosed (by a PA) with reactive hypoglycemia. My mother was diagnosed as well years ago when she fainted in church. My son has blood sugar issues with mood (unrelated to exercise) and like me has cut out deserts and simple sugars (hard to do for us sugar-holics) for over a year now. His moods have improved dramatically. He used to go into such a mood when his blood sugar dropped he was like a different person. Within 15 minutes of eating he was better.
We also both have ADD and I’ve had postpartum depression and overall anxiety disorder and am very affected by my menstrual cycle (wow I sound like a basket-case but I’m really a fairly productive, normal (whatever that means)person).
I wonder if it’s somehow all related?
Joanne
Hi all, I’m with you all on this. Cortisol is in one sense the culprit but it is only a reaction to excessive physiological stress of which hypoglycemia is indeed one cause but there are others-
Any deficiency – Borderline Iron status could be pushed into deficiency by heamolytic anemia due to running running( footfalls destroy red blood cells)- Iron has a major effect on serotonin uptake (tea drinkers beware).
Speaking of serotonin, the direct breakdown of serotonin and it’s precursors due to free radical damage (released by exercise induced damage) -apple juice is the quickest and most universally available means of rapidly correcting your antioxidant status but wholesale massive green veg intake would be better.
Calcification of the adrenals which can lead paradoxically to low cortisol under stress when increased cortisol is required ( cortisol is neccessary google addison’s disease), this is most likely due to poor vitamin k status and is gradually reversible with large dose vitamin k. – found in large quantities in the brassica family of vegetables.
Cortisol – both vitamin C and zinc reduce cortisol levels (the effect is mediated through their antioxidant potential (zinc is required to synthesize glutathione, the body’s primary antioxidant). Carbohydrates also reduce cortisol load.
Serotonin – trytophan and/or 5-htp are fairly easy to get your mits on, they are both precursors to serotonin although 5-htp is probalby more effective – contraindicated with SSRI use as together they can cause serotonergic syndrome.
Iron – If your a big tea drinker like me or you eat anything else with tannins in it try vitamin c to increase iron absorption with meals. iron supplements can constipate and again are contraindicated in people with haemochromatosis (an invisible genetic iron storage disorder.)
Regarding the question of age, some of this may be related to malabsoption as the intestines become less efficient with age – the amino acid l-glutamin can be absorbed and used directly by the intestinal villi for repair.
Other things to look into could be areas of local inflamation aggravated by mechanical stress. Inflamation like this can cause mild systemic cortisol elevation in which case glucosamine sulphate and or chondroition may help.
Regarding hypoglycemia you might look into high chromium foods or supplements – this is a gray area as far as i’m concerned although stress increases urinary chromium loss and it is directly implicated in blood sugar control.
For me personally Apple juice (nearly 2 litres a day) has gradually improved my situation.
- a synopsis of my investigation so far.
Be well
After reading more about chronic fatigue syndrome, I am fairly certain this is what I have. All the symptoms seem to be right on. This would explain why using some medications in the past worked but did not cure the symptoms.
Feb 04, 2009
I came across this blog website yesterday. If I did not know better I would have thought that I had written some of those blogs, because they mimic my life situation so much. To make a long story short I too get depressed after exercise. I am 55 years old, in good health, blood pressure is good, not diabetes and my asthma is well controlled. I have had this issue for I would guess about 10 years or so, maybe longer. For me exercise, can simply mean a very busy weekend, going places, doing things, having fun. I used to think it was because I had to go back to work on Monday that I was depressed for 2-3 days after. Come Wednesday, I would be feeling better so I believed I was looking forward to the following weekend. If I exercised or exerted myself during the week though, I would have the same problems. During these times I would eat chocolate and carbs, not want to talk to anyone, lathargic and feeling melancholy. I will have to agree that walking (not too much for me)does not seem to trigger an episode for me.
Many people have mentioned Cortisol as a factor. Cortisol is produced by the Adrenal gland. Curiously I used to take prednisone for a long time for asthma. It was a difficult time getting off this medication and I believe it left its side effects, but I am still grateful to be off it. I have found that Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5) over the years, since then, has helped with my energy level and mood. I usually take about 1,000 to 3,000 mg a day, sometimes more or less. I take other vitamins as well. I don’t think this vitamin (Pantothenic Acid) helps significantly with the issue of lethargy and depression following exertion.
Personally, I think one day medical science will understand more about how powerful the adrenal gland is and how much it influences us physically (and mentally.) I also know that other glands influence it’s function too.
In the meantime I am grateful for all your comments and think everyone is smart enough to know this means something.
Joan,
I read about prednisone and found that so of the side effects could be *
problems with your vision;
*
swelling, rapid weight gain, feeling short of breath;
*
severe depression, unusual thoughts or behavior, seizure (convulsions);
*
bloody or tarry stools, coughing up blood;
*
pancreatitis (severe pain in your upper stomach spreading to your back, nausea and vomiting, fast heart rate);
*
low potassium (confusion, uneven heart rate, extreme thirst, increased urination, leg discomfort, muscle weakness or limp feeling); or
*
dangerously high blood pressure (severe headache, blurred vision, buzzing in your ears, anxiety, confusion, chest pain, shortness of breath, uneven heartbeats, seizure).
I was using a corticsteroid and know for sure that I exhibited these side effect.
Hi I’m a male 49 and I have been feeling the same as mostly everyone on here with the after effects of exercise or any strenuous work for as long as I can remember. I have a few questions, do any of you have any reactions to calcium? I have in the past taken Tums for example and have had issues afterward of teary eyes and felt stressed? Has anyone built up their stamina with this condition to a point where you can stay healthier without over doing it? Can you think of other things that sets these feels off besides exercise? Thanks
This is absolutely fascinating. I have seen bits here and there on the forums when people ask this question but it really seems to be an issue. I would love to see more information on it. I feel for everyone that this affects. Feelings of depression are terrible. Good luck to you all.
I can not say that I had any adverse reactions to calcium. I am also exploring Adrenal Fatigue as well as a possible culprit.
Surprisingly, I have found that taking b vitamin complex and omega-3 capsules have helped with my energy levels and mental clarity. Lets see what happens when I start exercising again tomorrow.
I don’t actually have the depression but got exhausted from my exercise routine and couldn’t understand it (so I found this forum). Then I started sipping water all the time through the day. I actually drink lots of water but I would have a whole glass at once. When I made sure I had a steady supply of hydration, the exhaustion gradually went away! Maybe this is something else to try? Hope it helps.
Well I have been taking the vitamin b vitamins and omega 3’s and have noticed steady positive changes in my sleeping and after exercise state of mind. Could still be in placebo mode. I am going to up my physical exertion to see what happens. I will keep the updates coming.
Does anybody out there also have trouble with sleep? I’ve found a very strong correlation between poor sleep and exercise-induced depression. If I’ve slept deeply the night before, vigorous exercise will not trigger into depression. People with allergies and post nasal drip may have poor sleep and be unaware of subtle, intermittent airway spasms that stir them from sleep, sometimes dozens of times per night. It’s one more factor to consider.
The reverse can also be true. Vigorous exercise often deeply disturbs my sleep, especially if I’ve worked out heavily two days in a row.
Mark,
I will have trouble sleeping if I work out to much, nevertheless I have noticed that I am getting better sleep since starting the B vitamins and omega 3’s. I am ratcheting up my intensity today to include some mma and combat fit classes. I will report on my progress.
A comment to Joan (posting # 147)and to all who’s post workout “depression” that may be from hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) If you feel it may be caused from low blood sugar the best thing to do is see an endocrinologist for a 6-hour glucose tolerance test. NOT a fasting test. Fasting tests are inconclusive. The only way I was actually diagnosed with low blood sugar was through the 6-hour GTT. My sugar had dropped to 42 at my worst point during the test. I was very sick and weak at that point. I do have post workout “depression” and/or weakness/tiredness/crabbiness not to mention major hunger. The best thing to do is listen to your body and if you need to eat – then eat! If you don’t fuel your body with the proper nutrition (protein/good fats/carbs (–YES CARBS!!) it will take longer to recover and the longer you’ll feel down. More thoughts later. Good Luck..
Me: very fit (top 0.1%), well-balanced diet.
What aggravates depressive symptoms: not exercising. I want, and I’ve discovered, need to exercise to maintain overall happiness. If I go 2 to 3 day without exercise, I’ll be a bundle of tension and nerves. It often only takes a day without exercise to make me feel very down. I exercise almost every day and I love it.
The paradox here is that I sometimes get tension headaches and depressive symptoms right after exercising. It can happen within minutes or after half an hour or so. Overall, the benefits of exercise, generally feeling good, outweigh getting these episodes. I am very aware of how to treat my body, nutritionally, timing-wise, etc. If I have an intense cardio session, in particular, I often have a downer. Most frequently it’s been after fast-twitch sports like soccer, or a fast swim workout. I don’t know what it is that’s causing it. What I’ve found is that it helps to do the following things:
- stay on top of your responsibilities; i.e., the mental aspect. Reasoning: exercise whether you like it or not, is a predictable escape. After you’re done, there may be a subsconscious aspect that is triggered when your mind says “Shit, I’m back in the real world again”. I’ve learned to make it a priority to always stay on top of my bills, for example, keep my house clean and tidy up as I go. Keep your house in order!
- I’m very sensitive to sleep debt. I have to have the 8-hour minimum
- I avoid working out at night like the plague. It doesn’t make sense.
- I stick to morning/mid-day workouts as much as possible. Nothing after 6-6:30 pm on the whole.
- Eat well (balanced). Don’t overeat.
- Have a healthy social life or at least make more than a minimal effort if you have a packed work/exercise part of your life.
- Don’t drink too much alcohol.
- Stay hydrated.
- Don’t watch too much tv. Read more at night during the week or talk to friends/family.
- Stay positive throughout the day.
- I think there is a holistic (subsconscious, for some) mental aspect that has to be acknowledged.
One thing I’ve found funny is that miso soup often makes me feel great if I’m having a downer/tension headache.
I know what causes it with me. I’m very sensitive to shifts in serotonin and dopamine. (I take less than 1/100 the standard SSRI dose.) So, I run, and there’s a dopamine spike. This causes a rebound in serotonin and a subsequent drop in dopamine (those who know anti-psychotic medications will know the balance that serotonin and dopamine are in), and this makes me depressed.
I can make the depression remit immediately by taking some amantdine (a dopamine agonist).
I’d be interested to know if anyone else felt a remittance with the use of a dopamine agonist like amantadine or requip.
Also, if you get depressed *immediately* after exercise, try upping serotonin to keep it higher in the face of the dopamine spike after finishing exercise.
Fwiw, with me it’s very clearly not blood sugar. I know what hypoglycemia is like and this is hardcore depression 2 hours after exercising.
Also, to address another question that was asked, one of the major symptoms of depression is irritability.
I support the blood sugar theory. I exercise moderately most days – usually walking. My favourite form of exercise is swimming, but I have to be very careful because if I swim too long or too frequently I become depressed/anxious and get flu-like symptoms. I googled this today because I’m feeling it again, but I’m not exercising more than usual. My partner’s away so I’m eating less – too lazy to cook. For me it seems to be about energy intake/maintenance.
I experience exactly the same thing. Most of us seem to have preexisting depression/anxiety. So I would imagine it is a case of exercise imposing stress on the body and we are badly equipped to deal with stress.
I imagine the best cure is to start slow and work up to a manageable level. High intensity exercise is probably only for those with the genetics for it.
After all….back in prehistoric times we only broke a sweat when we were being chased by wooly mammoths. Luckily in the 21st century we don’t have that problem….so why would we want to stress our bodies in that way?
I think low intensity….exercise, a mild jog, yoga, swimming….is the best way to go.
That or progressive exercise working up slowly towards moderate intensity
Like countless others, I am so glad I found this site. I was just talking to my boyfriend about this issue, and really thought I was going nuts. I have never been a depressed person, and started working out religiously after the holidays. I am now experiencing pretty serious depression, and moderate amounts of anger (also not part of my regular personality). I take Omega oils regularly, it is obviously not helping. I am going to try Holy Basil, and will eat right after working out. I do have a very good daily diet, but do need to drink more water. I am keeping my fingers, and toes crossed for everyone.
There are probably several sub-groups within this thread. My reaction occurs 24-48 hours after exercise. It has to be different exercise, i.e. anything I do routinely is ok but if I try a different exercise using different muscles the depression sets in. The symptoms are depression, lethargy, mental fog, anger, and a touch of paranoia (cause of bad arguments). Had it all my life. Amazing to read the accounts above because I also tried all sorts of remedies and drew a blank with the medical profession. My solution is paroxetine. Found it myself and convinced sceptical doctors to prescribe it because it saved me a lot of grief. I guess it is possible that the paroxetine is masking the effects rather than curing the problem but I am just grateful for a way of avoiding the terrible consequences of living an active life. I am adding this comment in case it helps others with this variety of exercise induced depression / mental impairment.
I am 23, have had 2-3 episodes of depression in the past couple of years. Doing away without meds but have reqular sleep problems. I lifted some weights yesterday and then after a couple of hours felt like killing myself. Have been stuffing my self up with protein, carbs and sweet, not good though but just incase it can give a quick boost so I could study. Feeling really tired.
[Sorry for length, but I think it may hit some pts]
I’ve read these with great interest. Mostly same symptoms. I’m wondering if anyone has checked further into a testosterone/hormonal link. While I have the post-exercise depression and anxiety, I also have a very difficult time reading and writing; the more intense the workout, the harder to do for next couple of days. My handwriting is also noticeably sloppier, if I type, I make more typos, and my ideas are bland. Also, I have a more difficult time forming words orally and apparently my speech is less crisp. No joke, sometimes people ask if I was out late the night before. When I tell them I played basketball, they wink and laugh. Not so funny for me, but I don’t blame them. I’ve come to describe it as low brain energy, but honestly it feels like I’ve ingested some kind of poison.
I have to respectfully disagree with one of the posts above about forcing consistency with exercise. I’ve tried it and got so out of it that I couldn’t get myself to leave bed for two days. I used to be a decent and informed athlete and I know what it’s like to not have this problem and what good things consistent exercise can do. This is not it. Oddly enough, I actually get weaker and lose muscle tone the more days I do it and the following days are hellish; bad sleep, angry, depressed, etc. Feel like I’m all thumbs, physically and mentally. I’ve also tried the antidepressants but no improvement, and sometimes it’s worse.
I’ve read that this “issue” can be related to testosterone imbalance, which is causes or is caused by a problem between the left and right brain hemisphere’s, which, in turn, can cause depression, mood imbalance and concentration problems. Not sure, but could explain my problems in reading and motor function.
Here’s my layman’s theory, for whatever it’s worth: it appears that the level of testosterone, or whatever “problem chemical,” maybe cortisol or dopamine or serotonin or GABA or a combination thereof, properly rises after exercise, but then crashes the day after and then slowly regenerates to equilibrium level for the next couple of days. What this suggests to me is that whatever organ(s) are responsible for equilibrating that balance are not functioning properly. It could be liver, adrenals, thyroid, or ?. Now, many of the things I’ve read here and tried can and do help the regeneration process, such as carbs, vitamins and other supplements. But, while definitely worthwhile to an extent, I’d put them in the band-aid solution category. I’m very curious about the source problem. I’d compare it to a car having a small oil leak, and, indeed, pouring more oil into it will help, but it does not solve the cause. Like having an ulcer and just taking lots of antacids.
This to me is the most frustrating part, because, from all the sources I’ve checked into, the few that exist
, none seem to know what the cause is. I’ve actually been told by a physician, “well, just don’t overdo it then.” I practically went livid. My life is (in my opinion) sig impaired by this. If we were a more numerous patient base, or a squeakier wheel in one form or another, more effort would likely be put toward figuring this out. This is also true with other “misc” med problems, so that’s life and all we can do is hope for a solution. Sorry for the long post, but I’ve also suffered with this for the last several years and have had little outlet to discuss. “Glad I’m not alone” sounds cliche, but is apt here. Good luck and I will also report any further self experiments.
I am the same as most of you, I exercise, I want to cry, before, during and after. I have done the lots, little and none and experience the same thing except the none which makes me feel better because I don’t have as much to do. When I do exercise there are anger issues so I get that too.
What I don’t understand is you ask the so called “health care educators and professional” about this and they get angry with you. I have tried on numerous occasions to get answers to these questions and I keep getting, shut up and do it, go look for the answers yourself. Which obviously we all have and have found nothing except for the propoganda paid for by those with similar “positive” views of exercise and nutrition, then they only show one side of the story, they never tell you the adverse reactions or how many people didn’t get to partake in the study because they had symptoms like ours.
With medications, drugs, alcohol there are numerous studies about the good and and bad side effects of these. But with exercise and nutrition there are only studies about the benefits to those who have similar views, never anything about the negative reactions. (my own little paranoia/delusional way of thinking)
I have two more things that may be totally irrelvant but definitely relate to exercise with me personally; I’m curious if anyone else has these:
1) If I’ve been exercising, I feel really bad after a warm shower. The longer and the warmer the worse. It can actually get so bad that I have to lay down for a bit. Can feel extremely extremely weak physically and mentally.
2) I know this sounds nuts but green tea. I actually love the taste and feel good right after drinking it, but after a few hours and the next day I feel bad. The more I drink the worse. And, if I have been exercising, the feelings are multiplied. The only thing I’ve been able to find out is that it has a lot of flouride and that may affect some people via thyroid. May fit some symptom set.
I agree with Anthony P’s long post. I really want to know the cause of these symptoms. I know for me I recently had to begin taking more corticosteroids for my eczema and that caused a relapse in depression, anxiety, and fatigue. So my guess is that it has something to do with the adrenal, thyroid system. Also when I drink green tea the symptoms are allot worse. This affliction by far sets one back in many ways.
I was mainly good for many months until recently when I started doing speed/agility work and some reactive training. I drank toddler juice boxes during my workout (they have added water) to try to fend off crashes–in addition to eating properly before and after working out. I didn’t have the severe crashes I used to have but did have small depressive crashes that would clear up after a small glass of juice. I normally don’t do any simple sugars including juices. I still think it has something to do with my blood sugars. I think I will try to push for a 6 hour glucose tolerance test though even if it shows hypoglycemia I don’t know what I would do much differently than what I do now.
All I know is that this really stinks and I feel for everyone out there.
On my end I am going back to my old strength routine even though I really like the other workouts while I am doing them.
I wouldn’t do that to my clients (if they were having issues) so I have to stop doing it to myself.
Take care everyone.
I too suffer from post workout depression, the onset is usually between 2-3 hours afterwards and can last to up to 4 days.
I have been doing as much research on this as is possible considering the limited information on this on the web, and have narrowed the cause down to two theories…
1. Some sort of glucose problem, the symptoms of hypoglycemia seem to match perfectly with what happens after I exercise.
2. Cortisol. When we exercise our testosterone levels rise and as result our cortisol levels rise to match this, in turn reducing our testosterone after about an hour of working out. Cortisol as I’m sure you know is a lesser form of stress hormone necessary for our fight or flight response. when cortisol is released we can feel anxious among other things.
I have decided to take this problem by the horns and try a few things…
- Eat some complex carbohydrates before my workout and then immediately afterwards.
- Try holy basil.
- I have bought a cortisol blocker so I’ll see how that works.
- Drink more water.
I’ll report back on my findings and hopefully they will be positive. If they do work I’m sure you will agree that they are a fairly small price to pay to stop your week from being ruined by the very thing people tell us will improve it.
For good measure I thought I’d say, thank god I found this thread I thought I was the only one! Good luck to all of you in battling this rather obscure problem.
My case is similar to Anthony P’s:
Ten years ago, I used to be a good runner and I know how to slowly build up endurance. But if I exercise only moderately, I now feel terrible for 1-3 days: my mind is foggy, my speaking is sluggish, I feel depressed and anti-social. I feel great directly after exercising, but the depression reliably sets in the morning after. I can also trigger the same reaction by going to a sauna without exercising.
In the last years my cortisol, testosterone and thyroid hormones were regularly tested and were found normal. I even had two glucose tolerance tests which also were normal.
I don’t know what really causes this depression and I have not found a way to prevent it yet.
Has anybody considered histamine as a possible factor? There is exercise induced asthma. Perhaps histamine can trigger depression, too.
I’m glad I found this. I recently started back working out. I use to work out hard core when I was in highschool. Then I stopped for four years, now I’m 22 and started working out slowly but frequently and I was like “why have I been feeling empty or sad after I work out.” The feeling doesn’t last long but I know it is there. Then eventually it goes away. I don’t have any advice on what to do but just letting others know that I’m happy that I’m not alone cuz then I would think something is seriously wrong with me when it’s not.
Here is my recent update. I have continued moving forward with my intense mma workout routine. The omega 3’s have been good for the depression and anxiety I get from the exercise but the allergic reaction was to much. I am switching to black currant oil. Nevertheless, the b 12 has been a god send. It really limits the bad feelings. I am now looking for a supplement that contains strong b vitamins, and antioxidants,that do not interfere with my mood. I am starting to think that it is a concoction of essential supplementation that I am not getting that is causing this problem.
Really interesting article–might provide some clues:
http://www.drpodell.org/hypoglycemia_symptoms.shtml
Question: Does anyone experience depressive symptoms after drinking–especially beer & wine. I’m not talking about a large amount of alcohol which could be depressive to anyone. I’m talking about a glass or two of wine or beer.
I know this happens to me–I get pretty severly depressed.
Here’s an experiment:
When you start to experience symptoms–try a small glass of juice (such as orange juice, try to stay away from apple). Be sure to also have some protein with it, ie. nuts. Notice how you feel with 15 minutes or so. Are you feeling better? Try to record it as a number scale–10 being depressed 1 being o.k.
I know this has been working for me–I’d love to know how it works for others.
Can people report back and let me know how they feel?
I am very knowledgable about this subject. I notice a common theme here: After exercise, people feel worse than before. This is most likely due to a susceptibility to hypoglycemia, which is ‘low blood sugar’. I have had this for years and it is caused by an over-active pancreas which tends to release excessive insulin which then eats up too much suger in the blood. This is caused by eating sweets or not eating snacks often enough…at least 6 times a day, spread out over 2-3 hours each time. If you are careful to avoid sweets and anything with simple carbs, (such as white rice, white flour, plain pasta etc.) and instead have complex carbs (whole wheat bread or flour, brown rice, whole wheat pasta)this will allow for a slow sugar release, thus the insulin will be released slowly by the pancreas. Also, be sure not to over-exercise because this burns excessive sugar as well. Email me if you need more info.
tommybommys@yahoo.com
Tom
- I also feel terrible after sauna, smth I used to really enjoy after a swim.
- I also often felt depressed several hours or day after even 1-3 drinks. Hard time sleeping. If I got over-served, literally took several days to equalibriate. Had to stop bec wasn’t productive.
- I tried the hypoglycemic route a while back, but I recall not having pos results. Will revisit. I hate sweets; love protein. Carbs before or after help me recover a little, but core problem remains.
In fact, here’s smth odd that based on the above comments seems related, but oppositely: I feel really bad after oatmeal and brown rice, to varying degrees depending on I don’t know what. I’ve tried oatmeal with salt or with raisins and some honey, but cannot do. If I have brown rice for supper; next day I’m out of it. Tried dozens of times and same results. I’m starting to think I was a UFO child
yes, that is exactly what i am passing through,i feel that i had a target and i dont wanna be disturbed by anyone even if those are my responsability too like my husband and kids,so i became more nerveous moody,like if that i wanna focus and every single thing around me is disturbing me.but honnestly that s not right i must find someway to deal with both coze that s not there fault that i wanna reach my target .the point is that i totaly agree with you and i feel the same and i think the reason is that we feel that we had a responsibility to reach our target whish make us nerveous pressed.we act like if we will not let any external influence disturbed us over our target,so we becam defensive…this is my point of view i don’t know what u think?????
Crikey I cant believe i found this page, just wish i had time to read all of it. Im 35, male, recently been quite ill and diagnosed with Chrons colitis, lost 25 pounds in weight etc over 2 months (165 to 140lbs), now recovering well (thanks to being put on Prednizone, that i want off as soon as i can for the long term side effects). Anyway, i thought i would go back to playing badminton with friends, couldnt last the usual time due to still beign a bit weaker, just played 2 games, usually play 2 hours solid. Afterwards could not sleep at all then the next day was awefull, very depressed, hot and cold fluhses, sweaty, no concentration, even my boss was concerned as he could see it in me, just echos of what others are saying here really. Talking to my wife i realised ive always been down after exercise and always struggle sleeping afterward as well. She told me shes always called it my hump grump coz i get depressed after sex (surely thats not supposed to happen eh!) this last time at badminton , I assume, was a lot worse than normal because im not fully recovered from the bout of illness and the stress of exercise had more of an effect on my body than if i had been fit. Im so glad i found everyone on here in the same situation, as I was (as an engineer
as someone else said) analyzing it with conventional knowledge and getting turned upside down when the answers came out backward!. Im going to monitor this page and try some of the suggestions Fish oil. B12 etc and will post my thoughts / conclusions when i have something worth saying. If anyone wants to ask me anything just post.
Bless you all
i too feelthis way, although i thought it was because i am going through menapause, and it is hell. also i don’t look the way i think i should after working out,which discourages me and then the depression sets in. so maybe the depression can also be caused by our expectations. GG
I have the same issue with exercise. I also get the same problem with oatmeal that someone else mentioned – crushing exhaustion after eating it. It’s a nasty fatigue – like one you would get with a flu. I’ve tried to figure out why – thinking it’s a gluten issue or hypoglycemia or a type of starch that causes it or an intolerance to oatmeal…I can get the same effect to a lesser extent with quinoa and buckwheat. Also, honey, dates and high fructose vegetables and fruits (but not HCFS soda) will give me that same fatigue, with a little hypoglycemia thrown in. I’ve always had problems with breakfast since I was kid. I’d be out of it for most of the day if I ate it… a more protein heavy breakfast could somtimes not work but sometimes not. So I solved this by skipping breakfast and not eating for 8 hours after awakening. Of course that has its own problems.
Interesting article about glycogen replacement…
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/nutrition/a/aa081403.htm
Just a quick update on some cursory research I’ve done on something called “late-onset hypoglycemia.” While many of the things fit the pattern see here, some do not. As a preface, apparently hypoglycemia does not have to be related to a diabetes type and can occur as a symptom to other physical issues.
One thing that does fit well is that the effects occur 4-48 hrs after exercise. Also, carbs and such do help with the symptoms, sometimes to a decent extent, and hot showers and saunas do appear to have an effect on insulin.
One of the ones that does not fit is that the articles suggest that the problem occurs if there is a sudden increase in intensity or length and, importantly, that consistent exercise will alleviate the symptoms and is recommended. This unfortunately is the direct inverse in my case and some of the others here and the main problem. While a relative increase in intensity does increase intensity of symptoms, even minimal amounts of exertion over gradual time still have some effect. I wish this were not the case, bec I’d have this covered. I do not say it’s not hypoglycemia, only that if it is, it’s not the type commonly discussed.
My plan at some pt in the future is to step into the abyss yet another time for experimental purposes in this context. I’ll exert myself for a couple of days in a row and then get tests done for anything related to hypoglycemia, thyroid and liver. Will report.
Glad that I found this website!!! I thought that I was crazy too!!! This started happening to me after I had a bad reaction to thyroid medication. I was taking Armour and they ran out of my dose, so they switched me to the generic. It caused major problems and this was one of them. I also became hypersensitive to medication. Tylenol makes me dizzy, sick to my stomach, and immediately tired.
I have tried the experiment of exercise. After 20 minutes of exercise this happens about 4-8 hours later. It feels like a chemical depression, very bad and to the point I can’t even sleep…..
I have done some research as well and think that it has something to do with a depletion in the adrenal gland. Possible cortisol. I talked to my regular doc about this and she didn’t have a clue. She just offered a perscription for an antidepressant. I am planning on speaking with my endocrinologist at the end of this month. I trust him to help me because he has done a lot for me so far. I am going to show him this chat room and maybe he’ll have some ideas. I will post an update after I talk to him.
Like many of you, I am so glad I found this site. I, too, thought I was the only one in the world who suffered from this.
I have never had a good history with exercise. I always hated sports; gym class was my least favorite class in school. And I never liked playing outside, especially running games like tag. I preferred to sit inside and read or work on a jigsaw puzzle or play board games – things I still enjoy much more over sports! In the past I was involved in karate, but I do not take that right now. About the only thing I’m interested in being involved with at the moment is bowling.
I am an administrative assistant and thus have a “sedentary” lifestyle. I started doing pushups a couple of months ago and feel rotten after each session (I only do 70-80 per day right now but my goal is 100 per day).
To be honest, I only do them because I want to take better care of my physical body and everyone says it’s good to exercise.
My friend insisted that it takes “a week or so” to get used to it, and then you actually start feeling GOOD afterwards. Unfortunately, that has not happened yet. I still feel terrible.
I have always felt this way, even as a kid, as I said earlier. It is not too different today. It peaked in 2003 when I was a senior in high school I had gone through major surgery in Dec 2002 and was off gym for six glorious weeks, but when I came back and played something I wanted to bawl.
I think, like many of you here, that this is linked to depression. I have always had depression, as far as I know; but unfortunately it was untreated. (My family is the type that believes depression is all in your head, etc.) And so, I still don’t like being active.
I think something that makes things worse is something that almost all of you have been saying: most people don’t suffer from this, doctors aren’t trained to treat it (and most haven’t heard of it), and 99.9% of sites, blogs, and instructors will tell you that EVERYONE feels better after exercise.
I can’t say I feel rotten during exercise – I generally don’t, unless it’s running or something. But afterwards, definitely. In fact, the reason I dug up this site was because I thought I was going insane: I felt terribly rotten after a really, really fun night of bowling last night.
I remember my gym teacher telling all of us that EXERCISE will release HAPPY HORMONES!!! And it will make you FEEL BETTER!!! because it releases HAPPY HORMONES!!! (Well, that’s about the gist of it, and I am sure many of you can sympathize.)
I appreciate the others who have gone through theories. Maybe I feel bad after bowling because I neglected to eat right. I can try that. I don’t have diabetes, but again, I do think I have pretty severe depression. I’m going to see if maybe I can look more into the cortisol treatments and improve my mood that way.
So to all who ever had to live through a crazy gym teacher insisting that they will be cheered by “happy hormones” … to all those who want to bawl after a run … to all those who pull the covers over their heads the day after mowing the lawn and weeding … to all those who hate exercise because it makes them depressed rather than making them happier … I feel for you.
Let’s all hope for help in the near future!
My own latest theory is that it has to do with increased serotonin levels in the brain. I think what is happening is that exercise causes a jump in serotonin and that we, for whaever reason, don’t handle this well. I have noticed some other things that raise serotonin levels significantly, like alcohol, chocolate or all carbs meals, give me a similar depressing effect. Perhaps these things in raising serotonin levels either cause some regulating mechanism to come on line causing a pretipitous fall in serotonin levels or perhaps it causes a depletion of our ability to make serotonin in some way. Ecstacy users for an extreme example will often get severe rebound depression and its main drug effect is to raise serotonin levels.
How do other people here do with chocolate? This is another thing that is suppose to make you feel good though a recent study, just like with exercise, has contradicted these ideas.
If this is true, I guess the trick would be to be careful with serotonin boosting items. Anywy, just an idea.
Perhaps, there is some sort of interacton going on between serotonin and dopamine which causes the mood derangement.
Guys, this is the first time I read this blog in like a year. I have posted here a while back but I stopped looking at it. I applaud what you all are doing in attempting to figure why this happens, blood sugar, serotonin, dopamine, there is something that is causing this, hey we might all have different causes. I posted at some point last year and I will repeat what I said then again, I have solved this problem by not exercising. It has been more than a year since I last exercised and I am feeling great. I spent years attempting to get into exercise and I have tried everything possible, meals before and after, tryptophan supplements, water, fruit juices, vitamins blood sugar testing, omega three supplements I can keep going on listing things that I have tried but the conclusion is nothing worked. Actually the final conclusion I had was that there something chemical that goes wrong whenever I exercise and I have no solution for. I stopped exercise and I have been feeling great for over a year now. I understand that people on this forum want to be like everyone else who doesn’t have this problem (meaning most people who exercise and do not feel like they want to die afterwords) but in reality that’s not the case. All I am trying to say I guess is whatever benefit one gets from working out is not worth this shitty feeling we get afterwords, so until there is a medically conclusive reason of why this happens and how to prevent it we shouldn’t exercise. Personally I have discovered this to be the solution last year and I have been feeling great for over a year now. Every time I remember how depressed I felt back in the days when I was working out I feel glad that I don’t feel that way anymore. What do you all think of this advise?? am I making sense or am being illogical? I would love to hear what you all think?
My last entry was back in Feb and since then I started taking LexaPro 10mg a day and so far it seems to be helping, the only step back was with alcohol, a couple of beers hit me hard the next day ever since then I stay away from it and so far taking walks that used to beat me up the next day are not too much of a problem now. I’m taking it slow and so far so good.
Hi there
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this discussion. Its been really refreshing to find a discussion on this topic. I have suffered from depressive episodes for the last 10 years and have only just self diagnosed it! I’m 38.
My issue, like many of the contributors, is that one of the primary causes of my depression is exercise. However, all the literature I have read on depression says that exercise is a good treatment for depression.
The impact of exercise on me differs from others in this discussion and follows a pretty familiar pattern for me. First I start an exercise programme, with some bike riding. Later I would move into higher cardio work outs like running (30-45min sessions). Usually after about 2 weeks of running (running maybe 3 times or so a week) I’m hit hard with depression symptoms. The symptoms would normally come about 2 days after the last session and would last about 3 days. Note that unlike others – straight after the exercise I actually feel pretty good.
Then I endure 3 days of feeling rotten – lethargic, anti-social etc. Then a bounce back pretty quickly. Then hold off on exercise for a week or so. Then pluck up the courage to start exercise again. And so the pattern continues.
I’m over it and keen to explore options with a GP or specialist. Im a naturally positive, happy person and feel pretty disheartened that exercise (which I really enjoy and is important for all round health) is actually making me feel depressed.
As a footnote, on occasions a heavy drinking session will cause exactly the same pattern above as well (ie 2-3 days after the session, i get hit with depressive symptoms). However, this is far less common.
Im off to my GP next week. I will also start to look at some of the suggested treatments from the contributors.
As my symptoms differ somewhat from other, any thoughts would be welcome.
Thanks for hearing me out.
Medical literature attests to the fact that the consumption of alcohol, tea, coffee, soft drinks, refined sugar, and chocolate should all be minimized (or even avoided) by anyone who is being prescribed antidepressant or anxiolytic medications. Each of these contain substances (e.g., caffeine/theine, theobromine, alcohol, and simple carbohydrates) which will interfere with the psychotropic properties of the medication. As a result, the following day a “rebound effect” (i.e., increased depression and/or anxiety) may be experienced which FAR outweighs any fleeting mood enhancing benefits which are experienced shortly after their consumption. It true that cocoa beans contain the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and phenylethylamine. As well, it is known that cocoa increases the levels of brain chemicals called endocannabinoids – which are known to enhance mood and memory. However, for those who use antidepressant medications, the long-term effect of consuming dark chocolate is usually quite negative. Consequently, it should be avoided.
Like most individuals who have posted in this discussion thread, after a cardio workout I too feel more depressed and anxious. However, in my own case, these negative symptoms are usually realized only the next day. Rather than avoiding all exercise as suggested above, I’ve found that the introduction of strengthening exercises (weight training) does not have the same negative repercussions on my depression and anxiety. As well, there are cardiovascular benefits to weight training.
In the end, I guess everyone has to figure out what works best in their own situation.
Don’t think the last comment went through…if it did–sorry for the double post.
I found a great article on energy/depression/hypoglycemia. I’m still researching…
Had another bout–I think from cardio interval training. Strength training doesn’t bother me but anything that raises my heart rate too high does. When will I learn!
Hope everyone is well.
sorry–won’t let me leave a link.
I feel terrible after exercise, the more intense the exercise, the longer I feel bad. I call it my exercise “hangover.” I, like everyone else, have been feed the message that exercise will always make you feel better. And when it didn’t I exercised harder, and flet worse. When will the medical community stop treating us like we are all the same average person supposedly represented in the “scientific studies”?
Like almost everyone else, I was really happy to find this site! It is really comforting to see other people with the same experience! I found this site after Googling “exercise depression” right after one of my cardio workouts brought me to tears–not because I was physically drained, but I just suddenly felt empty and…well, sad. I have experienced this before, but as many other people noted, this isn’t a very accepted reaction to exercise. So, I thought I probably was “crazy.”
I’ve been suffering depressive episodes for about ten years now (I’m 29), but I am not and never have been on medication. I think it’s interesting that those with and without medication have many of the same experiences. I’ve been exercising to try to “better myself” (and stay toned) for about five years. I don’t have sadness/depression every time I workout, but I do often. And, as someone else noted, it’s almost always with cardio. I don’t have as many problems if it’s strength training alone or yoga or something. I eat well, and I’ve gone periods before with eating almost NO sugar or refined foods. It didn’t make any difference in my mood.
I guess I just wanted to throw my voice in. I have no solution! I wonder why this isn’t more talked about, overall. My first reaction is that it goes against the medical/health community’s blanket answer of “exercise for everyone, at all times,” and they don’t like that. But honestly, I don’t think blanket answers are very helpful. They just make us feel like weirdos, or like we must be doing something wrong, when it may be the case that not everyone is meant for every kind of exercise. Hmmmm…
I have heard that over training can cause depression. A close friend of mind does body/mind therapy. Her model is that trauma is stored in your body. Perhaps the physical exertion is bringing out these emotions.
If I have a mood while at the gym I know I am not working hard enough. Trust me by the 20th sit up there is only one thing on your mind – STOP! so don’t.
I have been excercising for the last 4 months and my depression has become so severe that my doctor is putting me on anti-depressants. Haven’t taken them for years but there is just no reason for this feeling. I thought that I was the only person experiencing this.
Yet another person who is so thankful they found this post. I too, thought I was the only person who felt this way. I have gotten past the idea that I’m “crazy”, and just figured that I’ve got some wiring crossed in my brain. I have been depressed for most of my life, and have been on prozac for the past 10 years or so.
Daph (post 188) has so accurately described my issue, that I won’t bother repeating all that she wrote. I am also in full agreement with Anthony P (post 169) that I want – or more accurately need – to know the *cause* of this problem so I can fix it, instead of just putting a band-aid on it so I don’t have to suffer from the symptoms.
Over the years, I have tried a lot of the suggestions that I have read throughout these posts to try and fix myself (eating healthy, timimg my eating with my exercise, not over-exercising, etc.), but the only thing I’ve found that helps is not exercising – which really isn’t an option. Exercise, or regular physical activity, is just a part of life; if you avoid exercise, you avoid living (imho). However, the flip-side is that partaking in exercise causes me to be a hopeless mess the rest of the day (and often into the next). It’s a really rough catch-22 that we’re stuck in – yeah it sucks, but there it is…
To get on a more positive note, I will post some facts that might help narrow the range of diagnoses – in case there really is someone out there who is reading this post and trying to help.
* I’m a 34 year old female, happily married for 11 years, no kids, have pets.
* I am overweight (BMI says I’m obese), as are most of the women in my family. Although I have been significantly cutting back on my portion sizes and junk food while increasing my exercise over the past 8 months.
* I eat frequent small meals (every 1.5-2 hours) and try to incorporate a fruit/veggie and protein with each meal/snack. Most of my carbs are complex and low on the Glycemic Index.
* I have been tested for glucose intolerance, however, have not had the 6-hour glucose test. I’ll look into that.
* I have recently undergone tests for liver and kidney function (due to upper abdominal issues), and they seem to be working fine.
* I have taken fish oil supplements to try and reduce my HDL levels, but saw no difference in HDL, nor did it seem to effect my exercise-induced depression. I also take a calcium supplement daily.
* I notice the change in my mood both during and after exercise. The more rigorous the exercise, the more likely I am to experience depression/anger during the activity. The longer the duration, the more likely I am to experience depression into the next day.
I would like to thank all of you who have posted your experiences and suggestions on this board. It has been so helpful to know that I’m not alone in this and that others are also looking for the cause and cure.
I am currently training to walk a marathon, so I have several short (30 min) walks during the week and an increased-distance walk on Saturday (I have to take the next day to recover from the depression). I will have plenty of chances to experiment with different vitamins, supplements, diet, and lifestyle changes over the course of my training (the big day is October 4th). I’ll try to post back here with my results. I really hope I can find the cause and cure for this problem and that I don’t suffer the nearly week-long funk I had after my last marathon. Yes, I know about the post-marathon blues, and I’m sure I suffer from that as well, but combine it with my everyday post-exercise depression and I find myself way too deep in the hopeless abyss.
Thanks again to all of you offering support and advice. We’ll get this issue resolved, one way or another!
I just found out that my testosterone levels are well below normal for my age. This comes as quite a shock, as I’m not obese or even overweight, I hardly drink, and my nutrition is as healthy as current scientific knowledge allows. I’ve been trying to find out what’s behind my depression/exercise thing for years, and I’ve followed a lot of avenues that turned out to be dead ends, but this testosterone finding may be a clue. Anyone else had their testosterone levels tested? Anyone else fatigued even when you don’t exercise? How’s your sleep?
Same story for me.
The relationship is crystal clear – working out induces a depression that sets in before lunch the day after and sticks with me for between 2 and 5 days. There is a 100% correlation between the exercise and feeling bad. It always happens when I do work out, and never happens when I don’t.
I am 28, fit, eat well and have tried everything from fish oil and a complex carb diet to st johns wort and magnesium/calcium supplements.
Let’s do something!
Let’s get organized people. Like..really, let’s find out what’s happening. What I propose:
1. I just registered an email: depressionandexercise@gmail.com please mail me your email address if you want to be part of this.
2. Once I have a list of emails, I will organize a questionnaire. During this phase we will agree on a set of questions (say 50 or so) that should be distributed to everyone to answer. The questions would be personal, but anonymous and be covering issues like age, gender, some medical history, what we eat, allergies, habits etc…anything that we can come up with that could be related.
3. This questionnaire will be sent out to everyone and each one of you would then send it back, i will then distribute a report (again, individual email addresses would be kept confidential) showing statistics about us. The goal with this is to find a trend…hopefully we do..maybe we’re eating to many bananas (kidding), everybody might be on an allergy medicine…it could be anything really.
4. If I get a lot of responses here I could also see myself organize a closed forum for us, where we could organize research, write about our experiences and report on our own projects (be they exercise types or experimenting with nutrition)
What do you guys say?
/ Raz
Add me to the list of those who thought I was crazy. The weird thing is that even exercise trainers have never heard of this. I first started to feel down feelings after exercise about 2 years ago. They were triggered after strength exercise, but lately even when I do cardio (runnig, step, cardio-strenth) I experience this little-talked about phenomenon. All doctors know to do is prescribe antidreppressants, but give you no good reason for causes. I am under NO medications whatsoever so cannot attribute it to that, I do drink one cup of espresso every morning.
thanks for starting the dialogue. Should we all write to that show “The Doctors” and see if they can give us any answers?
We’re not crazy, and in fact there’s nothing unusual about us that accounts for the depressive effect we’ve experienced from continued/chronic exercise. Rather, we should pat ourselves on the back for being insightful observers and challenging the pervasive MISTRUTH that a regular exercise regimen has a lasting positive impact on mood.
The answer lies in the system of mu-opioid neuro-receptors and the endorphins which stimulate that receptor immediately during and after exercise. The physical stress and muscle tissue damage that occurs during exercise triggers the production and release of endorphins, which are responsible for that amazing “runner’s high” we experience. However, like any mood-altering drug, the effect doesn’t last forever and entails a comedown which returns us to a basal state less pleasant than the one before we even experienced the drug. Physiologically, this is a result of the “down-regulation” (i.e. the desensitization/reduction) of mu-opioid receptors after the flood of endorphins have done their job. This is not merely theoretical — It is well established that chronic exercise decreases mu-opioid receptor sensitivity, as confirmed by a few studies that I just googled:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0N-4KKWVK1-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=858b6856c7a72ac2876ac3fbeec99a68
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0N-4B7YP4Y-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=6b3bdc2c89d51603b198c31d76d29ee2
By the way, the mu-opioid receptor is the same receptor directly stimulated by drugs of abuse such as alcohol, heroine, and opiates, and indirectly potentiated by cocaine, amphetamine, and other stimulants. Therefore, those who tout that “exercise alleviates depression” are really no different than the junkie who says he takes pain pills to “relieve his depression” or to “feel normal”, even if the exercise enthusiasts are totally unaware that they are simply excusing “an addiction”.
Does this mean you should stop exercising? For the sake of overall health and longevity, I wouldn’t recommend it. But I think we need to accept the fact that indeed exercise entails a trade-off between physical and mental well-being, even if the dampening of mood and energy is a small price to pay for the physical benefits we derive. Afterall, the mu-opioid receptor, which is implicated in motivation and the basic pursuit of pleasure, affects every aspect of human behavior, so “addiction” is a relative term. …As with everything, I think moderation is the key here
Cheers,
Chris Young
christof.young@gmail.com
Amazing to find this … doctors thought I was crazy or attributed it to an underlying anxiety disorder … love it when they attribute everything to stress and anxiety … yeah let’s get organized and perhaps get doc involved … one that actually does “research” (*shocking gasp*) … if there are enough people this could be a source of funding for a researcher …
Thanks for all of the posts. I have been running or riding regularly for the past 14 years. Up until two years ago, I only experienced depression type symptoms after running races (20km or 1/2 marathon). Since that time, I have felt these symptoms after long rides and just recently after short workouts. Has anyone else had a similar experience where the episodes became more frequent over time?
This is exactly true with me too. I have been trying yoga, meditation and exercise since 10 years. Everything was fine for 2-3 years in the begining but went worse later on. Since, I used to feel very energetic while doing breathing and exercise, I went through a lot of techniques to get these things back in my life but none of them work for me. Whatever strong determination (lets say it doesn’t matter even I die by doing these things) I take, I ended up with high blood pressure, anger and many more. I know doing in a moderate and comfortable way is the key but this is not for me. Huh! I had tried more than thousands time but still couldn’t get these things in my life. Still couldn’t get the state that I wanted to be.
Okay, now lets talk about the solution. Do following things if it works for you.
1) Keep in mind, moderate is the key. Do everthing (exercise, rest and diet) moderately. We don’t want to break our bones by lifting weight of beyond our strength and also we don’t want to underestimate our own strength. Similar things are true for rest and diet. The level of moderation might vary with person, age, time etc. Your conscious mind might be raising a question-what is moderation ? If you feel comfortable by doing things in a way, that’s the way of moderation.
2) Do and forget about it, don’t think much about it.
If it doesn’t work, the way we are doing is not wrong at all. The problem is with the acceptance of these things by our mind. Our mind is not accepting them. We can force our mind to accept the things to a certain limit but can’t go beyond limit.
So, if things don’t work even doing everthing moderately and trying in different possible ways, the only solution is quit and forget about it.” If you leave the problem, that doesn’t exist for you and have no problem at all”. I know quiting is also difficult. For example, everyone knows smoking is bad but there are a lot of people which are having it since they can’t quit it. Most of the people say, Yoga, exercise and meditation are good, good and good. So, obviously good thing will be hard to quit. But I am sure, try it, you will be able to quit.
My condition nowadays: Since I tried a lot of possible ways (philosophically, managing time, diet, rest and way of doing) but didn’t get peace of mind anywhere. Finally, I decided to quit all these things and all of a sudden everything went well. Obviously, sometimes different kind of thinking creep over my mind but I don’t care and play much with them and they go away after sometime. Nowadays I am focussed with my day to day work and having peace of mind most of the time. Hopefully, these things will work you too. Believe me my frens, for the happiness if one door is closed, thousand doors open. Happiness is not related with only gaining a particular thing, it’s infinite. You can get it from different ways.
Hopefully, this will help you to figure out the way.
Finally, I felt really happy while reading comments in this forum since I met some frens who also got the same problems as I used to. We will keep on sharing the things in future too.
Good luck. Take it easy.
Please check out this link it gives quite useful information regarding to Hypoglycemia and Exercise
http://www.diabetesincontrol.com/results.php?storyarticle=6531
Wow! I am truly amazed to find this!! I have reported this issue to several doctors, and all thought it was odd, saying they never heard of this. I had one doctor tell me that I might be ‘reactive hypoglycemic’. In other words, though I am not hypoglycemic, my body reacts to things as if I am and the solution is to be careful to treat myself as if I am hypoglycemic or I will end up that way. Interesting, but it didn’t resolve my problem, our shared problem.
In the interest of completeness, I’m going to say as much as I can about what I feel and when, but some of this might be “TMI” for some readers (don’t worry, no vulgarity or such).
I am bipolar, type 2. This means I’m generally depressed with phases of hypomania. I was born this way, but not diagnosed until my early 30s (40 now). We’re still fighting it and trying to find the right combo of meds for me. My thyroid, blood counts, sugar levels, and cortisol levels are all within normal ranges. (The circadian rhythm of the cortisol is out of whack as would be expected in a BP patient.) However, the sugar levels were not measured before, during, and after exercise, which is something I’m considering now (friend provided me with a meter).
As a kid, I was always very active, strong for my size without looking athletic or muscular. I could hike a 5-mile, steep trail without pausing to take a sip of water or a snack. Also as a kid, I was quite a handful: temperamental, moody, creative, intelligent, loner, risk-taker at times and totally fearful at others. I was molested once, but the symptoms of BP(2) were already in place beforehand (we now know). But, I could exercise, or what I called play back then.
In my mid-20s, I noticed the problem we are all reporting here: exercise-induced depression. I’ve seen it also called exercise intolerance. What happens to me varies, depending on what I did to cause it. Hard exercise, aerobic or just weights, leads to an almost immediate breakdown: I feel sick, nauseated, sorrowful, a need to cry that can be overwhelming. I’ve curled up on the floor of my truck and bawled within half an hour of the workout!
Gentle workouts of any type don’t have any immediate impact, but it adds up. Eventually, I end up in the same place: depressed. If I take it easy, I still fall into depression eventually, even become ill (a cold, flu, etc, like something lowered my immune system’s functionality, as we know depression does).
What I eat seemed to not have any impact, but the common info might be wrong for us. Maybe a sweet before is needed; maybe it’s bad. I need to look into this more.
Now, I used to think this was a ‘new thing’ for me, this exercise-depression. That it started in my mid 20s. Nope… I now realize that there were earlier events. Sometimes after making love to my girlfriend way back when, I would have the exact same response. I thought it might be due to the molestation and my girl was very understanding (thankfully!!). In retrospect, I know that the molestation issue is something I had already dealt with and put away by then. Yes, I am serious about that. Even before then, I had adjusted my feelings about it, learned to accept that it wasn’t my fault, didn’t do me any physical harm, I wasn’t ‘dirty’, and, in fact, was openly discussing it with anyone who needed to hear it so I could help them. It became a tool in my toolbox for helping people. So, this crying and depression after sex required some thinking… and I realized finally that it is more likely after more vigorous sex. In other words, the more exercise-like the sex, the more likely the exercise-induced depression. All this is to say that this problem has been with me since my late teens, at the least.
Like many of us, I need to lose a few pounds and would love to get back some of my former vigor! Many of us are reporting symptoms and some of us are reporting what works or not for us. A few are reporting links to info we find. Let’s start focusing on a solution! Links and summaries are the way to go, much like academic research. This builds a reliable knowledge-base for us all to access with the summaries helping those who can’t or won’t wade through the research material that we discover and assemble.
Personal research, like my intent to take glucose levels before, during, and after exercise of many types, would also be helpful. Just be very careful and do not hurt yourself or take out-sized risks!! Working together, we CAN find a set of solutions (no single solution will help everyone) for us. Hopefully, we can find some doctors who have knowledge and/or can help in this.
Good luck and happy hunting. Let’s help each other help ourselves!
I’m amazed that after 8 years or so of searching for answers I found this forum.
My story, in brief: I used to be very and consistently athletic. Since I got sick one year in college, I’ve been progressively more unathletic for many of the reasons others here have listed. For me, depression is part of it, but perhaps worse is the debilitating fatigue and brainfog I experience. I’m a teacher, and today we had a tug of war… grade 7s against the teachers. My pride got the best of me, and now I am suffering the usual symptoms: depression, irritability, extreme exhaustion, stuffiness, hot/cold, dry eyes. It lasts between 24 and 36 hrs usually. I’ve tried everything: yoga, light jogs, weights… all things I used to do regularly. Walking is the only thing that doesn’t mess me up now. I’ve also tried to slowly build up my exercise threshold, but usually felt so miserable I had to stop. I feel very good and positive when I don’t exercise. This year I was also diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I check my sugars often, so hypoglycemia is certainly not the issue with me.
Anyway, I’m happy to find that I’m not alone. I’ll check back often to see if anyone has any new advice, and I think I’ll try some of the suggestions people have offered here. All the best of luck to everyone here. Thanks.
my name is sean, 33 years old. very good to find other people with same condition. i went for a 10 min jog this tuesday , yes only 10 mins. it is now sat morning and just begining to feel normal again though still bit light headed. i’ve been very teary,anxious, depressed my HPA axis has been going again (this is often active in people with depression). i have had this condition on and off since i was 22 years old.
currently on prozac also been drinking alot lately which i’m sure is related. to be brief i think it may be a combination, or one of following:
1 fat cells releasing toxins in bloodstream
2 this could also set the immune system off . google ‘depression inflammation’. very interesting .they are now linking depression with inflammatory markers in the body and brain, such as IL6 , TNF, NFkb.
i think the exercise could also inflame the body/brain when inflammatory markers are already out of balance. for e.g the more intense the exercise the more inflammatory it is to the body. for instance IL6 stimulates the HPA axis. prozac also works in part by anti inflammatory actions and some of the the latest trials of anti depressants are actually anti inflammatory drugs which inhibit COX 2 (an inflammatory enzyme)
3 exercise induced cortisol screwing the brain up
4 liver disfunction causing the low blood sugar
5 lactic acid produced from intense exercise
would wecome any feed back on these.
check out post 203 from Raz and register on his e mail address
sean
update from my post above. for a quick look at abstracts regarding depression and inflammation check out http://www.flameez.com/inflammation_depression
it is known that regular exercise is anti inflammatory. but during the exercise pro inflammatory substances are produced.
it could be with us lot on this forum that the pro inflammatory substances cascade out of control during the exercise (which are known to effect neurotransmitter metabolism, see website above)and takes several days to return to normal levels?????????
by the way all the research articles listed on the link above are from 2006-2008, so the whole inflammation/ depression link seems to be the latest theory out there.
sean
Hi again. I’m back and I have interesting news!!
I had a visit with the cardiologist today, and I have to say that it was very eye-opening. I posed the question to him we here have asked many times over. I told him that just about all of our doctors have no idea (after I told him about this website).
He had an idea… One that is absolutely plausible. Now, neither he nor I claim this is the right answer for all of us, but we hashed it out a bit and have every reason to believe it is the answer for many of us. So, take this info to you doctor and discuss it.
The chemicals in the brain that influence our mood are also heavily involved in the physiologic response to exercise, high blood pressure, and stress. The very simplified explanation of what is likely happening to many of us here is that the hormones that elevate our mood become depleted and/or the hormones the depress our mood increase. The depressive hormones have certain responsibilities in our bodies, but they also cross the blood-brain barrier, where they wreak havoc on our mental state, especially if the mood-elevating hormones are depleted.
His recommendations for exercise are the obvious choices of walking and low-impact hiking. He also includes tai-chi and yoga because they tend to not induce the same stress-type physiologic response while still burning calories and giving a good, toning workout. Basically, any exercise that doesn’t get the hear rate up much, if at all, should be good, but each person is different, so experiment carefully and with the consultation of your doctor.
Since I’m giving something of an answer here, I feel I should remind one and all, I am not a doctor (nor do I play one on TV). Read what I wrote here a few times to really sink it in; read more on this issue elsewhere as you can; take your new information to your doctor and discuss it at length.
Once again, happy hunting and good luck!
my symptoms begin even before the end of my workout. TERRIBLE debilitating fatigue. has anyone’s symptoms literaly began overnite? on a tuesday, i got my usually boost of energy, and felt great. the following day on wednesday i felt horrible. even doing one quarter of what i used to do. it has been the same ever since.
has anyone ever gone on antidepressants after experiencing exercise induced depression? was it helpful
Hi Mike,
I went on Lexapro and it doesn’t help one bit. What does help sometimes is when I have a small glass of juice and some kind of protein as soon as I start to feel the symptoms. For the most part I’m o.k. if I don’t get my heart rate up too high. I’m usually o.k. with strength training but can’t do interval training.
I’m still trying to get to the bottom of all of this. Will post if and when I find some kind of answer. Still believed (at least my case) is tied to metabolism and blood sugar levels.
Hope you feel better. Make sure to have a protein shake such as Muscle Milk (not the lite) immediately after training. Made a big difference for me.
My friedn went on lexapro and gained a lot of weight. He is now dealing with prediabetic issues.
I have gone on Lexapro now at 15 mg and it really seems to help, I’m keeping the weight off by exercising and it’s working, not perfect as I still can feel down from time to time yet compared to what happened before I’m a new person and I have had so many positive comments even on days after exercising that before would be horrible, If you have been going through this I would try Lexapro and see what happens, it is really helping me!
B12. It’s B12 deficiency. Test it. Eat a double cheesebuger. Feel better? I’ll bet you do. Found this after years of this irritablity/depression. B12 is not found in many foods and is depleted during exercise and stress. Deficiency causes irritability, depression, fatigue, anxiety. Sources: Clams, liver, beef, milk, salmon. Easy to miss eating these foods. Take a supplement if you are vegetarian. I hope this helps someone.
Cheers
Kim
Okay, here’s my two cents worth: I’m a 52 year old male who’s not in great physical shape. I’m 6/1″ and weight 240 lbs. When I started walking late at night a few years ago to get some regular exercise, I would become extremely depressed during the walk, and it would stay with me for a long time afterwards. At the time, I tried to research this on the Web, but I couldn’t find anything except how wonderful exercise is supposed to make a person feel with all those endorphins, etc. I figured it had something to do with the fact that I was in poor physical shape to start with, or with the fact that I’d been diagnosed with clinical depression (I was prescribed Welbutrin, but don’t take it any longer) but of course I never knew for sure. My doctor had never heard of this, and maintained that exercise should be making me feel better. This summer, I began working out regularly at a gym, but did NOT experience the depression during or after. This last week, I went in for a late afternoon workout (during the summer, I’d been working out in the morning, between 10 and noon) after a stressful day at work, and wham! the old feelings of depression hit me like a rock slide. When I went online to see if I could find anything about this phenomenon, I was surprised to find this forum. Thanks to everyone for posting their comments – it’s so comforting to know I’m not imagining all of this.
I also wanted to mention that I don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t take recreational drugs, and have not had any caffeine in seven years. I hardly ever drink soda pop, and while my diet could surely be improved, I don’t eat much fast food or “junk” food. I also suffer from sleep apnea – both obstructive apnea and central apnea. I’m including all this information in case anyone tries to analyze and correlate all the factors that people have mentioned in their postings on this forum.
A brief comment about Lexapro: tried it and only about a 10% improvement in re post exercise dep. No improvement and felt even worse after intense workout. I am not dissuading anyone from trying it, bec exercise aside I did experience some benefits and, in fact, it may work for someone else all-around. I just suspect that depression is not the main culprit for the issue herein. But interested in any feedback on this. PS, of all the anti-depressants I’ve tried (several just to see), Lexapro was by far the most easy to deal with and had the least side effects.
P Anthony,
I totally agree with you. I’m on Lexapro and it’s helped slightly with some OCD and anxiety that I suffer from but not the exercise-induced depression. I am almost certain mine stems from low blood sugar or related condition. I went for a physical recently and my fasting blood sugar was quite low. I think I’m pumping out too much insulin and when I exercise, no matter how well I try to eat, it drops me way down. I mean severe depression. I drink a small glass of juice and it helps–not totally but it brings me up a bit. I make sure to have a protein too so I don’t drop down too quickly again. I had gestational diabetes with both of my pregnancies and my mother has reactive hypoglycemia. Your brain functions almost fully on glucose and it makes total sense to me that if it’s not getting enough it will affect your moods.
All I can say is this is such a horrible thing. It throws me off for days. I am passionate about strength training and am a personal trainer but what makes me feel so good while doing it sometimes makes me feel like death later on. I’ve been to two nutritionists and an endocrinologist but nothing has helped. I have an appt. with a “integrative care” doctor who costs a fortune (doesn’t take insurance) but was highly recommended to me. She looks for the underlying causes of illness not just treats the symptoms. They do bio-chemical analysis and evaluate your psychological, stress, nutrition, exercise, etc.
Wish me luck and I will report back with any findings.
Good luck to you all.
Joanne
how many here have an incredable sensitivity to alchohol (1 drink and hangover feeling next day) as well as prescription medications? almost all meds cause that same depressive, malaise, brain fog, fatigue symptoms as exercise?
Hi…same issues as everyone else here. Please read Hanks comment above (221), do you guys think it matters what time of the day the work out takes place? I’m guessing the normal thing is to work out during evenings after work…have any one experimented with trying mornings? Did you guys notice a change?
Same thing happens to me…I talked to a therapist about it and she had a theory as to why this happens. She thinks the exercise gets rid of our immediate stress, and then allows us to deal with stress or events that we’ve repressed or haven’t dealt with. Not sure if this is what is happening, I think it probably has something to do with cortisol. Maybe its a combination or both.
Mike (#255), it’s funny you should mention the hangover. I’ve always had absolutely horrific ones, and just assumed it’s how everyone felt after drinking. But the more I saw how most people function w/ a hangover, I realized there’s something seriously wrong w/ mine, hence stopping drinking altogether. I too wonder if there’s a connection…
I am a 26 year old woman who has lost 82 lbs over the past 8 months. I started with shorter, less intense aerobic workouts at the gym, and as of late have been climbing a smaller mountain (1.1 mi to summit, then down…obviously lol) daily, and a larger mountain (2.4 mi to summit) once or twice on weekends.
Since the increased intensity in my workouts (which I LOVE as I’m doing it), I find that I come home and feel so LOW and hopeless that I start to sob uncontrollably. I attributed this to the peaking adrenaline and then the inevitable crash afterward.
I am also an avid tattoo collector, and have experienced the SAME feelings after being tattooed for 3-4 hours at a time. During the tattoo, your adrenaline is rushing, and once again, afterward, it has nowhere to go but down. Clearly I’m not an MD, but this was just my theory.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who experiences this. All I’ve ever heard about exercise is that is a magical cure for moodiness and depression.
I’ve never suffered from depression, and until now, have had mixed emotions about a percentage of the population claiming to experience it. My problem was that everytime I was sad, someone would inevitably approach me with “ah, you’re just depressed…” No, I was feeling SAD about a specific situation or issue. There is a difference between a consequential emotion and outward depression. That being said, this is how I know that what I feel after the mountain is actual depression. It is for absolutely no reason, and I am thinking no coherent thoughts while sobbing, aside from various general, hopeless sentiments.
It’s bizarre! But I plan on toughing through it, and have found the theory of low blood sugar interesting. I have been limiting my diet, but I may try adding more to it.
Good luck to everyone!
I have the same issues as everyone else here. It’s gone to the extent that I can hardly take a fast long walk without these symptoms setting in afterwards.
I live a quite stressful life (lot of responsibilities in the office, fast paced, lot’s of stuff going on at the same time etc.). What about you guys, do you experience stress? Think it can be related?
Hi All,
Exercise is also a kind of addiction. One should quit this to get rid of its effect (both positive and negative). Focus and engage your mind with day to day work. Working itself is also a kind of exercise.
I was suffering from same problems since 8 yrs. Not only exercise, but also yoga and meditation used to hurt me. I quited everything and feeling great nowadays. It was hard to quit in the begining but I succeded with strong determination.
Don’t waste time by hanging with the things that give you unbearable trouble. There are lots of thing from where you can get confidence and happiness of life.
Love you all.
Hi all. I am a medical doctor and a psychotherapist and I have finally realised that exercise makes me depressed. Last week I did 3.5km runs on a treadmill followed by 1 km on a rower at moderate intensity each day and after 4 days I became deeply depressed. Like others on this forum I have kept going back to the gym after recovering only to become depressed. I usually exercise in the mornings. I have a tendency to get above 80% Hr easily and for most of my workouts. I am 46yo male 172cm and 80kg. For what its worth I have looked at the medical literature and cant find any reports or studies about this published in Medical journals. I have read this entire blog and it seems there is a genuine syndrome being discussed that seems to have slipped under the radar. The comment made by the person who discussed it with their cardiologist is interesting and may contain a lot of truth but I think a general description does not explain why only a small minority of people seem to suffer from it. I would suspect some sort of genetic variant is at work here. Someone mentioned on this forum that her daughter also has the problem, this is important information and could be compiled to get some better grasp of the disorder. I will be joining Raz’s email group and I would suggest everyone else that visits this forum does as well so that we can do some research amongst ourselves.
I have started Holy Basil today as I think its worth a try but would be interested in what others experience with it has been.
Finally I don’t think it sounds like hypoglycaemia because that responds well to food and I cant see why the symptoms would last beyond a meal or two, but then again we could be looking at more than one syndrome here.
Its great to have found this forum. No we are not crazy as a matter of fact this is far saner than most other forums I have seen!
Thanks for all your honesty and detail.
Dr Jim
I think I may be finding an answer, at least for myself but hopefully it will help others as well. I found an integrative medicine doctor who is amazing. She checked my amino acids (with an at-home blood test) and found that I am low across the board except for 1 (there are 20). Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, necessary for many many important functions including repairing and building muscle, but most importantly in this case, they are pre-cursors for the neurotransmitters in the brain. If you are not eating enough, or not processing protein correctly you are bound to have problems. She also checked my cortisol levels through an at-home saliva test. An endocrinologist had tested them once but it was a blood test in a hosptial (which came back normal). This saliva test is preformed 4 times during the day. My results were that my cortisol was too low in the morning (when it should be its highest) went way up around noon and slowly came down through the day but stayed elevated through bedtime (I have major issues sleeping). My fasting and post-prandial insulin levels are also too low. I also have antibodies to wheat.
Basically, we are working on adjusting my amino acids through a custom amino acid mix (expensive!) and also a digestive enzyme with each meal to help me breakdown the proteins that I eat. I am also taking chromium (with the GTF factor–very important) that helps with metabolism of sugars/carbs. I have to say that for the first time in 2 years–I actually see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I have had issues all my life with anxiety/some depression (postpartum–pretty severe/and OCD. I also have ADD. I think this is a link to it all. My severe problems started after I gave up all desserts/candy/cookies/etc. about 2 years ago. I think that I was self-medicating with sugar. Also, after I joined the gym I would have severe depressive crashes later in the day.
It’s not all in my head! The symptoms are in my head but the problem lies in my stomach!
I have also been on a gluten-free diet (we tried no milk products for the first month–not a huge change) for a few weeks now. I also drink a powerade DURING my workout and a protein drink afterwards. I’m not sure what is helping but I have been feeling a MILLION times better.
Problem is, I haven’t tested it yet with anaerobic exercise–where I had most of my problems with the crashes (which would hang on for days). I’m too chicken but may do it in a couple months if I am feeling considerably better. I am hoping to get off of Lexapro and a sleep aid and an ADD med. Though each helps a bit, they basically just take the edge off my issues.
I have been sleeping better too! Which makes everything else feel better too.
I’m not advocating supplements or anything else unless you are under the care of a doctor. But my integrative doctor has been the first one to look at this in a different way–to find the cause and not just treat the symptoms.
I applaud the doctor who posted for trying to find an answer–thank you! You may want to consider having your amino acid levels/salvia cortisol/and antibodies to wheat and yeast tested.
Gluten sensitivity is huge and can cause a wide array of problems including hypoglycemia and mental problems.
Please find a doctor who thinks outside the box–my doctor is a medical doctor who mixes science with holistic type approaches. Unfortunately she doesn’t take insurance–the companies regulate everything doctors do in their practice. She took a full two hours with me the first appt. and there was no way an insurance company would pay accordingly. Some of my tests were covered by insurance as they were done through a lab. I’ve turned a blind eye to the cost for the time being. My sanity and happiness is worth it. I couldn’t go on living as I was–every day was a struggle within my mind–torterous when I have such a wonderful life otherwise.
Sorry for the very long post. I will keep you updated as we narrow down the specific cause. There is hope though! Exercise is so important–especially strength training. Please don’t stop looking for an answer. You just have to find the right person to help you. I suggest looking for an integrative or functional care doctor.
Best of luck to everyone! I’m saying prayers.
I have experienced exercise-induced depression, too, and have discovered mugh that is listed here. A solution that is working for me is to load up on amino acids as well as B-complex plus choline and inositol (members of the B family). My experience has been that exercise seems to deplete certain neurotransmitters, and if I feed these neurotransmitters with the supplements above, plus eating both a half hour before and immediately after a hard workout, that the depression doesn’t happen. Good luck to everyone here. Although I am not bipolar, I also have benefited from this site; http://www.bipolarodyssey.com, which features a nutritional approach to brain disorders.
OMG! I am so happy I found this site and to know I am not the only one makes me feel better. Everytime I strength train I feel ok for 2 hours after I am done but then it is all down hill for me. I get jittery, bitchy, annoyed with every little thing, just want to sleep because I am so exhausted etc.. These symptoms usually last 2 days and then I slowly start to feel better and then I hit the weights again and the sh*t hits the fan again. I told my hubby today that I am thinking of stopping weight training. We have a 1 yr old and a 4 yr old and I feel like I am not here (physically and emotionally) on the days after I strength train. If I walk I am fine and feel good. But if I get too intense, my body freaks out. This is all a little annoying because I have lost 70 pounds in 10 months and really want to keep it off. I used to be fine with all the exercise when I was heavier but now that I am 125 pounds it’s actually harder for me.
Thanks
Jennifer
its good to know there are others who feel low after excercise, i cant help but feel crap after doing weight lifting and stuff, i just feel angry, depressed and frustrated
i have tried the following
holy basil tea
lucozade / clucose drink
gingseng herbal tabs
i haven quite work out if they work or not as sometimes i feel ok after i take these and sometimes i dont, so im not sure if its down to how hard i push myself during excercise, but if i drink alot of a glucose drink i tend to feel lil more happier, and the holy basil tea calms me down abit, so all 3 are worth a go
for diabetics proberly not wise to touch the clucose drink
Hello everyone
Today i feel so very low, which appears to coincide with me commencing using a treadmill 3-weeks ago. I was discussing with my wife and decided to search for help and i found this forum. I can’t believe just how common this problem appears to be but i’m also relieved i am not alone (as i believed).
I have been struggling with depression for several years and my eating habits caused me to gain excess weight – hence the treadmill. I was actually starting to feel better before i started running but now i feel awful. I run every evening for 25mins at a decent speed for a 53 year old (10 km/hr)and my weight has been falling steadily. I have started eating sensibly (no junk) so you can imagine how i feel when all this appears to be harming me.
I used to visit the gym 3 years ago and did treble the work 4-days a week and felt great. Now i am at a loss for what to do.
I will read the posts with great interest and thanks for all the comments so far.
David
Sorry i should have mentioned that i have been taking omega-3 and Vitamin D supplements daily.
Wow, i cant beleive there are so many others that are going through the same thing. I seriously thought that i had some mental issues. I am glad to see that i am not alone in this battle. It is really such a weird feeling from the after effects of a workout. Who would of thought a workout could make you feel this way.
Today was an all time low point for me. I remember feeling angry, frustrated, and sad. I was at work and could not wait for the day to end and just felt like i was going to explode. This is such a difficult thing to dela with as it makes me very irrational, and ineffeicient. I just felt like i was worthless and could not do anything. I have not explained this feeling to my family and dont know how to break it to them. I think i need to as my beahavior really impacts them greatly. I am hoping that there will be some natural cure for what we are facing. I am refusing to take any type of prescription medication as i think the side effects will be far more devastating. Thank you to eveyone for your posts, and i will try some of the natural remedies.
In the meantime i will continue to pray for you all in here as well and hope that God will bring healing and restoration to you mentally. I know that God is a great God and we should cast our cares to him and believe in faith that you will be healed. I have written a prayer for you all and am asking God to heal everyone that has posted to this thread:
Almighty heavenly father i thank you for all my friends in this threaded discussion that have identified some discomfort in their lives. I ask God that by your powerful mighty hands you will remove any sickness, disease, anxiety, fear, and depression from their lives. I ask for freedom and restoration in their minds and hearts and i pray your continual blessings upon their lives. You are a great and powerful ruler and your word advises us to ask if we are in need. This day i ask God that you will bring complete healing to all my friends in this discussion and that you will also restore their relationships with family and friends. In your precious name we pray. Amen.
God bless you all….!!!
Hey Guys. Just a quick but perhaps meaningful update. I had tests done after I’d been active, and thyroid, while ostensibly within “normal” range (I suspect as dictated by ins co’s), was low. Liver function (AST, etc.) was very off. Liver does have impact on neurotransmitters, and I suspect there is a connection in our case, as some here have theorized directly and indirectly. I am also very sensitized to alcohol.
Practical tip that I’ve discovered: Try drinking a tall glass of milk with about 1/5 yogurt very shortly after you get home from workout/exertion (not cold seems to work a tad better for some reason, perhaps facitlitates better digestion and absorbtion). This appears to cut symptoms by about 50% for me personally, not bad. Have not ruled out late-onset hypoglycemia. As always, good luck and please report.
Hi All,
I hope you are doing well. Believe it or not, the comments section here in this blog is the best resource I’ve found. I feel for you all and hope your investigations are progressing nicely and that you are find resolutions in each of your cases.
I posted in Feb ‘09 and neglected to mention a couple of things.
1. I suspected I was gluten sensitive. I June ‘09 I finally eliminated gluten from my diet (it’s all or nothing) and on the whole feel a lot better. It took a while for the lining in my gut to heal. I can definitely feel it if I consume a product containing gluten. Overall, I am happier. As someone who works out a lot, it has made a huge difference to my performance and happiness during endurance events, knowing that I won’t have a reaction to foods during races/long workouts.
2. Despite going gluten free, I still get exercise-induced depression.
3. I used to have migraine-like headaches in the center top-left of my brain. Always the same spot. So debilitating that I just could not smile (i.e., depression-like). I still get these although less intense and less frequent.
4. As before, I will get depression-headaches very soon (5-30 mins) after a workout. I am on the path of eliminating from my diet, in as far as possible, all that I know that makes me feel down. Like many people on this list, I can not take alcohol as I used to. I do not drink most brands of beer because of gluten sensitivity. I have never been much of a heavy drinker but am very capable of having a six-pack. It seems as though (and I’m in my mid-30s now) I am not as capable of processing alcohol as, and I hate to say it, when I was a little younger. Most of my heavy drinking was done by 21 by the way!! So, I avoid beer and avoid drinking more than a unit at any one event/get-together.
5. I have found something that has been a help right away after symptoms appear: Seaweed.
In my earlier post, I mentioned miso soup being particularly helpful. And, paradoxically when taking into account the thread of comments, if I haven’t exercised in a couple of days and as long as it is not the evening, doing exercise is the best cure of all in my case. Nothing else will help alleviate the deep, to-the-bone depressive/anxiety feeling. If workout lasts over two hours that exercise high will even carry over an extra day. However, for that immediate, post-exercise crash, roasted and salted seaweed is like opening the blinds and feeling the sun again. I still feel some of the depression but the actual physical reaction to it, the semi-migraine feeling, partially dissipates about 2-5 mins after consuming seaweed. So much so that if I know that if I know that I ran out of seaweed at home, I will not go home after a swim or intense run before passing by the store to grab some. Every time I eat a leaf of seaweed, I hope that it works. Usually it does. I hope it helps someone else.
6. I have underlying depressive episodes. Won’t go into too much detail but I’ve gone through some pretty difficult things all by myself with little support. Difficult childhood, working my ass off to go to college, finding out I had learning difficulties, overcoming those, eventually getting a stable job, and then going through five years of a series of very unfortunate events. I think it’s taken a toll in some ways although luckily I’m strong-willed, never give up, and am an optimist and dreamer, on the whole. This has helped a lot. So much so that I started my Great Recession in 2003, am out of the worst of it, and set to for almost full recovery at the turn of the year. Bottom line: underlying stress/anxiety/depressive symptoms have a big effect. I’m convinced of that.
7. Having someone around you that believes in you or that at least doesn’t think that your exercise-induced depression is all in your head is important. The analogy is food sensitivities. I have so far failed to find someone that really believes that I am experiencing the food sensitivities that I have, but have some friends that do care a lot. So here goes. I have been lactose intolerant for at least 10 years and have kept on top of it for 7+ years. Recently finding out that I’ve been gluten-sensitive was actually a relief. But having these two sensitivities made me wonder. It turns out that they may be linked (i.e., gluten sensitivity may lead to lactose intolerance). I have also been increasingly sensitive to caffeine and I think increasingly to theine (in black tea) for the past 10 years. It turns out this particularly runs on my paternal grandmother’s side of the family. I have found that initially telling my family and closest friends resulted in sympathy, understanding, and an effort by them to make/set aside gluten-free food for visits. However, I just decline if offered gluten-, lactose-, and caffeine-containing food and drink if I’m around other people and just go about my day. Seems to make me feel more normal!
7. After reading through the majority of posts, I think there are many commonalities. We might not all be suffering from exactly the same disorder/syndrome, although there is a cure or resolution out there for most, if not all of you. In my case, there are many factors that affect my daily mood, on top of it my post-exercise mood and general feeling. I have addressed some of the things that I know and some that I believe may cause the ups and downs. I hope you find solutions and relief of your symptoms.
Wishing you the best of health
Just wanted to share my story…
I’m 24.. male. I’ve always been athletic. I’m 5′11″ and weighed about 188 lbs… I was starting to get a gut and I wanted to trim up.
So I started eating right and exercising everyday… And guess what, in 2 months, I am now at 172. I’ve lost 16 lbs and it definitely shows. I am much more cut and I have a defined six pack.
Here’s the problem: I feel like crap now… Even though I should be proud of myself and feel better about my body, I am always feeling depressed and down. It’s really frustrating. You’d think it would be win-win..
I can’t wait until I lose a few more lbs and then abstain from exercising where I know my great mood will come back. But then I’ll probably start gaining weight again. I just wish I felt great after a workout.
Count me another one who experiences this problem. In my case, I think I’m seeing a pattern of it happening after high-end heavy-effort cardio workouts. I eat before and after, including carbs and protein, so it does not seem nutrition connected to me. First thing I’m going to try now is to avoid going to the high end of my cardiac range for a few weeks, to see if that makes me feel better. Thank you to everyone sharing their stories here.
While we wait for a definitive analysis or solution, I can suggest a mild way to at least get the blood flowing a little, if you are abstaining from exercise.
- Even days: 1) Two sets of comfortable pushups against a table, park bench or wall, with no over-exertion at the end, start with maybe 10. 2) Before and after do a light set of what I’ve seen referred to as swimmers rows, basically relatively stiff-armed arm flips as if running (no weights or light). 3) Before and after do two sets of wide arm rotations, clockwise and then counterclockwise.
- Odd days: 1) two sets of light squats 2) two sets of calf raises, 3) two sets leg kicks
This is a good mid-morning or afternoon break. Again, all these should be done without feeling undue exertion; this appears to be the key element from all that I’ve read here and experienced personally.
I’ve been a regular exerciser for 25 years; the depression thing started about 12 years ago. Patterns have emerged: a 30 minute walk will not bring it on. A 60-minute one will. Ratchet up the intensity, as with weightlifting, stairstepping, or hard running, and the mood slams me. Once in awhile I can get away with a quick burst of intensity, but nothing over five minutes.
The research on this is clear. Long or intense exercise raises cortisol, which may stay elevated for an entire day and night. The cortisol, like caffeine, disturbs sleep, whether you realize it or not, so if you exercise the next day, your body is extra tired, and you’ll kick in the mood thing even deeper because poor sleep itself raises cortisol. A vicious circle begins.
For years I visited sleep and psyche docs to try and fix my poor sleep. Nothing. I stopped exercising hard a month ago, and I was shocked by how much better I slept, and my moods returned to normal.
YEsterday I experimented and ran hard for 30 minutes. WOW! I tossed and turned all night and now the black dog is back.
No more hard exercise for me. I’d rather feel good than look good.
The data show that if your cortisol levels are high, you’re much more likely to be depressed or to develop depression. If you’re prone to moodiness, anxiety, shyness, or insomnia, your cortisol is probably higher than average; the cortisol can be a contributing cause or an effect. Thus vigorous exercise may push you over the threshhold of critical mass much sooner than someone else. Watch the fighting with the significant other, too. Chronic arguments can permanently elevate your levels.
^^ I know the above advice won’t apply to many people, but it also might apply to others. Particularly those who are very diet or health conscious, or live very exercise oriented lives.
Has anyone here tried to simply bull their way through the exercise-induced depression by exercising more or harder?
Tried that… depression just got much worse.
No exercise = good health.
wow, just came home from my workout with my personal trainer who pushed me quite hard tonight. I was crying all night and felt really negative, angry and depressed. However, everytime I go to the gym especially in winter I always end up with a mental breakdown. I so want to lose weigth and it seems that doing the right thing does neither make me lose weight nor make me feel happy. Although I get the feeling that I am doing too much and don’t give mybody enough rest – I think that so called specialists always make us believe that only a hard workout makes the fat melt….otherwise your body is getting used to a certain level of exercise.
I used to work as a postwoman 3 years ago, I was required to work a quite large territory with a heavy bicycle – it was a lot of training and made me lose lots of weight. But it left me depressed and burnt out – other factors also played a part such as irregular work patterns. I never truly recovered from it. But I didn’t want to give up exercise so I started again but it’s been an on and off thing. I feel that if I workout at an easier pace without straining myself, I feel much better. Cold, dark, winters also don’t do me any good and the loss of energy in winter doesn’t help at all but makes me feel worse if I go to the gym. So I am glad I am not the only one
Thanks so much!
Hi Judy,
I’m a NASM certified Personal Trainer and Corrective Exercise Specialist and have battled exercise-induced depression which I’ve written about in previous posts.
Not all trainers are the same. I suggest that you switch trainers if she doesn’t listen to you. You should always overload & surprise your body to progress but not beat it into the ground. You need at least 48 recovery time before working the same muscle group. Also make sure you eat 5-6 small meals a day consisting of complex carbs and protein (and veggies & fruit of course) at every meal. Be sure to have a carb/protein snack within 30 minutes of training–this is really important.
For everyone, be sure to have enough protein during the day especially when training. Amino acids are precursors to the neurotransmitters in the brain. If you don’t eat enough protein or digest it properly you will not only be deficient in neurotransmitters but your body will start to break down lean muscle tissue for energy and to help it recover–especially after anaerobic type exercise such as strength training and interval training.
Judy, you might want to have your vitamin D levels checked. Many, many people are deficient and can cause depressive symptoms especially in the winter when we tend to be inside more and the suns rays aren’t as strong. If you are, take Vitamin D3 supplements.
I am being treated for adrenal fatigue and am feeling a zillion times better. I highly suggest that everyone find a doctor that will listen to them and have them test you for adrenal fatigue and also test your amino acids levels (all of mine but 1 were low). I can’t tell you how much better I feel since I found my integrative medicine doctor. Years of antidepressents/sleep aids haven’t helped as much as amino acid supplements and other vitamins, etc. that I am taking under her guidance. I see a light at the end of the tunnel.
I have been able to strength train without incidence though I haven’t tested interval training (too chicken to try it yet).
There is help. You can feel better. Please trust me. You need to keep looking for answers. Find the right doctor (I suggest integrative medicine). Ask about or google adrenal fatigue–see if you can relate to the symptoms.
Good luck to everyone and Happy Holidays.
Hi all, thanks for sharing. I don’t believe the problem is related to diet or hormones (such as cortisol). It has to do with the inflammatory mediators that are produced during exercise. Now, it may be that folks here produce more of these mediators than the average person, and/or it may have to do with their cell receptors and how these messages are interpreted by the body. I’m talking about cytokines and other mediators (some of which are proinflammatory while others tend to dial inflammation down). If you have access to it, I suggest reading the following article:
The inflammatory & neurodegenerative hypothesis of depression: leads for future research and new drug developments, by Michael Meas et al, from the journal Metabolic Brain Disease, published in 2009.
Other events that may also precipitate depression would include allergic reactions, any infection/illness, and trauma (exercise being self-induced trauma). The body uses a rather small set of signaling molecules, hence the connections among the nervous, immune, endocrine, GI…systems. It’s really one great big system. I have not come across too much research in this area. I think more will be done. The phenomenon is very real. I think there’s lots of hope. Not sure if the solution will be a drug, gene therapy or some sort of supplement. Best wishes to all.
Mark
Test topic for you!
I am 39. Up until I was 35 exercise gave me the greatest joy. Now it really makes me blue. What I find is I now need to find a way to be active and interactive. Exercising alone on a treadmill or lifting weights is now a drag. Doing an activity with friends that is competitive is now necessary for me to get the enjoyment I once found exercising alone.
After reaching 270 lbs pushing a desk for 7 years I started working out again. And smoking reefer before most workouts. I know, “madness”. I can mountain bike, vigorously, for two hours and swim 2,500 yards no problem and am now down to 198. 20 above my old competitive weight. This process took about 1 year.
I stopped the reefer part of the program recently. When I work out now I now feel the same as I did in the past if I went without eating for a while, though not a severe. I used to get this as far back as I can remember just from skipping meals. I rarely ever get it now that I’ve added a lot more protein to my diet and cut simple carbs and dairy. Migraines disappeared too.
I figure this would at least help point to what may be causing this ill effect based on what helps relieve it for me. I won’t say these recent ill effects are a constant thing as I don’t burn every time I work out and haven’t had anything like it in the past year. But the last few days it’s been a drag. I’m not shaky but a bit melancholy, and a little weak. Like I used to after skipping a meal or two, minus the physical shaking.
I’ve stopped using my herbal supplement server times before, for a decade the last time, and never felt anything like this. I highly doubt stopping is a factor.
Hi all, this thread is really amazing and very informative. I didn’t really notice I had a problem until my partner started getting upset with me when I came home about 2 hours after an evening workout and would be very short, angry, and having sudden rage. Of course I chocked it up to hormones, the pill, stress at work, whatever. But after taking a break from exercising for a term in school I have recently started up again.
I have to say I do push myself pretty hard but this time the depression and rage are so extreme, I need to figure out how to solve this. I fear it will lead me to make choices in my personal life that I don’t really want to make (like ending my relationship).
I am interested to try some methods for controlling hypoglycemia and going from there. Perhaps talking to a doctor. I was an obese child and teenager and now am at the top of a healthy BMI for my age and height so hopefully it’s not something more serious.
Good luck to you all and thanks for sharing.
Hi again. I’m the doctor and psychotherapist that posted in October and I just wanted to report on my progress.
Firstly let me say that my comments relate to me and may not have any truth for you but please give them some consideration. I have tried Tulsi and although it tastes good and does not keep me awake unlike normal English breakfast tea I could find no benefit for post exercise melancholy/depression. Other supplements tried include Creatinine and Whey protein and neither affected mood either way but they may improve recovery in moderation!!!.
What really helped for me was wearing a heart rate monitor and keeping exertion at levels at which I maintained 60-65% of Maximum exertion.
To calculate this HR you take you maximum HR which is estimated at 220-Age for me that’s 220-46=174 MaxHR.
You then find your resting HR (ie pulse 1st thing in morning while still in bed) mine is 60bpm. To work out your 60% exertion HR subtract your resting HR from your MaxHr and multiply this by .6 then add this number back to you resting HR so for me I get (174-60)X0.6+ 60=128.
Now I’m sure a lot of you are thinking that you would not be able to get fitter at all at these exertion levels but in fact I have found that the level of exertion I can now achieve at 60% now far exceeds what I could do when I first started. In fact I find I’m able to dial up resistance on the rower to levels that would have me at 85-90% a few months ago while still at only 60%HR. I have also been able to exercise for longer and what began as every second day and 40 minutes initially for the first month has now become 5 days per week with no lasting depression in sight. In fact if I even sense a bit of sadness or negative thoughts I use this as an indicator that I need a rest day but thisis becoming rare.
I have recently been on holidays and was walking 9km up and down hills, cycling40-50km and swimming 2-3km on separate days and had no problem with any of it. You may say “thats not much” but I had only started my new exercise regime 7 weeks ago and I’m happy to see this as a gradual project. I think in the past I pushed myself to the max in order to burn the most calories and build the most fitness in the shortest time. Now I realise that fitness is like the slow acceleration of an ion rocket it builds up very gradually but the top end is almost limitless and a steady HR means never stressing the machine so that the cardiovascular and muscular sytems have time to upgrade themselves without first having to repair a lot of painful and endorphin sapping microtrauma.
I think in the 10 months to come I will very gradually try to increase my %MaxHR but never beyond 75% and I will decrease frequency and duration initially each time I increase the HR so as to minimise microtrauma.
In short I feel that for me overexertion arose out of impatience and now I take pride in how much exertion I can achieve at a lower HR than before rather that at how long I can maintain some high level of exertion regardlesss of the fact that I was pushing my HR and muscles as if I was a machine.
Having read the hundreds of blog posts in this column I think that what seems common is the devotion to exercise and despair that it causes depression in us. I think that the depression is just the result of the brain stem running out of natural painkillers(endorphins) and uppers(dopamine) that have been released to supress the discomfort of the millions of microtraumas throughout the body that cannot heal before the next onslaught of damage.
By following a Slow Exercise philosophy, a term I have stolen from the Italians with their slow food movement I think we can create fitness at a pace that our natural pain systems and cardiovascular systems can keep up with without depression.
Best of all aside from a cheap HR watch it costs nothing.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. It has worked for me I hope it works for you.
Good luck.
If it works for you please let others by posting on this blog. If it doesn’t that would be good to know too. I don’t think it will work for everyone so don’t be surprised or too angry if it doesn’t work for you but I have been pleasantly impressed by the overall saneness of the posts on this site and so I expect all feedback will be of the same high standard.
Best wishes, Keep fit
Dr Jim
Melbourne Australia
Hello Dr. Jim,
I definately have an issue when I go into the anaerobic energy system when doing cardio which tends to be above 70-75%MAX HR. I believe this is what causes my depression and crashes. I was showing a client (I’m a personal trainer) how to do interval training and made the mistake of going into that HR zone–if only for 10 seconds. It ruined my next few days.
I will definately get a HR monitor–I’ve only been going by perceived exertion up until now. Thank you for you suggestions.
Joanne
Hello,
I have had this awful problem for many years. I have come to the conclusion that mine could be caused by the following. I had many bouts of tonsilitis when I was young – mid teens. I took so many antibiotics, but it never made much difference. I finally had my tonsils out when I was 16. After this, I went the usual way with too much drinking and junk food and started to get food allergies, itching and depression after eating. Anyway, I started to clean up my act, but still got really down and depressed after excercising – say 60 minutes 6 a side football – it also gave me a thick head and made ne tired. I have been treating myself for candida for a while now and lots of my symptoms are fading away.
The relevance to this topic is the following. I did not show any visual signs of having candida, but many internal problems that just could not be explained. However, my hypothesis is this…
When you exercise vigorously, your body needs energy. It gets this by using cortisol to produce blood sugar (glucose) which flows round the body energising all the relavnt mucles and processes needed for exercise. At the same time, this blood glucose feeds the candida, which produces many toxins which pour into the blood stream wreaking havoc with your immune system and causing psychological effects such as agitation, mood swings, anxiety, insomnia and depression. It can also leave you feeling completely exhausted and may wipe you out for a number of days. These symptoms can range from mild sadness and feeling down to psychosis and clinical anxiety.
The only way I could stop the depression after exercise, was to follow a strict anti candida diet and not do any aerobic exercise. I moved over to weights and relaxation. Not too much exertion on the weights, just a steady build up. Doing too much would inevitably cause me to feel sad and anxious with a thick head.
Iterestingly, vigorous exercise would also make me ill, ie colds, flu and chest infections. This was the complete opposite of what I would expect. You get exercise you feel healthy. Not so with me. When the exercise released the glucose and the candida was fed, it not only made me feel depressed, but it also surpresses the immune system and overloads it, making it very easy for minor infections to take hold.
I still believe that this is the case for me, although I am not a professional and do not provide this information to cure or diagnose anybody else. It is purely my notion based on lots of research and experimentation.
I hope this helps somebody and if you want any further info, then please post. I’m happy to answer any questions as a layman.
All the best.
Marcus
Just to add to the above post. About the cortisol raising blood sugar. What I meant to say was that cortisol is raised during exercise which elevates blood sugar. Intense exercise also raises blood sugar levels and so their is a double whammy.
Rraising blood sugar feeds my candida and aggrevates my symptoms.
I would appreciate any commenst from doctors or similar.
ATB
Marcus
Right there with everyone. I’m 28. Perfect health all my life. I was running long and hard a year and a half ago. I ran every day as hard as I could. Rain or shine.
Now there is absolutely a post exercise induced depression that takes place after even the slightest push.
I started taking LTheanine which seems to help alot but I don’t think it’s the final answer. I want to know why this is happening. Someone somewhere mentioned taking dopamine antagonists after exercise. I may try this also. I’ll be seeing a very good MD soon who will hopefully at least have a perspective on the issue. I’ll keep everyone informed.
Good luck. Keep your heads up. I’m so glad I’m (we) are not alone. My worst fear was that I would have to stop running. My second worst was that I was just being crazy. I have a lot of faith that neither of these is true.
Peace.
Thank you so much for all your postings. I’ve been dealing with depression caused from running for a few years now, and feel so much more normal knowing I’m not alone. I can do bodybuilding fine but it’s something about running in particular that starts me down the road of depression. I figured out how my depression feels at the start, and what I think about, and then eat high protein and fat, and cut back on the cardio. It helps, but the only cure is not to exercise, which is a solution I don’t like. Hang in there and stay positive everyone, you are not alone.
@Anthony P, others
Green tea can raise dopamine levels. Exercise does, too.
@Adam Have you noticed a difference in the way you feel if you’ve done a LT workout or not? I’m wondering if lactic acid has something do with this.
@DrJim
“What really helped for me was wearing a heart rate monitor and keeping exertion at levels at which I maintained 60-65% of Maximum exertion.”
This is consistent with my thought that lactic acid may have something to do with this. If you’re below between 60-70%MHR, you’re well below the lactic threshold. My experience is consistent with this, as well; when I keep my HR at lower than 70% MHR, or when I avoid hitting my lactic threshold I feel better.
For those who want to read more about the lactate threshhold, here’s a Wikipedia article on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactate_threshold
For those of you who are runners, Google Hadd’s approach to distance running to learn more about what training at 70% MHR does for one’s body.
For others who monitor HR: Does this depression affect you if you keep your HR under 70%MHR?
Perhaps also relevant: I have reactive hypoglycemia that will go away only if I exercise consistently. So, if I don’t run a few times a week, when I eat sugars or simple carbs my blood sugar spikes, then my insulin spikes, and then my blood sugar crashes. I’m left in a haze.
Also, DHEA which is available in supplement form will lower cortisol levels. Anyone try it? It made me depressed.
Yes, I just took 1mg of DHEA and the depression faded away. (To get this I had to open up the pill and pour out the powder.)
Is DHEA is safe for the people below 30? Does it helps to reduce depression after exercise? Hope it helps
What an interesting discussion! I always thought I was unique. Thank you all for sharing and posting
Hi Sachin,
So far as I know it’s safe for adults.
_______
Like some others here, I would just refrain from exercising. But exercise is the only thing that reduces my reactive hypoglycemia. If I don’t eat, I get all foggy after I eat carbohydrates.
Has anyone investigated the role of ammonia yet? I have some evidence that my exercise induced depression and brain fog come from ammonia:
- It sets in the day after exercising
- It is accumulative, meaning exercising multiple days in a row makes it worse
- It gets worse if I eat more meat
- It gets worse if I drink any alcohol
- It got better when I took lactulose as a trial for two weeks
- It was better while I had to take antibiotics
There is a known liver condition called “hepatic encephalopathy” which describes severe neurological deficits because of high ammonia levels. There also seems to be a mild form of it but I could not find much about it.
So if anyone knows more about it, I would be happy to know.
I agree with Dr. Jim. His findings are consistent with mine in that accelerating the heart rate too high and especially for too long will bring on mood issues. But this scenario is also consistent with cortisol release. Keep the intensity and duration down and the cortisol stays at a reasonable level.
I just went three weeks without any intense exercise, limiting myself to a moderate 30-minute walk per day. My sleep and moods have been much improved. Yesterday I couldn’t help but try to return to my old exercise routine, and I tried running for 30 minutes. The Black Dog, alas, returned, as did the sleep issues and the the next-day fatigue.
If the woman who posted about adrenal fatigue could keep us updated as to her progress, that would be great. Have you quit caffeine? Are you taking supplements? Let us know your regimen, especially if it continues to work for you.
Hey there. I commented a while back. I have been having the same issues as everyone else on this board. It’s truly mystifying to me that we all experience such repeatable and predictable results.
I recently decided to go to my (now X)doctor. I tend to faint when I get my blood drawn so this was a last resort for me. We sat and talked about this particular issue. He ordered a metabolic panel, lipid profile, liver, adrenals, thyroid, and vit. d.
He also gruffly and pointedly told me that “The only thing that causes mood swings is mood disorders.” He recommended that I get tested for mood disorders and get on some medication.
I humored him. I made an appointment to see a LCSW that he recommended that specializes in mood disorders. Within the first 20 minutes, with no prior psychological abnormality other than some anxiety, the LCSW had diagnosed me as soft bipolar and recommended getting on a mood stabilizer (which his MD partner would prescribe for $900). He told me that I would never get better without it and that I was in a lot of danger. I never went back to see my doctor or the LCSW.
I did however receive my blood test results. Everything was perfectly normal. Everything except my Vitamin D levels. Vitamin D should be somewhere between 45 and 100, ~80 or so for athletes. Mine was 10.
I started taking 4000 IU a day to boost my levels back up which should take ~2 months, though ongoing supplementation seems to have nothing but beneficial results. I also started taking 2-3 grams of EPA a day. EPA has been shown to have very strong mood stabilizing effects. The case studies are available online. Really quite dramatic results.
I haven’t found an answer yet. I haven’t found a methodology. I want to know why as much as I want to know how to fix it. I haven’t been on a run for sometime now. I was hoping that my Vitamin D levels were the root of all of this. It seems with this many people from so many different places in life that there is something quite similar at the root. An improper quantity or metabolism of Vitamin D would fit that bill for me.
It’s been a month since I’ve been on a run.
I’ll be trying one today.
I’ll update on the results.
Stay up everyone. Good luck.
I thought I was the only one!
Yesterday after a workout I enjoyed just before I’d finished, and was stretching I felt a huge comedown. I’ve had it before. I drink lots during a workout and I ate an hour before too and relaxed first as I was tired. So it’s not that.
I do suffer from depression though but am on meds for it. In the past I used to get a real buzz and tons of energy afterwards but now just drained and have to come in, eat and veg out on the sofa all night. I certainly can’t do anything constructive as my brain won’t let me. I have a bad back so I need to rest it anyway. But I can only assume the comedown effect is from the body being drained, maybe the workout is too long or maybe I’m lacking certain vitamins. I’m going to talk to one of the trainers at the gym and see what she says about it as I can’t stand feeling so down when during I’m loving it and feel great, it comes on right at the end of my workout, almost like I’m sad to have finished it but the body is too done in to go on! Exercise used to beat my depression, not cause it!!!
Back again.
Yesterday I bought a new pair of shoes and a heart rate monitor. Based on my maximum heart rate (which is not defined by fitness level) I ran 3 miles at ~74%. For me this was around 141 beats a minute. It took around 30 minutes. I CAN run this in under 24 minutes. I used to do it in almost 20 flat. One month ago I was feeling about as depressed as I’ve ever been after running 1 mile at that pace. Today, I feel fine. 3 miles at a snails pace. I have a feeling that “overtraining syndrome” might have more to do with all of this than I previously thought, especially for those of us who lean towards the high-strung/type A personalities. It’s very possible our bodies and minds are getting little down time, even more so with any anxiety present. Too much exertion is stressing our hearts triggering classic overtraining symptom which we and our bodies are misinterpreting. Stress is stress.
I think my next question is how to slowly build up my body’s resistance to that stress, and also how to retrain my brain to differentiate between good stress and bad.
@Adam
I have low Vit D levels, as well. So we have that in common.
Even running 30 minutes @65% MHR still causes me to be really depressed.
______
I wonder how many others here get foggy after eating carbohydrates if they don’t exercise regularly (reactive hypoglycemia)?
I posted a while back how i started getting depression after running.
Typical to me i was over-doing it and i limit my running to 3/4 days a week and never on 2-consecitive days. I now feel much better.
In summary – train within your limits and don’t over-do it. The body does need time to recover.
Regards,
David
I am so glad I found this website. I am relatively new to running and I have noticed that sometimes after what seems like a good workout the next day or two I am so sad and cry very easily. I have been reading some of what folks posted but am wondering if some of this relates to being sore and if somehow the soreness causes an emotional reaction? I am wondering if anyone here has found that more and better stretching before or after running as well as icing helps??
Within 24 to 48 hours after excersise I feel physically very depressed. It’s something thats never spoken about, you just don’t hear about it at all. Excersise is meant to make you feel emotionally better.
As a hypothesis, perhaps the reserves of the ‘feel good’ chemicals which are released during excersise are depleated. In certain people, the reserves remain drained for longer or have a delayed replenishment. Hence the depressive state.
It’s a phenomenon thats never spoken about and perhaps further reachin gthan we think. Perhaps depression itself is very closely related which makes it an important area to study this debilitating condition.
Say for example there are people who when a feelgood event occurs it drains these chemical reserves, these people already have a low threshold of chemicals and low replenishment capability. All of a sudden you have people that for every good feeling, suffer a rebound effect, perhaps greater in level to the positive effects.
Whatever the cause, I feel the symptoms I feel are profound and very real, but until now I have never seen them discussed.
You know what??? I been at this the last 3 months. I’M FEELING SUNSHINE NOW!!! Tell you what that months is one of the most scary downfall of my life. It was raining and foggy and dark in my cirty, I had a crush on this girl but she rejected me.
I was exercising to feel better but instead I feel worse??!! After workout I feel depressed, scared, hurt, almost all the negative.. So I thought is normal after a couple of days things will be fine but days goes by it didn’t!! I feel like killing myself! Because I was in a state of lonliness, it was scary…
So I went and look for help on the internet. Anyway, started to examine why do I feel like this after an exercise because I’m living in a world all by myself, I was going to end my life…
But I’m strong I didn’t. So what I learn is that I have low blood sugar after intense exercise. I don’t usually eat nothing but just half a bar of glucose before exercise which that is the bad part because I train with so high of intensity I needed more stuff to fuel me physically and mentally.
So I started eating breakfast 1 hour before workout like a slow complex carbs and protein. After workout I still feel depressed but not depressed like I had been that I wanted to kill myself, actually I feel a little bit better than before.
Miracly I started to eat healthy before everytime i exercise and it take me 3 days to feel my normal self again! I feel me as a new person, happy, can handle almost everything that is giving to me….
No more depressed. SUNSHINE AT THE BEACH!!!! Was amazing is that I include a multivitamin in my diet and i couldn’t feel much better?? I even audition for my first commercial cast and I get paid great! I got a healthy mind, body, soul… I’m not bragging but I really feel great.
Even in sad times still I can cope with it better and smoothly, instaed of wanting to kill myself. So this is really the story my friend. If your going to exercise to feel better eat something and wait 1 hour before exercise. Then after you done exercise 1 hour, eat again. Get good quality sleep.
Eat your veggies and take multivitamin. If you follow it correctly i don’t see why you can still feel sad. If your are depressed you are not alone buddy.
May the sunshine for you as well and see how clear and blue the sweet sky is.
Thank heavens I stumbled on this site!
In short: I’m a long-distance cyclist, 48, been doing it for 30 years, and the usual pattern for me after a long ride is now: Sunday – feel great!
Monday – Muscles tired but the paranoia starts the moment I walk into work (this is new). Tuesday – teary, no energy, almost suicidal. Wednesday lunchtime – Click, I’m on the way back up.
I was beginning to suspect that riding was influencing my brain chemistry … but after sunday’s ride (a long one for me) and the mental anguish of monday and tuesday I decided to look deeper. On coming across this site now I’m convinced. The key for me is keep it low intensity, and don’t stress the cortisol system ie EAT, EAT, EAT and don’t go overboard on the coffee (shame!)
Good luck folks, the answer is out there.
It’s me again (post 203) I’ve been collecting about 20 or so email addresses since that post, but need a few more before I feel ready to start organizing the questionnaire.
The basic idea is – we seem to suffer from similar symptoms and I’d like to organize a list of questions (that you guys mail me) that I then consolidate into a questionnaire and mail everyone to fill out. Then everyone will be given access to the result. So please, ask me questions that you’d like to have answered.
depressionandexercise@gmail.com
Raz
Therapy for this kind of depression is in itself depressing. The therapists I saw all tried to get me to make changes in my life, but the reality of it is, I have a good life already, with plenty of friends and a great career and family, all the things you need to keep you happy. The bottom line is, if I get a good night’s sleep and I feel good physically, there is no depression, regardless of my life’s circumstances.
I do believe wholeheartedly in the “depletion” theory. If you’re elated from exercise today, you’re more likely to run those good brain chemicals down and out and feel like hell tomorrow. Take the exercise down a notch. It works for me.
Thank you to everyone for sharing experiences. I’ve especially appreciated Dr Jim’s posts. I’m in the middle of some serious post-exercise depression right now – ugh! I decided to try keeping my heart rate low but I jogged with some friends yesterday and ended up quite away behind them. They waited for me at the halfway point and then I jogged with them, which took my heart rate over the limit I was trying for. SIGH! I don’t know yet if that is why I’m down today but I do know that it broke my experiment. Maybe I have to exercise on my own for awhile. By the way, to KIP, who posted recently: I am a long-distance cyclist, too, who really doesn’t want to give it up!
Eat honey after workouts and do it several times.
For example you leave the gym at 6pm. Go home swallow some honey right away. Then again at 8 and again before bed.
Do it again the following morning as needed. Honey is the best way to replenish glycogen levels. This should help you guys out.
A little more about the honey and glycogen:
Honey is the one natural food source comprised of glucose. Other sugars have to be converted to glucose and then be stored as glycogen in the liver and muscles.
First of all you may be tempted to eat a lot at once but try to eat small amounts in intervals otherwise you are set up for a sugar rush and crash. So just take a bit at a time.
For the endurance athletes reading this: be sure to replenish your SALT. Everyone will tell you to rehydrate all day long but most people fail to replenish salt. Without it, the water won’t stay in your cells and you are never rehydrated. Just eat a handful of salty potato chips or drink Sprite.
Also completely avoiding fat is a mistake for endurance athletes or anyone who works out with intensity for long periods. Fat is the best slow burning fuel source and will prevent unnecessary fatigue. Of course vegetable fats from oils and nuts are best but whole milk is great too. I am definitely NOT advising anyone to go eat sausage and bacon.
Last but not close to being least: DRINK PROTEIN SHAKES!!!
Honey is full of fructose so this would be a bad choice for people who are fructose intolerant, which appears to be very common. As well, it is super sweet and could bring on hypoglycemia to those who are susceptible. Careful with honey.
I am certain that those who are fructose intolerant know what they can and cannot eat given the over-abundance of fructose (corn syrup) in many packaged grocery items. They are surely not ignorant of the fructose content of honey.
Still, for those of us, and that is most of us, who can eat fructose, honey is a great choice b/c it contains a large amount of glucose, the form of sugar used directly by cells.
Thats it for me!
As with many I’ve just stumbled upon this page. Thanks!
I run 5,10,20k a couple of times a week as well as weight training – purely for fitness – for the last 15 years.
At age 35 and I have to admit – already being in a somewhat unhappy state but yes indeed, the exercise now makes me worse – last 12 months – unbearable.
Last night I got home from the gym and sobbed for 2 hours- I have no idea why (obviously thinking about things while I cry – but nothing major/unsolvable).
I take loads of supplements/5-htp etc, dont drink much alcohol. Even the day after I’m still fed up.
I had considered blood sugar, but who wants to eat loads of sugar when you are trying to keep trim?
Maybe its just time to call it a day and stop exercising so much/just go for a walk. Ill keep checking back here from now on – in case someone comes up with a consensus (I cant eat 600 calories after exercising I might as well not do it).
Nice to know Im not alone, I feel better already.
Try Meditation before excercise. Great combination!
Meditation under clinical observation has demonstrated to relieve stress/depression and to calm the nervous system.
I am training for a marathon and after my long runs, just finished an 18 miler today, I find myself spontaneously getting choked up and crying. It has happened on previous long runs too. I do have some things going on in my life but I don’t break down and cry about them until after the long runs. Not sure what is going on. I have heard of depression for people who have stopped running but never causing it.
Found this site whilst researching my own reoccuring condition. I have never suffered from depresion but now each time I up my exercise or take part in a very stressfull event I become crushingly depressed.
Usually 24 hours after the event usually last 24 hours.
Will try some of the suggestions.
Thanks
Wow, I am soo glad I found this forum.
I’m at 21 year old male who has been weight lifting for about 2 years now. I would get out of the gym and feeling AMAZING. Adrenaline pumping, muscles feeling stiff. Just overall good feeling from working out.
Sometimes I would get out of the gym, look at the clouds in the sky and feel a sense of beauty and feel like I want to cry. I would get home and cry in my shower. But a really good cry, sort of cleaning the pipes kind of feeling.
I figured that it wasn’t from sadness, but just feeling SO alive in my body.
Recently I switched to the P90x workout, just to try something different.
So Friday I worked at my job for 6 hours (on my feet), and then went to the gym to workout my legs. After the workout I got home and cried really hard, and felt really out of it. I think I was just over tired.
The next day I felt great again, really happy actually. Then by the end of the day my moody swung really hard and I started crying randomly and feeling really depressed.
I also eat a big meal before and after my workouts. and just about 6 big meals a day, high caloric, high protein.
Perhaps a lot of this mood swinging is just your body saying “TOO MUCH!!”.
I’ve noted before that keeping my exercise mild and under 30 minutes makes a world of difference. Equally important is when I go to bed. Too much sleep—anything over 6 hours for me—aggravates my moodiness. In fact, the earlier I go to bed, the more severe my depression the next day. If I go to bed between 1 and 2 hours later than is comfortable for me—that is, well after my initial drowsy stage—I sleep much more solidly and feel worlds better the next day. Believe it or not, there is data to support this improvement in mood, no matter how counter-intuitive it sounds.
Back when I exercised heavily, I grew sleepy MUCH earlier than normal, and I’d nod off on the couch in front of TV. Later, I’d wake and my sleep would be broken and spotty for the rest of the night, and I’d feel like death the next day. I’d guess that most of you heavy exercisers also succumb to early bedtimes, which may be throwing a wrench in your normal sleep cycles.
You’ll have to experiment with this yourselves, because too much sleep restriction can backfire and itself make you moody if you go too far with it. If you normally go to bed at 9:00, try 11:00 instead, and don’t sleep any later than normal the next day because you’ll only be sabotaging the restriction and destroying any positive effect.
I have a good friend who has bipolar disorder, and modest sleep restriction (no later than 11:30 bedtime) makes her feel like a million bucks the next day. The critical thing to remember, though, is not to slip back to your earlier bedtime time the next day, or you’ll be stung by a nasty rebound depression. My friend and I have gone as a long as a week following this restriction schedule, and it’s absolutely miraculous how well it can work. (However, if you’re bipolar, you’ve got to be really, really, really careful and not stay up all night unless you want to kick in a manic episode.)
Sooner or later she or I will overdo the exercise thing again and crash early on the couch, bringing the black dog back in full force the next day. But it’s simply a matter of getting back on the restriction schedule to feel good again.
Sleep restriction is TOUGH, and when you’re drowsy, it’s easy to cave in to your body’s demands. That’s why if you try it, you’ll likely fail as much as you succeed. Don’t sit in front of the TV after 9 o’clock, and don’t read. You’ll nod off and you won’t even realize it. My sleep doc told me that you can have a dozen or more microsleeps in front of the TV and not ever realize it, but these little nods can ruin the solidity of your sleep later in the night and in turn spoil your mood the next day. Stay up and stay active.
Experiment with it. Try an hour later bedtime tonight. If that does nothing, try two hours later the next night. Contrary to popular media and endless contradictory medical advice, many of us do NOT need 8 hours of sleep (according to my sleep Doc) and are in fact hurt by trying so hard to get it. You’ll only know what’s right for you by experimenting to find your sweet spot.
I would not recommend working out on the day of your sleep restriction. Stick to a 30-minute walk and take it easy. Once you’ve gone a few days successfully, slowly try to work in some heavier exercise. Just dial it back if it backfires.
I think Stavros and James above particularly illustrate what I suspect: chronic fatigue. I checked out the Med site provided and the Mayo clinic one http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/chronic-fatigue-syndrome/ds00395 and it seems to be a commonality. CFS can manifest itself in various ways that disrupt our physioligical processes, especially after the body (organs, muscles and brain) is stressed after exercise. I suspect however that it’s more of a symptom than cause; so many of the theories on here could be quite valid.
On the practical side, all the suggestions in the CFS context seem to apply re exercise for us: light or very moderate and pay attention to body feedback. From what I read, it could take years to recover. In any case, good luck.
I’ve suffered from depression my entire life and lately have tied it, somewhat, to exercise. When I exercise hard I do not sleep well which leads to depression and even if I sleep ok I feel depressed the day after exercise and sometimes even after a good long walk. Everyone says exercise for depression and especially walk for depression but these activities make me depressed!
I’ve just had a huge breakthrough. I’ve been trying interval training, particularly with biking, and interspersing 30 second intense bursts approaching maximum heart-rate, with 90 seconds of easy riding, and then repeating the bursts about five times, each time followed by rest periods. After doing this for about two weeks, I’ve gotten my exercise high back, with no trace of depression. I’m sleeping better and I feel great.
The data shows that this form of exercise releases growth hormone (needed for deep sleep), builds fast-twitch muscle fiber, and produces a reliable high.
Unfortunately, once I felt so much better, I felt compelled to experiment, and I pushed the envelope by doing too many repetitions of bursts (more than 5), doing training too many days without a break, and trying to add lots of miles (18 in one day!). These experiments blew up in my face and the fatigue and moodiness returned.
So I’m back to doing just 15 minutes of intervals per day, and I feel fantastic. This is far more effective than the sleep restriction (and easier) I mentioned in an earlier post.
I’ve had this exercise/depression thing for about 12 years, by the way, and nothing has been more effective at eliminating it than this. Give it a try and report back.
This is the first information of any kind I have found regarding this issue!
My entire life, intense workouts or intense anything leads to a racing mind, tense body (especially in the back) then poor sleep which leads to depression and more poor sleep. In the past I’ve had to resort to complete bed rest until my body “healed” and then I could get deep sleep again and get back to normal.
I think exercise is necessary but any intense exercise seems to create a chemical imbalance which makes me tense mentally and physically leading to poor sleep (no deep sleep) and depression.
Part of the problem seems to be tenseness in the back. When I awaken, my back is very stiff. If I can force myself up to loosen the back and stretch it out, I always sleep better. And when my back is not stiff during the day I always sleep better at night. But this seems to take complete bed rest which is counter-productive! I have received some relief in the past using antidepressants but especially now they all tend to ruin my sleep.
If anyone has similar problems and might have some solutions, please post!
Hey Marc (295), I’d like to try too, can you give a detailed outline of exactly how you did it when it worked? How many miles? How many seconds? How long was the entire workout? 90, 30, 90, 30, 90, 30, 90, 30, 90, 30, 90? Are the 90 second blocks ridiculously slow or you’re still cycling on? Are the 30 second blocks really intense?
Thanks a lot!!
R
You know what??? I don’t want to scare you guys, you should stop exercising and go see a doctor or someone that can help you. Because the more you exercise and feel negative the more you PUSHING YOURSELF TO DEATH!
Exercise suppose to make you feel better. Now when your not feeling better is very stupid to keep on going. I guarantee someone who doesn’t even exercise will live longer than you guys because their not pushing their body and mind to feel the extreme negative like you. If you feel great that is good but you don’t… So STOP AND SEEK HELP RIGHT AWAY!!! Take Vitamin C 1 gram a day. Eat 40 to 50 grams of complex carbs and some eggs 1 hour before intense weight lifting or light cardio.
Keep your blood sugar level healthy and stable. If Multi Vitamin give you headache or throw up don’t take it! Take Flax oil 2 times a day. Eat your veggie. Take olive oil with your veggie or salad.
That’s about it to feel great and energize through out the day. I am a Fitness Competitor and Advisor. Remember don’t take too much supplement or mix them together.
I have the same problem bad depression after exercise.
I’ve since refined my routine since my last post. What works best for me is to warm up on my bike slowly for about 5 or 6 minutes and then pedal intensely for 30 seconds (just about maximum effort so you’re getting out of breath) and then pedal very easy for the next 90 seconds. Do another 30 second burst followed by another 90 second slow-down, and then do two more intermittent bursts and slow-downs.
I’ve found if I do much more than this, there is a fatigue and mood backlash—possibly due to a big release of cortisol.
Do NOT do this intense training again the next day. Just do 30 minutes of walking or something similarly mild and non-taxing.
I believe the reason why you shouldn’t repeat the routine two days in a row is because your cortisol elevation from the day before may have disturbed your sleep (unbeknownst to you) and therefore you’re not recovered the next day. In fact, poor quality sleep will raise your cortisol even more. So the next day break is crucial.
On the third day, you can try again, but sometimes I’m finding it even better to take two days break from anything intense.
This routine has been miraculous to me. I’m energized. I’m happy, and any hint of the old black dog has vanished. Would I like to exercise more? Sure. But this is so much better than the horrendous fatigue and depression I’d get with my previous exercising.
We’re all different, so experiment with it, but just pull back to the moderate routine I described here if you do too much and it blows up in your face.
Again, controlling cortisol is crucial, so watch the stress, the caffeine, the sleep deprivation, and the fights with family members in the evening hours. Also be aware that the older a man is the more his cortisol becomes permanently elevated, the single biggest contributor to broken sleep in middle-aged and older people.
Check out the data for yourselves. It’s fascinating.
I’m finding a relaxed daily 20-30 minute (tops) walk to work for me, with 20 minutes being ideal. This doesn’t cause the depression and keeps me fit enough for any daily activity. Also seems to cause slow and steady weight loss. If I walk for longer than 30 minutes, i tend to get the down mood (also strong hunger) and will put a small weight gain on. So I try and keep it at 20 minutes. My guess is at this level I get very little cortisol response and get a mild/moderate cardiovasular/circulation stimulation.
It is nice to know that I am not the only one going through this. I use to feel GREAT after working out (moderately for 30 minutes). I have definitely been working out much harder than normal but thought that I should feel good anyways. There are a lot of different suggestions here but I am wondering if anyone has tried working out at night? That way you can sleep and recover, than hopefully wake up feeling good. I have not tried this yet but have been thinking about it as a possibility. My only problem is that I don’t work out as good at night.
Working out at night does not change things for me. I just find myself feeling depressed in the morning.
I feel the same way – I swim recreationally once a week, and feel great for a few days after, but then, I suddenly get irritable, unhappy, impatient. I feel so guilty because I snap at my kids. I found some information that indicates that these can be symptoms of excercise withdrawal – a way to avoid them, is to excercise more, which is not exactly an option for me. Please, check the below article.
http://www.acsm.org/Content/ContentFolders/NewsReleases/2005/Withdrawal_From_Exercise_Can_Lead_to_Depression.htm
a while ago i posted a comment saying 3 things to try are glucos drink, holy basil tea and something else, and for a while i thought they worked but they dont make that much difference
i go to the gym often because i want to work on my body and i come out trying to control myself and keep relaxed but somehow it gets out of my control and i end up falling out with people for what seems like the right reason at the time but then i regret it so much a day or 2 days later
i have tried everything it seems, i tried mood boosting drinks which have camomile, amino acids, gingseng, ginkgo, and then i tried holy basil to calm down, and i tried creatine and half a dozen supplyments and ideas, but the depression and anxiaty still kick in
honestly this is horrible, i wish i could be one of these people that feel great after coming out the gym, and not be scared to go gym because of a horrible uncontrollable mood swing thats waiting for me
right now i aint been to the gym for 2 days and i feel ok, not amazing, but i feel relaxed
Hi all,
Let’s get to the bottom of this! There has got be something we all have in common that may point towards a possible cause. We just need to find out what it is! For this purpose it would be very helpful if we all shared a bit more about the way we go about our lives (diet, sleep, work, medication, etc.).
Here’s another theory: Maybe the depression is due to over supplementation! It has been shown that too high levels of antioxidants can interfere with the body’s own (very efficient) natural mechanisms for dealing with oxidative stress induced by physical exercise.
I got the idea when I read up on antioxidants for a different reason and when I read the following paragraph it suddenly hit me that my high intake of vitamins and polyphenols could perhaps be the reason for exercise induced depression:
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioxidants#Physical_exercise
Who is on high amounts of antioxidants here? I know I am!
I am going to leave them out for a couple weeks and see if that has any effect on the situation. I’ll report back!
We can fix this folks!
Interesting article you cited, Mags. But I think with many of us, the depression sets in within hours of working out or sometimes during, so maybe this is just a different facet of the same very ugly stone.
John, I don’t take supplements of any kind, but I can only speak for myself about whether antioxidants make a difference or not.
For me, it’s a clear pattern: I must not exercise for more than 30 minutes, and any intensity within that must be strictly limited to a few 30-second bursts. Those bursts give me the nice happy high we’ve all been missing. However, this regimen absolutely MUST be followed by a full recovery day or it blows up in my face in the form of poor sleep and bouts of depression.
Since my last post, I’ve found that I can work out on a bowflex in the same manner as with my biking; the same rules apply, and the same nice effect is achieved.
All I know is that I’ve exercised regularly for about 30 years, and only during the last eleven or twelve years have things gone to hell.
The frightening thing is that after my Dad died 12 years ago, a doc convinced me to go on antidepressants, which did nothing for me, but he pressed me to keep taking them for a full year anyway. With some of the data I’m seeing now, I’m beginning to worry that the drugs themselves may have rewired my brain and permanently altered my serotonin release system.
Anyone else on antidepressants BEFORE having trouble with exercise-induced moods?
marc wrote:
> Anyone else on antidepressants BEFORE having trouble
> with exercise-induced moods?”
Yes, I was on a low doese Fluxetine (Prozac) for two years, and then Ritalin for a year and after a long break from all medication I was on Wellbutrin for about 3 months. My exercise induced depression started about half a year after that.
What were you on, marc?
Folks, it must be Overtraining syndrome (OTS). Google “Overtraining syndrome”. The symptoms largely match with depression.
There is also a study that suggests that psychomotor slowness ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychomotor_retardation ) might be an indicator for OTS: http://www.ophsource.org/periodicals/ophtha/medline/record/MDLN.17004845
How do you fix OTS? – By recovering and resting! (Sometimes for months)
However, before you lock away your running shoes, there are several studies that support that Low intensity exercise may be better than complete rest. It’s called active recovery:
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/tipsandtricks/a/activerecovery.htm
It’s apparently also called / been recently redefined to “Unexplained Underperformance Syndrome (UPS)”, a name that better takes into account that ascribing it all to overtraining does not give a complete picture. It also does not seem to be limited to athletes
http://www.sportsinjurybulletin.com/archive/overtraining-syndrome.html
I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna play it safe and rather do some brief brief sprinting / weight lifiting and no more than 10 minute cardio for some time.
Some avenues for further research on the topic, also including tips for prevention and recovery:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22unexplained+underperformance+syndrome%22+depression
Unfortunately, some people merely suffer from depression due to a chemical imbalance. An imbalance that can only be treated with medication. I am one of those people, but I cannot stand taking medication. I am depressed often. Personally, running and proper diet has helped, but only moderately. It also helped me to transition from my treadmill to outdoor jogging, which wasn’t easy due to major social anxiety. Luckily, my one and only friend went with me the first few times. After that, I could easily jog alone without feeling like I was going to die. My treadmill is located in the basement and that only isolated me further from the World. Just being outdoors has helped, even though I spend the rest of my time indoors.
There have been times where I felt more depressed after running. As others have suggested; ensure that you are eating enough. I find myself most irritable when I deprive myself of food. Sometimes it takes 2 meals before I am feeling balanced again. I have a bad habit of ignoring my hunger signals.
I am always moderately depressed, so I began weight training today to end this. I’m just glad I did it at home and not the gym because after I completed the workout I started crying a lot. I’ve never cried this much in years, I’m going to head to my University counselor for help because this scared me.
I started exercising for a marathon two months ago and feel very irritable the next day, in the evening. I go through highs and lows. High on the day of exercise and low the next day in the evening when I rest. However, the interesting point, is that I noticed the same pattern when I go skiing to a high altitude, around 2,700 meters (8,800 feet). Same feelings of high and low in the space of two days. I suffer from depression and have been on medication for 20 years. But I never experienced highs and lows in the space of two days. When I asked a doctor about the high altitude mood swings, there was no information. Does anyone have similar issues when going to high altitude? Maybe there is a link with exercise and high altitude or maybe because of the exercise I do when I ski. Thank you for all your comments. They have been very useful.
Hi,
Like all of you I’m glad to see I’m not alone.
I’ve battled the depression thing for many years it wasn’t until about 1 year ago I started getting anxiety attacks aswell.
I was on Zoloft for about 7 years and stopped taking it 3 years ago, since then it’s been an up and down adventure.
About 4 months ago I hit rock bottom this was from what I believe to be overtraining and general stress in life. It started by me getting insomnia and anxiety really bad this led to major fatigue in the day time and severe depression.
I really didn’t want to get back on Zoloft because it was terrible to stop 3 years ago, so I perused the natural therapies. I can tell you the following ..
Acupuncture – This helped with the anxiety attacks and a bit of energy. It didn’t help with the overall depression and insomnia.It ’s not a quick fix you need atleast 4 sessions to help the anxiety.
Kenesioligy – This is quite an experience if you havn’t done it before. This has helped me get back to doing the hobbies I used to do and given me motivation to follow my dreams. Although it hasn’t helped with the depression and fatigue.
Vitimin b+ & Night formula – I think this has helped but I’m really not too sure. I would take it rather than not.
Well… after spending $2000 on the natural therapies, I don’t regret it, but overall the problem wasn’t fixed. My moods were inconsistent and very unstable. If you have the money these things are definitely not bad for you. But overall I was still at the bottom of the hill.
continued…next post
After much resistance I got back on Zoloft (50mg) and found my mood to be stable. The insomnia was no longer an issue also. I’m still far from out of the hole.
The following things I have found to help with my recovery.
Breathing – This exercise helps – look at the clock (analog) and watch the minute hand, breath in (belly breath) for 5 seconds hold for 3 seconds and breath out for 5 sec.
Do this for a minute, 10 – 20 times per day. Why? Because if your like me ,shallow breathing puts your mind in a state of panic and you get the adrenaline anxiety kicking in. breathing exercise also helps you to focus on now..not sad about last week or freaking out about next week.
Dinner – Don’t eat too late at night. I normally eat at 9pm and it’s too late. If I eat before 8pm I find to be better rested the following day.
Meditate – If you can make the time.. This helps. Why??you need to learn to focus on nothing. This is useful for when you want to switch off your mind.
Exercise – I walk for 20 minutes a day, not to fast not to slow. + yoga once a week. If I do anything too strenuous I get it all coming back again within ½ an hour and I’m back where I started depression/ anxiety and insomnia for at least a day or so..
Talking – I talk to my partner about everything and I don’t know what I would have done without her. Find someone.
Other than that I don’t drink coffee, alcohol or any stimulants what so ever. These things are just obstacles.
The Zoloft isn’t always working, you need to get your level right. I’m on 75mg and feel I need more. I used to take 150mg and don’t really want to get back to that level if I can help it.
Remember, no matter how good I’m feeling if I do anything too physical I’m back to where I started and it’s a very viscous cycle. I think this thing is just a burnout – a wake up call that you’ve been ignoring signs and overdoing it.
Good luck.
MAT
I am having this problem. I read that sometimes the lactic acid mixes with sugar and creates alcohol in our systems. It’s like having a hang over. Red Cidar Vinegar tablets are supposed to help. They helped me with the fatigue, but the depression and irritability remain. Help!
I’m so glad to see folks talking about this. As someone fighting depression/bipolar for more than half of my life, I have always been frustrated by suggestion of exercise as a natural remedy. My experience has been what many here have shared–it feels great during and immediately after, but then the depression hits at twice the level it was before. I suspect that for folks with normal serotonin levels, exercise can help fend off depression and anxiety. But, for those with a serious disorder, it can really make things a lot worse.
I am now taking cod liver oil and doing interval type exercise (high and low heart rate), it seems to have controlled the wild mood swings.
omg. 320 comments and all along I thought I was the only one–lol. I go into a depression after exercise, usually a delay of a few hours and sometimes even a day. I can never figure out why or what it is. Im sorry others experience it, but I am happy to realize that it is not just me. I would love to learn more about why it happens.
I don’t know if someone said this before because I didn’t read through all 300 and something comments but:
Fat cells store hormones so as you are breaking down fat cells (by exercising) the hormones are being released into your body and have to be processed. Some people who feel great after exercise probably have an easier time processing these hormones. For people who have a history with depression/anxiety probably already have a difficult time processing the hormones. Changes in hormone levels would probably then effect them in a negative way.
A relevant example would be the so called “roid rage” that people get from taking steroids (chemicals that mimic the effect of hormones). The rage is caused by the increase in levels of the “hormone” and the result is major changes in mood.
I used to suffer from anxiety and depression from my birth control (hormones) and although doctors insisted that wasn’t possible, it completely went away when I stopped taking the pills. I do notice when I start an intense exercise regimen to lose weight that some of those emotions return but it is much less extreme. Catch 22 I guess…
Hope this helps.
My thought is that this is another example of dopamine dysregulation, where stimulation can actually temporarily numb the pleasure centers of the brain. It may be that when you wait out the necessary time, your brain returns to normal sensitivity. What happens when you exercise less vigorously, but more often, and don’t go for the high? Here’s why I ask: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cupids-poisoned-arrow/201010/protect-your-appetite-pleasure
To the new members on the list please read my post number 257 I think you may find it helpful. What I discovered and wrote about has still shown itself to be correct for me. I suspect others have found the same. Keep the heart rate down. Best wishes.
Dr Jim
What Dr. Jim has to say sounds a little crazy but I think, for me, he’s right. I suffer from depression and have found I become depressed when I work out. It’s only strenuous exercise that causes depression for me. I don’t measure my heart rate but I know each time I do anything strenuous my body tightens, I sleep poorly, and I become depressed. At this point I don’t know if the poor sleep leads to the depression or the exercise but I know it all stems from strenuous exercise.
It has to do with arousal level of the body/brain. I exercised for the past 250+ days doing hard cardio workouts, and felt great initially. I still think working out is very important, but I also noticed that my mental speed and overall arousal level dropped off.
Low arousal in the body (and slowing of the brainwaves) is associated with depression. Think of low arousal as relaxation as opposed to feeling excited/pumped up. I noticed that I feel a lot more emotional several hours following exercising. I also have less mental energy and feel less talkative – this caused my depression.
Obviously, you can correct the problem by changing your brainwaves and/or finding ways to elevate your arousal. In short amounts, exercise can raise arousal levels, but over the long term, it actually lowers them (which can be healthy for your body), but can also make you depressed.
The easy solution for many is to stop exercising so much or do different types of exercise.
i have tried everything to stop the depression, it feels impossible, sometimes i think i have beat it as it takes longer to strike, but it hits me and i sometimes dont even realise it and just eccept it as negative thoughts
its annoying because it feels like i cant have an active lifestyle because of this, and im currently trying to build muscle and it leaves me feeling terrible, and i believe heart rate goes up during muscle building
AM I CURED?
I’m tantalizingly close. In earlier posts I talked about how interval training has given me huge boosts of mood and energy and better sleep. I’ve been refining my routine to the point where I can now say I’m 95% free of depression, which seems impossible after the years of hell I’ve been through.
My routine is this: An 8-minute warm-up jog in the morning, interspersed with four bursts of 30-second, flat-out sprints. After each sprint I slow to a walk for a couple of minutes and then do another 30-second burst, followed by a walk, and so on, until the final cool-down walk home.
You can do these bursts, I’ve found, with ANY type of exercise. I’ve tried it with biking and with my bowflex with equally good results, although with some slight variations.
Those short bursts kick out astonishing feel-good
brain chemicals that keep me perky all day without inducing the usual depression that long-duration exercise invariably caused before.
The only time this routine fails for me is if I exercise too many days in a row without a break or if I exert myself too much or for too long later in the day. So, a second exercise session later tends to backfire.
Because the intensity of the exercise will make you tired earlier in the evening, you also have to be careful not to succumb to a too-early bed-time. Too early to bed gives me broken, non-refreshing sleep, and a greater tendency toward moodines the next day. A somewhat shorter sleep duration consolidates and deepens my sleep, so I feel much better the next day. (Just don’t go to bed too late or it’ll blow up on you.) I generally try to go to bed about 1 hour later than when my body tells me to go.
If you’ve seen my previous posts, you know I’ve tried counseling and every mood pill ever invented, to no avail.
My intervals, by contrast, are a slam dunk. They put the pharmaceutical/psychiatric community to shame.
Peace to all of yous. I know this might sound silly but I’m glad to have such a big family, discovered on this forum. I hope and pray to God that we all find a solution to this problem very soon!
In the mean while I think Marc I think you are very close in solving this post excersise problem. As this variation of excercise intensity is something I tried too and it made some improvement, however I now realise after reading your comments I may have not reaped the full benefits of this method as I was not having enough rest in between sessions.
Also this way of training is also highly recommnded by a top alternative/medical doctor known as dr. Buttar in his book ‘7 steps to keep the doctor away’.
Thank you and I hope we find more answers!
Hi all.
I experienced the same problems than most of you here, that’s to know unexpected depression based on no real reason, after heavy exercise, going on for a few days then disappearing, and so on. This happened after I started the Insanity workout (sthg similar to P90X). It hit me real hard. As mentioned in one of the first posts, at times I even felt suicidal. Then I made the connection with workout sessions and begun to look on the net.
Obviously I am on a healthy diet, getting all necessary nutrients and stuff, I’m also young and physically fit.
When I found this website, I read almost the entire thread and then decided to try multivitamins, as I think was suggested by some people. It worked very well and now I’m taking 1 commercial multivitamin a day (the special one for womens, enriched with caffeine – guarana – for active people), plus some extra vitamin D once in a while when I’m starting to feel bad again after exercise (which has happened only once or twice in 2 months).
Of course, being on a healthy diet AND taking supplements, I must be getting too many of some vitamins, but I figure, what the hell if it is not used up, it can still be eliminated by the body.
I intend to do a check-up in a few months in order to see if I am still depleting / lacking some vitamin I need. However, for the moment it really worked for me and I think this could be a good solution for those trying to fix their post-exercise depression problem.
Hope this helps, and good luck to you all.
Aerobic exercise depresses me. Weight lifting elevates my spirit and makes me feel light even if I’m very tired from lifting.
I had a similar experience, and think I’ve found a solution for me personally.
My favorite exercise is swimming, but I’ve been having the experience of feeling super down and wanting to cry immediately after swimming and for the rest of the day. A family member suggested drinking Gatorade (or I suppose any sports drink–I wouldn’t try the kind with caffeine, though) during my swim. I’ve been doing that for two weeks now, and haven’t had an episode once! I suspect it’s a blood sugar thing for me (maybe a hydration thing also–I used to drink a similar volume of water during my swim, but no electrolytes).
I suspect this isn’t the solution for everyone, but it was super easy, and pretty inexpensive–I went out and got some Gatorade powder to mix with water, and you can make it at home even more cheaply (http://www.cptips.com/hmdesnk.htm). I’d highly recommend at least trying this–I’ve gone from really dreading the days I swim to being excited about them again!
That being said, I’m so happy to have found this discussion online. I’d been experiencing this phenomenon for quite a while, and when I talked to friends or mental health providers about it, they acted confused and said they’d never heard anything like that before. Thanks for making me feel not crazy!
I’m so glad I found this site, I thought I was going mad.
I’m training for half a marathon, so I’m out running all the time. At first it was great, I felt full of energy and that I could take anything on. But then it started getting worse.
I’d come in late at night and just sit around not doing anything, feeling like I just wanted the couch to swallow me up. Then I started getting really irritable, especially with my house mates. For instance, I was cooking a roast chicken one night and at some point my house mate said `cooking something fancy tonight?’ Then, and I have no idea why, I just took the chicken out the oven and chucked it in the bin. I must seem so crazy!
I wish so much that I could be cheerful – and still do the running!
Well, here’s my story….I used to run a lot, half marathons and stuff. Then suddenly, about 8 years ago, I couldn’t exercise anymore. I started to struggle to run, and afterwards I would feel very irritable and low, headache, feel like I had a run a marathon with flu, and couldn’t sleep despite extreme exhaustion. I also couldn’t think properly, or find the right words I wanted to say.
This would ruin the rest of the day and most of the next, and happened with any type of sport that got my heart rate up. I have been forced to stop which has a huge negative impact on my life, and I have put on a lot of weight. I have had every test under the sun, but the medical profession have no answers for me.
My question is, has anyone tried drinking 8 glasses of water a day to see if that has helped? I have been diagnosed with high blood pressure, and this can be related to dehydration too. There is one post in 2006 (I think!!) that says sipping water all day has helped – has anyone else any success stories on this?
Thanks very much, and I amazed to find over 300 comments here – I have searched for years for others with the same problem as me, and now I have found you all!!!
I am about to try a combination of Acetyl-L-Carnitine and Alpha Lipoic Acid, which is known to restore both physical and mental energy levels in general and in particular in people suffering from Chronic fatigue syndrome and post-exercise malaise. I am going to report my results here in a couple of days. Wish me luck…!
Good luck John! Do you know how this combo is supposed to work?
Very effective solution- I am extremely averse to cardiovascular exercise because it causes me to be depressed, which can last for several days. By accident i have discovered that so called compound or multijoint exercise weight training produces a very strong mental high that can last for about a week. Through research, I have found that serious body builders practice compound exercises because they help to release higher amounts of testosterone and thereby increase muscle mass. Low levels of testosterone have been connected to depression. Im guessing that increased levels of testosterone is what creates the mental high that i experience and wards off depression. The most effective exercise i do seems to be the clean and jerk. I apply a moderate amoutn of weight to the bar and do three sets of 20, 15, and 12 repetitions. My workouts are generally 45 mins in length and i perform supersets with moderate weight, higher reps, and little rest between supersets. I should also note that i take 20 mgs of celexa to treat depression. For me, the work outs work like a charm and may be a great treatment for others if they have a similar cause for depression and similar brain chemistry.
I’ve followed this forum for about a year and have the exact same problem as many here. I exercise and always get significantly depressed starting 1-3 days post-exercise and lasts for up to a week or 10 days.
There is a definite relationship between exertion level and how significant the depressive phase is. I work out a lot I end up in a fetal position for days, if I work out less I get away with feeling grumpy/anxious/irritated/sad for a week.
Now to my question; do any of you also get hyper-active tendencies the days following an exercise? I get very ‘wound up’, with hands trembling, racing thoughts, inability to concentrate on one thing, stressed and generally high paced. Anyone recognize this?
yes i recognise it, im feeling it right now, its what i get 2 days after a work out, even when i try and tell myself to relax, its like i cant
I feel lucky to have found this forum and it came up on my first search! It is good not to be alone in this. Like many of you I feel fine while I exercise (on a tread mill ) but then feel irritable and depressed later in the day. I am going to try some of the solutions mentioned on this site and see if they work for me. I have had some other experiences that go contrary to the average experience and have had a reverse effect and think there may be a connection. I tried fish oil pills to lose weight and although it is also supposed to help with depression it affected me in a negative way mentally and I had to stop taking it. At first I felt very mentally altered and kind of liked it and thought I could preform some tasks better but then it became too much and I did not feel like myself at all and I really did not like it and had to stop taking it. My family made fun of me and thought I was kind of a nut because they could not imagine that fish oil could have such an effect on someone. I have taken vitamins in the past and stopped because I did not like the way I felt mentally. I am not a hypochondriac and do not have many issues that I complain about. I do feel that my brain reacts differently to drugs and other substances than most people do. Have any of you had similar experiences ?
Yes, I have all of these same symptoms. I also feel as if I react “differently” to any medication or stimulating substance. I have very negative reactions to alcohol. I am willing to assist in any efforts to gain further knowledge into our mutual condition.
I wanted to follow-up briefly to my previous posts. I think I may have a personalized experience that will provide some insight into the ongoing issues that we seem to be collectively experiencing with exercise.
My major problems with post-exercise depression/anxiety started after going through alcohol withdrawal approximately 1 year ago. Prior to this occurrence, I was in extremely good physical condition. I was not a daily drinker or anything of the sort, but I happened to just go on a week long bender, and I went through a withdrawal syndrome following the acute withdrawal. Prior to this occurrrence, I had many physical and mental issues that I have now linked to weekend binge drinking during my college years prior to this acute episode of withdrawal. Essentially, I was in a constant state of “post-acute withdrawal” for which there is a significant amount of info. on the ‘net’ if anyone is interested.
That all out of the way, it is important to note the biochemical effect of an alcohol withdrawal period. As the body has started to rely on the sugar response from alcohol for glucose production, cessation of alcohol has been noted to produce a hypoglycemic period in the abstinent. Even now, I am seriously effected physically and mentally if I do not eat at least 3 times/day and overdo any sweets. As has been noted in the many previous posts, hypoglycemia is implicated by many as the cause for the rebound depression/anxiety following exercise. This would correlate to my recent experience in regards to hypoglycemic symptoms following alcohol withdrawal, and the potential that this effect is exacerbated by exercise (there is very credited information available online noting the issues diabetics have with exercise causing blood sugar to go too low following exercise).
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I should note another biochemical effect of alcohol withdrawal and how it might relate to a depressive rebound effect from exercise. Due to the dopamine outpour caused by alcohol intake, the dopamine receptors begin to “downregulate” as the body’s own natural protection from too much dopamine production. After the abstinent alcoholic withdraws from alcohol, the dopamine receptors are left downregulated which I believe causes a very low dopamine type effect in the recently sober (or maybe long term depending on recovery of the receptors).
This proposition could relate to rebound depression from exercise in that the temporary surge of dopamine during exercise could cause a “dopamine deficiency” type effect when the exercise is withdrawn. Thus, it could be a neurochemical “withdrawal” from exercise that could cause our issues with exercise.
It is so disappointing that more medical professionals aren’t taking our plight more seriously.
–Nate
A recent (2009) study suggest that recommending exercise to depressed individuals might be counterproductive, i.e. make symptoms worse (as opposed to common advice by health profession that everybody should just exercise)
“The Role of Depression in Short-Term Mood and Fatigue Responses to Acute Exercise”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/fv5510t542u14r37/fulltext.html
This of course then begs the question if perhaps many of us here are simply depressed.
I don’t know. Just another angle.
I just noticed this in the last few months – while I’m working out, I start thinking very negative thoughts. I’ve always had some issues with depression (never treated, though). This just seems so weird.
i have this same problem. it only occurs when i lift weights heavily, when i am doing sets and really gritting my teeth and pushing them out, the next day is not good, i feel like killing someone. the problem is when i lift heavily i initially feel good afterwords, like i have purged myself of frustratilons and blockages, but then as mentioned i suffer the next day…..
ahh, its also certain lifts, shoulder presses, dumbell raises that are too heavy or are ´challenging´make me all tight and then i get all emotional and confrontational the next day. so i try and just do lighter weights for more sets and reps…it has helped..but i dont feel that caveman sensation of being sated and tired and like i have achieved something like after i lift heavily………i lifted yesterday and feel like crying today so i googled this topic and am here and feel much better for not being alone!
Just wanted to check in to let people know that I continue to be 95% free of depression, since roughly last July, when I started interval training. What I’ve discovered is that the rest period in between interval days is extremely important. Don’t exercise vigorously two days in a row, or the fatigue and depression will kick in again. See post 327 for the exercise that works for me. Don’t underestimate how critical that rest day is. I’m staying happy with zero drugs, zero counseling, and zero life changes. The only thing I’ve tweaked is my exercise routine. Hope you all get well soon. If it can happen for me—a former basket case—it can happen to anyone.
woah what a great forum.
I’ve just finished my first session at ‘fun trampolining class’… i thought it was going to be fun, but by halfway through i was looking at the clock going ‘i dont want to do this anymore’
I thought this was a fun and different way to get exercise and boost my mood (i’ve been trying to stay of anti depressant drugs and doing it the hard way with exercise and foods etc)
But now after its finished I just dont want to go back. I hate forced exercise if that makes sense. Riding my bike… i can do that for over an hour, walking? no problem….
I just dont understand, everyone else loved the class had a great time, i just didnt feel what they felt.
I know I should go back and give it a chance, but im dreading it. But i want to force myself to do this, exercise is meant to be healthy and good for brain especially in the case of depression / anxiety…
I feel robbed… i want the high everyone else had. Where is my high from the 90 mins i jumped around and did flips, summersaults, jumped into a foam pit etc etc???
argh
Thank you you all for sharing your experience and the considerable time some of you must have spent in researching this issue. I’m totally down today (Tuesday) after a 20 k run last Sat, then remembered I had similar episodes years ago after aerobic exercise. Now, after finding this thread and reading many of the posts, it makes sense to me, duh. Admittedly, I might be pushing it a bit trying to get ready for a half marathon in two weeks (first one). My sister talked me into it : ) Just good to know I’m not any crazier than the rest of you, haha. There, feeling a bit better already.
Will be more mindful of fueling and see how it goes. Again, thank you all!
I didn’t realise other people suffered with it too until i searched it on the internet, at least i don’t feel like i’m making it up in my head, so strangely enough read your comments has made me feel a little better, thank you, i think the only way is to have a shower and do other things straight after exercise.
Many on this thread are taking or have taken SSRIs. I was surprised to learn that they can lower your blood sodium level (sodium of course being a key electrolyte for efficient physical performance).
I’d like to share my story with all of you. This will be long-winded and I apologize. I’m so glad I found this, because thought I was going crazy. I’m 35 and have exercised religously since I was a teenager. I ran anything from 5k’s to marathons, exercising 6 days a week, lifting weights, yoga, you name it. I had total control of my diet. I never took a break. About the time I was 27, I came down with strep throat, waited too long to go to the doctor. As a result, it took me a month to get back to working out as usual. I was always very lean. But, the strangest thing started happening. I started gaining weight. My diet didn’t change, my workouts didn’t change. It was almost like I was allergic to exercise. I believe the strep was brought on by my lack of rest in all my training, and my body saw exercise as a source of stress. The only time I lost weight was when I stopped exercising for a week. Also, my blood sugar levels were all over the place. I kept beating my head against the wall with more exercise, and the same results. I just thought, well, you’re middle aged now. Stuff is starting to go south. Then I said, hell with that, and cut back exericising to 20-30 minutes twice per week and went on a diet of fruit/veggies/protein. The weight magically fell off and I was back in my old shape again. I’ve also noticed like most of you, if I do more than 45 minutes to an hour a week of exercise, I’m moody,and anti-social with a lack of energy later in the day. I’m all over the place. Also, my blood sugar is out of control. I don’t know what causes all of this, but I do know my life is hectic enough without killing myself with exercise. I think my goals have changed from being the workout queen to having a good attitude in life and being energetic. I think this hypoglycemia thing is the biggest factor for all of us. If I don’t eat things that keep me full and keeps my blood sugar in check, then that will bring on the depression as well. I love to workout, but if it’s going to cost my family, then I have to be responsible to keep myself in check. My husband is a very social person, but over-exercising makes me a total b****.
Sorry for the long post, but I’m so excited to find there are other people out there like me!
Reading through this forum, I’ve found it useful to see which experiences do and don’t chime with my own.
It’s clearly a tricky condition – or combination of conditions – to pin down. But the more people who post their stories the more we can lay one on top of the other like tracing paper and see patterns that might help us take useful action.
Here are a few things that rang a bell with me:
Workout intensity & frequency: this one seems pretty much universal and matches what I’ve experienced. I’m usually trying to restart an exercise programme after getting discouraged and will feel fine as I ease into it, only to pass some invisible threshold of intensity after two or three sessions and crash with a combination of depression, headaches, fogginess and/or flu-like aches and fatigue. The physical symptoms make me think the people talking about inflammatory responses are on to something.
I’ll now go back to the gym and try to be much more conscious of where my threshold is. I only do very light aerobic work and some weights as it is, but obviously I need to dial it back even further.
Lack of tolerance for alcohol: several people have mentioned this and I seldom risk a glass of red wine these days for fear of writing off the next two or three days to near-suicidal despondency.
Anti-depressants: I was very interested to read the poster who traced his inability to process alcohol back to his first use of anti-depressants. Same here – 6 months on Paxil/Seroxat 10 years ago and my ability to enjoy a glass of red was gone. That would seem to point – in some people’s cases – to some sort of change in brain chemistry.
I can’t remember whether the post-exercise depression dates to the same time or not.
(I’m over the character limit, so I’ll continue in a separate post)
(post continued)
Sleep restriction: recently I did a five month spell working an overnight shift one day a week and having the rest of the week at home. I could never quite pin down the perfect routine, but missing a night’s sleep, getting to bed about 5.30 am and then getting up sometime around mid-morning often had me feeling almost euphoric.
Lactate: I can often feel the build up in my thigh muscles after 30 seconds of light pedalling on an exercise bike. But then I do suffer from more generalised fatigue which I won’t lengthen this already long post with.
I don’t want to give up on exercise. I know that in the past I’ve felt best – mentally and physically – when I’ve reached a plateau of reasonable fitness. It’s just demoralising that trying get there can make me feel so much worse.
I realise I’ve joined this discussion pretty far in, but I’ve written to Raz (203) in case his questionnaire project is still active and I’d encourage anyone else struggling with this problem to do the same.
Gary
Here is what I’ve learned about myself and my own condition over the years; It seems like many of the people who also suffer with similar conditions all have one thing in common which is a major illness at a young age such as Mono. Also chronic sinus infections. These infections never go away and any kind of exertion which temporarily lowers your defenses allows the infections to attack the body. I recently found I have a chronic infection in my mouth, jaw and neck which I’m trying to take care of. I know that when I exercise consistently I always feel signs of this infection spreading. Head aches and stiffness are two symptoms. This also effects my sleep because the stiffness goes down in to my back which stimulates the nerves that travel up the spine which stimulates the mind. I think I can finally connect this chronic infection with muscle stiffness which causes poor sleep which causes depression which causes exhaustion which causes more infection to spread, more poor sleep etc. etc. creating a snow ball effect. I know when I’m well rested I can work out and not be effected but if I continue working out sooner or later I hit a wall where I feel sick all over, get muscle tightness, poor sleep, depression and once this sets in I can not work out at all without immediately falling deeper in this cycle. At that point I need to get major rest for many days if not weeks in order to get better. So it depends on where I’m at with this chronic infection as to how much I can work out or if I can work out at all. I’m going to a specialist in this area of mouth, jaw, neck infections, a D.M.D., P.C. and will let you know how it goes.
I joined my high school track team so I could beat my depression because exercise makes you feel better. It did nothing. Everyday I would become anxious to go to track, then I would become nauseous due to the anxiety. When I would run nothing but suicidal feelings came into my mind: “How will I do it? rope, pills, drowning?” “I will have to do it tonight” ” I will not leave notes, notes are slaps in the face” I broke down a couple of times at track practice and even had a panic attack, everyday I would come home and throw up. I eventually had to quit, because it was either track or my life. I felt the depression going through my mind during and after the workout.
Hey Markee,
Do you have somebody to talk to (either in your social circle or a doc)? Things may seem dark to you right now (trust me I’ve been there myself), but there is always help available. You *will* get better!
I am just coming out of what I consider an exercise depression. I’m 39 and this had never happened to me before, I was pretty scared.
I’m not a doctor so my opinion is based solely on knowing my body and my history. I’m generally a healthy, active stay at home dad with no history of mental issues. I had gained an extra 25 lbs. or so over the last year and wanted to lose the weight before the summer so I could be active with my kids and have fun. The first 5 weeks of diet and exercise were OK but during week 6 I crashed hard. I kept exercising, afraid that quitting the exercise would make the depression worse – societal ‘wisdom’. I was hardly eating enough and was barely getting through the day. When the kids were at school I was asleep. When they were home I was asleep minutes after they went to bed. I couldn’t even focus enough to watch TV.
I tried to make changes but even that’s hard when you’re depressed. Finally I gave up on the dieting part of the exercise program. I ate like I used to eat, before I gained the extra 25 lbs. I gained some of my weight back but I am OK with that because I’m generally happy again and I am still exercising. I figure if I feel healthy physically and mentally the number of my weight doesn’t matter quite so much.
Finding this forum was a big help for me, thanks to all of you who have posted. I “knew” my depression was related to the exercise and diet but I couldn’t find anything that helped me believe that. So many of you described exactly what I was feeling that it gave me the strength to keep trying things to help me feel better.
If it is indeed a light (or early) form of CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) then there are three effective supplements each of which have been proven in studies* to improve symptoms in CFS sufferers significantly:
1) Magnesium
2) Acetyl-L-Carnitine (2g/day, 1g at breakfast, 1g at dinner)
3) high dose fish oil (EPA/DHA)
Ideally, combine all three for best results.
* http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1592057/table/tbl1/
* http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1592057/table/tbl2/
* http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1592057/?tool=pmcentrez
I have found a solution to this problem that really works for me.
I used to experience severe irritability, sadness, fatigue, and sleep loss after intense exercise. It was so bad I thought I would have to give up exercise. However, my new personal trainer immediately recognized this as a blood sugar problem. I was always working out on an empty stomach, and it was causing my blood sugar to plummet.
The key is complex carbs plus protein both before and after the workout. He told me to eat a banana and 2 oz. of lean meat one hour before working out, and then another piece of fruit and another 2 oz. of protein immediately after exercising, along with some water. That has completely cured me of the post-exercise symptoms I was experiencing.
I read in “The Week” magazine recently an article titled Self-Control and Aggression.
I experience this to the EXTREME!
“A new University of Texas study suggests that people have a finite ability to exercise self-restraint, and that when its exceeded, they’re resentful, angry, and prone to aggression. Researchers found that people who chose a healthy snack over a tastier one tended to prefer movies with revenge themes over milder flicks. Dieters were also more irritated by marketing messages that used phrases like “you ought to, ” because they sounded controlling….The results suggest that people have a diminishable supply of energy that the body and mind use to engage in self-control.
When people are asked to give up too much at one time, its natural for them to rebel- and fail”
Page 23, The Week magazine April 8, 2011.
I tore the page out of the magazine that was sitting on the Breakroom table where I work!
This sooo applies to ME!
It is so nice to find other people going through this. My problem with exercise is afterward I am in a lot of pain. Even when I am 6 months into it and the soreness should have gone away already, I never get over it. My respiratory rate is high and deep for much of the day I exercise. This contributes to a feeling of anxiety. I know respiratory rate increases when one is in pain so that makes sense except when I take an NSAID or tylenol it doesn’t help my RR. I am also super irritable, tired, and always need a nap. Can’t concentrate at all. I have been trying to soak in an ice bath after runs and use ice packs on my legs. That has helped my pain immensely, but hasn’t helped my fast breathing or irritability. I wonder if my blood is too acidic, hence the hyperventilation. My other solution I am going to try is exercising at 9pm since that has worked in the past, that way I can sleep through all the bad effects and get a growth hormone surge during sleep to help with repair. I take fish oil, doesn’t help. I’ve been on SSRI’s. They don’t help. I wish I understood this and could fix it. The other annoying thing is that my belly gets super bloated right under my diaphragm, it’s fluid, which doesn’t help my breathing issues. Anybody have any advice? There must be physiological mechanisms at work here.
yeah, it’s great finding people who share in my misery, lol, but after the initial, “wow, people similar to me!” it just gets boring reading all the similar responses. Let’s actually do something about this!
For me, depression almost seems like a mechanism the body created to force my body to rest. Depression has always come after prolonged hard labor or prolonged weight training etc.. I feel like my body tightens up and becomes ill. Maybe a virus? I was removed from wrestling one year and told I had the Measles which I already had as a child. It’s like mono or chronic EBV. I start feeling run down and weak, my sleep becomes very poor and I become depressed. I spent the entire summer, last year, on the couch but realized I felt much better physically afterward. Of course then I started a work out routine with the backing of my Doctor and within a couple months I was sick again. I’ve done this all my life! It takes a week or so of complete bed rest to get over it, which seems impossible to do but I may make an effort at that soon. Or just to relax and not work out for a year. But I think it comes down, for me, to be a viral attack on the body. I can feel the pain and the stiffness build up in my back and spine. After that bed rest I can feel the spine relax and then I start sleeping deeper and healing. It’s like the virus attacks the nerves which creates poor sleep, you know how you can’t sleep well when you have a cold? And with poor sleep and a fairly active life, it’s impossible to get over it. Your body stays weak.
Is there a board or group that is more active? This place was great to find but almost worthless for information.
Sorry Buck ( posting 362 ) but I just have to say how relieved I am to have found this forum.
I suffer from feelings of extreme tiredness and depression after exercising and I really was beginning to think I was some sort of freak! I have lost count of the number of times I have been told: “oh, but exercise makes you feel better! It releases endorphins into the blood you know”. Luckily I now realise that feeling down after exercise is much more common than I imagined. Hopefully this will prevent me from strangling the next person who gives me such glib advice
All of you have my sympathy and understaning as a fellow sufferer. I assure you that if I ever find a way round this, I will definitely post it here.
All the best.
Tony
there is a site here where people’s fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue symptoms are listed and one of the common symptoms is malaise or depression after exercise or physical exertion that comes on strong soon after and can last for a few days… also, sensitivity to alcohol, carbs and caffeine is noted
one hypothesis of the root cause is excessive fluoride intake… from prescriptions drugs and over the counter products containing it like mouthwashs and toothpastes … it interferes with thyroid functioning among other things
http://www.earthclinic.com/fibro.htm
http://www.earthclinic.com/CURES/fibromyalgia.html#cause
depression is usually a recessive genetic trait and usually isn’t active until a specific experience occurs and start to show in your everyday life.
Well, I’m very glad I found this forum. Thanks to those who have posted their experiences. I can identify with so much of what others have written here. It’s sad to hear of all of the depression people are experiencing when trying to be healthy and do the right thing.
Markee: I’m glad you stopped running track. Please see a doctor as soon as possible. You’re not alone – you can get help and feel better!
So here’s my story. I’m 42 years old. Fairly thin – 5’8” and 160 lbs.
I’ve suffered from depression and anxiety since I was a teenager. I have a strong family history of it, too. I’ve been on SSRIs for about 15 years. They really helped. But the depression/anxiety came back about 5 years ago. So, in addition to the SSRIs, I went on the Paleo (caveman) diet. Lots of protein (meat and fish) and fruits and veggies. No grains, dairy, legumes, sweets or salt.
But in September/October, I started experiencing depression and anxiety again. I thought it was just winter depression. A month or two ago, I noticed that intense strength training workouts brought on irritability and depression. So I reduced the intensity and frequency of these workouts.
I reduced my carbs even more, to about 110g/day. And increased my fat intake. Did that for 30 days. I ended up being horribly constipated and fatigued. That was about a week ago. So then I started eating white rice and sweet potatoes, and reducing the fat. The constipation eventually disappeared.
With the sweet potatoes and rice, I started to have energy again. So, two days ago (Friday), I did a light session of 30 minutes on the stationary bike, first thing in the morning, before breakfast. I didn’t check my pulse, but I’d be surprised if it was above 130. The exercise felt good. I then ate a box of raisins, 100g of white rice, and a can of salmon.
End of Part 1.
Part 2:
Thirty minutes later, I felt really irritable. And then I felt depressed the rest of the day/evening. The next day (yesterday), I felt okay for most of the day, then depressed in the evening. And very cold. Today I’m feeling a little better, but still not good. And still cold. And my muscles still ache, which is bizarre, because such a light session of biking never caused this much soreness.
So I’m thinking it may be a blood sugar problem in my case. I’ve had a history of this. I hadn’t eaten anything before exercising (I usually don’t, and it was never a problem before), and I ate high-glycemic foods immediately afterwards. And maybe a lack of calories also played a part (which would explain why I was so cold yesterday).
Here’s some other information, in response to some of the questions posed by others…
I don’t eat gluten, dairy, sweets, alcohol or caffeine.
I do eat lots of fruit and veggies, so I get a lot of antioxidants.
I get about 8 hours of sleep per night, and it’s usually uninterrupted.
I have low blood pressure, and a low resting heart rate (60).
I take a vitamin D3 supplement (2000 IU) in the winter, and get plenty of sun the rest of the year.
Last week, I started taking magnesium and calcium supplements (250mg/day). I’m hoping that will help with the depression, hypoglycemia and noise sensitivity.
I don’t eat much sodium – probably around 1000mg/day.
I take 1 teaspoon of fish oil each day, along with a can of salmon.
I drink lots of water throughout the day.
I’ve had migraine headaches in the past (three last year).
Sorry for the long post. Hope we can figure this out some day. Until then, I’m going to focus on light activity (walking, and maybe some light lifting), as Dr Jim and others have suggested. And no high-glycemic meals. If the mag/cal helps with the depression/anxiety I’ll be sure to come back here and update you all.
we may all have some kind of Mitochodrial dysfunction
tell you though, since i stopped “exercising” and going for daily 20 minutes walks my mood has never been better and I’ve lost weight,… i feel good and look good
natural activities works for me plus i get things done
imo, exercise is an overrated, unnatural activity/neurosis that causes weight gain through compensatory hunger and stress hormone activation, carries a risk of injury and makes you “better” at only the exercise you do
no thanks
DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOL. I’m a long-time lurker and poster and have charted this exercise-depression connection for several years. As you’ll see by my previous posts, I have 95% of this depression licked. The key (for me) is to rest 1-2 days between heavy workouts, and absolutely positively DO NOT DRINK. Exercise and alcohol both raise cortisol, and together they work synergistically to disturb sleep, which you may or may not notice.
For years I drank two beers, twice a week, with a friend. That’s all. While I drank, I felt good. I felt GREAT. Thus I convinced myself that a little beer couldn’t possibly be a depressant. However, when I charted it out, I discovered that I ALWAYS felt fatigued and moody the day AFTER I drank. And if I mixed some exercise in on that day, the effect was even worse.
Surely just two beers couldn’t have such an impact, you say. But alas, it does. Alcohol, even in small amounts, alters your brain chemistry for up to THREE DAYS after the alcohol is consumed, according to one study I read.
I’m afraid I can neither consume alcohol the day BEFORE, ON, or AFTER an exercise day. Chart it out and see for yourself. You may or may not be so unlucky.
I miss my beer, but I like being happy better.
My hobby is cycling, and as my rides became longer I started to notice extreme depression the following day. Usually it went away after eating lunch, leaving me feeling “what the heck was that all about”. Eating during the ride didn’t do much to help, nor eating just after a ride. However, when I switched to drinking a sports drink instead of water during a ride, the post ride situation the following morning improved dramatically. I am not sure it is entirely due to the glucose in the drink, but might be more due to the electrolytes. Anyway, now I always take way more gatorade on a ride than I think I’ll need, just in case…
- Steve
In the middle of my workout, I become downright suicidal sometimes. I walk in the gym feeling great ready to start my workout and start off strong. Shortly after I begin to feel depressed and thing terrible thoughts about dying and wanting to even die right there on the floor. I dont know why this happens! My boyfriend says that I need to eat a little something before my workout because my glucose is being used up too fast and my brain wants food. I feel better later on in the day just from a little bit of exercise, but I wish I could get over this during the workout.
Im so happy that I found this discussion, I to used to feel extremly depressed after exercise, after trying some of the suggestions on here I found one that seems to work for me. In my case it seemed to be low blood sugar that was causing me to feel so bad, but by cutting out sugary drinks before excersing and eatting a slow release carb like porridge for breakfast.
I exactly know what you mean. When i started exercising regularly I felt fantastic!! For the first time i had so much energy and felt like I could conquer the world. Later on some bad things happend to me and I stopped for a while living an unhealthy life. Later on when i started exercising again it made me so depressed.I felt as if I was disconnected with my brain, hard to concentrate and all in all unable to do anything. I stopped exercising but i haven’t felt better ever since.I try to eat more now and especially proteins and good carbohydrates because i’ve been avoiding it, eating vegetables, fruits and yogurts mostly. Ive been drinking alcohol as well, so thanks for the tip as it might have been the reason too. I wish i could feel normal again. Maybe I should see a psychiatrist?
I am 72 and have done weight training and aerobic walking and hiking for 12 years. When I became depressed, around a year ago, my body felt weaker. It took longer for me to recover from exercise. Now I only have the strength to go to the gym twice a week whereas before I went every other day. And I get tired after shorter walks. These facts in themselves make me feel disappointed that I’ve become so tired in such a short time. If anyone has information that could help us I’d love to see it!
Has anyone here ever heard of Adrenal Fatigue?
http://www.lammd.com/articles/adrenal_fatigue.asp?page=1
I think I have it. And I’m sure that people who have read this thread do, too. See if you can relate to my experience…
I worked a call center job taking 80 – 100 phone calls a day for 19 months. The work load (and my awful boss) made me frustrated and anxious literally every day. When I finally got a better job upstairs, I thought I could just go back to my old routine, lifting and running 5 days a week. Not so. If Adrenal Fatigue is the right diagnosis, I did a ton of damage to the part of my body that regulates the stress response. The only way back to health is to let my adrenals recover. Let me get more specific about the problem first…
When the adrenals wear out, they produce less cortisol. Cortisol, an anti-inflammatory, regulates the immune response. Without enough cortisol, you experience more inflammation, generally speaking. And inflammation-run-amok causes a whole lot of problems.
(continued)
I’ve been treating myself for excessive inflammation for months now. Astaxanthin, high-DHA fish oil, naproxen, and recently, anatabine citrate. They only work on occasion, only after I haven’t worked out or run in a while. That’s because treating symptoms is not necessarily the same as treating the cause…
If you suffer from Adrenal Fatigue, carting away inflammatory markers is like draining a full bathtub with a thimble. Instead, attack the source. Turn the faucet off. Eliminate as many factors as you can. Your diet is a perfect place to start.
I should mention now that I saw several doctors. One thought I was depressed (true enough) and prescribed Zoloft. Another sent me to a neurologist. Both did blood tests that painted a portrait of excellent health. But no one knew what to do.
Now that I have a better understanding of my condition, I know it’s going to take a while to recover. I can’t do 20 push-ups without suffering from apathy and confusion the whole next day. At least I have a solid lead now.
Let me know if this post was helpful to anyone. Check the link I included at the top if you want to learn more about Adrenal Fatigue.
I feel very irritable DURING exercise. A lit of you say you feel fine DURING and the symptoms appear AFTER. My irritability appears even when I’m not pushing myself.
I agree with everyone on this. In my case it’s going to the gym, and dance classes. Yesterday I was nearing the end of a long dance class when I all of a sudden just lost all sense of joy I typically associated with it. As a result, I failed to complete my routine and had to excuse myself. I then became very frustrated and since yesterday I have not felt myself. At the gym it’s the same, only the onset is more gradual. Within the first two hours after the gym I feel fantastic. Yet after that I get extremely down. I feel like it’s a constant battle to keep my spirits up. And as a lot of people have said above, it appears to occur for no reason. I sit there asking why these emotions are present at all, and come up with nothing. Adrenal fatigue is a possibility. And I certainly accept that neurochemical processes are gradual.
Still a lot of people who deal with this but not any real solutions.
I started running again and was feeling great but now that I’ve increased to 3 1/2 miles I can’t sleep and I’m depressed. I want to work through this and not just stop exercising! Alcohol has a similar effect on me. I read about that in past posts but now can not find those posts.
Both exercise and alcohol cause your body to produce what? And how does one treat this?
This is really interested. I will have to find time to print it off and read all the posts, im afraid iv only had a quick scan atm
Iv just done 10 minutes on the cross trainer and given up with a tub of ben & jerrys its got me that low. Iv noticed its been like that on occasions for a while now.
Which is so not like me, iv always LOVED exercise and got a big buzz from it with no down time at all. If iv been down in general exercise has always picked me up, admittedly with work been so busy and sat at the desk alot iv put on alot of weight and am very unfit but it isnt the first time iv let my self get unfit and I enjoyed it when I got the time to get fit again
Chris M’s post is interesting, someone else had mentioned that to me before and I would say im the most stressed iv ever been, with OH there just arent enough hours in the day to manage everything and iv been feeling very run down
I think this is why i got depressed last year and didnt even know it. I became severely depressed last year about the same time as i started working out and doing a lot of running. I never thought the 2 could be connected. This year when school started again and i started to work out and i started feeling depressed again and that’s when i found this site, and by the comments the amount of comments im guessing this isnt that rare.Im in a really hard position now, should i keep exercising or is it gonna be to damaging to my mental health?
I find the one thing thats weird about this is the anger, i get that i might feel depressed because of blood sugar levels but why am i so angry after working out?
I think this is why i got depressed last year and didnt even know it. I became severely depressed last year about the same time as i started working out and doing a lot of running. I never thought the 2 could be connected. This year when school started again and i started to work out and i started feeling depressed again and that’s when i found this site, and by the comments the amount of comments im guessing this isnt that rare.Im in a really hard position now, should i keep exercising or is it gonna be to damaging to my mental health?
I find the one thing thats weird about this is the anger, i get that i might feel depressed because of blood sugar levels but why am i so angry after working out?
My doctor says that I’m experiencing symptoms of depression, and that I should exercise.
Thing is, I”m taking PE Jogging/Conditioning. I tell my doctor that I’m starting to take naps during the day. My doctor say its due to depression, but then I said I started these naps due to being tired from Jogging class. My doctor says that’s weird because exercising is supposed to give you energy. My teacher said the same thing too, when she noticed I looked as the teacher said, “tired or just bored”, and asked me how I was doing.
Of course I found this web page through series of searches through google, but still my body is getting tired and unable to stay awake after jogging class. Should I stop? I admit I’m depressed about subjects of the world, and if the jogging class is really gonna cause me to become more depressed leading to possible suicide SHOULD I STOP!
Maybe, I should sue the school for forcing me to taking the class as a requirement. hehe. That’s what they deserve, if they’re killing me! Even the doctor was wrong about the effects of jogging class on my depression. The doctor said it would help, but all it did was cause the doctor to believe I was experiencing more depression symptoms!
The heck with the world. This is why I must became a master of the human body and the world. I must not allow myself to follow people/doctors/etc. I must find out for myself, and trust no one. For they have no data on my body to support their claims. Who’s with me?!
All the studies tell us to exercise our way out of depression and they’re mostly true. The way science works is something like this: You take a group of, say, 100 people, measure their baseline happiness, then put them on an exercise program. Meanwhile you have another 100 stay the way they were, as a control group.
Sample results from such a study: Of the 100 people who go into the exercise group, 3 months later 40 of them experience improved mood, 50 of them experience no change, and 10 of them get worse. So of course the people conducting the research are very excited about this, as it “proves that exercise helps people get over depression.” Yes… for MOST people it does.
Unfortunately, we who are commenting here are not “most people.” We’re the other 10. Some of those 10 probably have other reasons for worse depression, so let’s say that we on this page represent only about 1 or 2 percent of the population. Studies will ignore us, we’re not important, no popular media articles will be written about us, and no TV show will mention us. It will be all about the 50% who get better because they outnumber us greatly.
My own feeling is that many of us have blood sugar issues, primarily hypoglycemia but also it’s possible that the timing of our workouts is off with respect to when and what we eat. But this probably doesn’t cover all of us. Dr. Dean Edell has mentioned “exercise allergies” on his radio show; something to do with a small number of people who have bad physiological responses to exercise.
Note to N/A about PE class and depression: You might have a heart condition or other serious problem that is causing your response. It doesn’t sound good from the way you describe it. I think you should get more aggressive about medical diagnosis, ask for a second opinion or do some more research on medical causes for the way you feel, then you can present your research findings to your doctor and ask to be tested.
Don’t just say you’re depressed, don’t accept that as your doc’s diagnosis because it’s clearly WRONG. If you take a medication for depression and get worse then they take you off that medication and try something else. It should be the same with the PE prescription. It’s making you worse, therefore you need to try something else.
I’m sorry we are all going through the same problem. It is adrenal fatigue. Cortisol darning stressful moments and exercise help regulate blood glucose. At the beginning other glucose regulating hormones compensate for the cortisol’s job. Over a period of time this overcompensation diminishes. I would be interested if we would take hydrocortisone or some type of corticosteroid if this would not help or clear up the problem. I’ve read many posts and the problems are related to inflammatory responses to stress. If this gets out of hand then all the symptoms experienced by all of us occur. Cortisol is the main combatant. This hormone gets a bad rap by the nutrition community stating that it is involved with adipose storage. All of our hormones work in symphony and when one is off it causes a cascade of problems in its path. The reason why I’m so positive about this diagnosis is I have a unique situation. I have had cancer twice. The first bout was bilateral testicular cancer. This was 9 years ago. Ever since then I’ve been on testosterone replacement therapy. I’ve always been a big fitness proponent. As my years of hormone replacement therapy progressed my symptoms continued to get worse. All the same symptoms as the above posters. I’ve researched the endocrine system extensively for the past 7 years. To make a long story short, I was taking slightly to munch testosterone replacement therapy.
I’m sorry we are all going through the same problem. It is adrenal fatigue. Cortisol darning stressful moments and exercise help regulate blood glucose. At the beginning other glucose regulating hormones compensate for the cortisol’s job. Over a period of time this overcompensation diminishes. I would be interested if we would take hydrocortisone or some type of corticosteroid if this would not help or clear up the problem. I’ve read many posts and the problems are related to inflammatory responses to stress. If this gets out of hand then all the symptoms experienced by all of us occur. Cortisol is the main combatant. This hormone gets a bad rap by the nutrition community stating that it is involved with adipose storage. All of our hormones work in symphony and when one is off it causes a cascade of problems in its path. The reason why I’m so positive about this diagnosis is I have a unique situation. I have had cancer twice. The first bout was bilateral testicular cancer. This was 9 years ago.
Continued…………
Ever since then I’ve been on testosterone replacement therapy. I’ve always been a big fitness proponent. As my years of hormone replacement therapy progressed my symptoms continued to get worse. All the same symptoms as the above posters. I’ve researched the endocrine system extensively for the past 7 years. To make a long story short, I was taking slightly to munch testosterone replacement therapy. It did not bother me at first but after a couple of years symptoms started to occur. What happens in my situation is the higher testosterone levels the lower the cortisol level. The two steroids are very similar in molecular make up and with testosterone blocking the cortisol receptors, the cortisol could not do it job. Now when I titrate back on the testosterone a lot of the symptoms go away but if I’m taking the dose my endocrinologist recommends all the auto immune symptoms come back. Skin rashes, fatigue, brain fog, confusion, irritable moods, and inability to cope with stress. So my solution is to titrate back on the testosterone which works great. The only problem is when I do heavy squats or hard weight workouts all the same symptoms come back. So my adrenal glands have not fully recovered. If I take a couple of days off then I’m back to normal. Now I feel that my case is due to the years of higher testosterone replacement therapy suppressing my adrenal response with cortisol, but the same plays true to our busy 21 century lifestyles.
Continued…………
As a lot of you have found out, stress is one of the biggest contributors to a lot of health problems. It’s just to hard to relax these days. We all get in too big of a hurry to live life. Trust me I’m a strong type A personality. So I have 2 suggestions. One slow down, eat right and exercise in moderation until the adrenal exhaustion corrects itself or two go to an progressive endocrinologist and have then do cortisol tolerance test to confirm the problem and they will prescribe some type of cortisone to take at different times of the day to mimic the circadian rhythm. So to sum it up, everything in the human body needs homeostasis and right now we are out of it. Think about it, everything in the universe has to be balanced to exist.
“Adrenal fatigue” is a wastebasket diagnosis and means absolutely zilch. I can’t count how many b.s. quacks blame “adrenal dysfunction” for any number of unexplained symptoms. I’ve tried telling people about how exercise makes me depressed and exhausted. About 75% don’t believe me. The other 25% push the thyroid/adrenal fatigue/blood sugar/cortisoid BS on me. No matter HOW healthy your diet is, no matter how little stress is in your life, it MUST be your adrenals, right folks? PLEASE enough with the -ing adrenals! And cortisoid/thyroid/blood sugar/whatever. My diet is as clean as it will ever be, and I’m not taking any more damn supplements. I’d just like to be able to move my body around without feeling like total crap afterwards.
I think Robin might be feeling the stress a bit. i actually think Jim is on to something. but here is my 2 cents – i have a theory, if not a solution… oh, and the reason i found this post was because it finally occurred to me that feeling an uncontrollable rage (that is not part of my personality at all) within about 30 minutes after working out on the drive home is NOT normal.
anyway, i’m a guy in my 30’s and i was diagnosed with chronic lyme disease several years ago, chronic fatigue syndrome (cfs), adrenal fatigue, and i recently realized that some of my “brain” hormones are probably out of whack, too. i recently found out what it is to actually “feel good” for the first time in decades after taking a percocet after a surgery. before anybody calls me a drug addict now, this was the first time i remember feeling such a calming, confident, truly positive, relaxed but energized, happy feeling. oh yeah, and i tried antidepressant ssri’s a while back, but none of them changed anything. but i digress. i finally realized that something was wrong with my adrenals and specifically i suspect i am not producing endorphins properly.
i want to mirror something jim and others have said – i too suspect cortisol is somehow related to this anger or depression after working out a bit too hard, however you define that. i was saliva tested for cortisol, and found that my AM cortisol at least is well below the normal range. so i don’t wake up well, never really feel “good”, and it throws my hormone production out of whack for the entire day. for the record, i don’t eat sugar or ‘bleached white flour starches’, rarely candy, etc, and i have also quit drinking coffee, so i don’t think it is diet so much. yet, just a few days ago after a hearty, healthy breakfast, i went to the gym for only 30 minutes for a weightlifting workout.
continued…
. i did not feel that i was overdoing it, but i admit that i had started sweating a bit, and was out of breath with my heart pounding at least once, even though i didn’t feel i had exerted myself enough to cause that. maybe that is a clue about the precurser to the mood shift? i think maybe it only takes a few moments of heavy exertion to cause the mood problems for me. oh yeah, and i did have a protein shake immediately after while still at the gym – although it didn’t have any carbs in it.
so despite a good diet and eating a healthy meal before and some protein after, i still had the rage/anger/irritability happen right after the workout. for me, it is a crazy, irrational anger – there is no rational explanation for why i feel so mad. it could be over anything – maybe not even a person who makes me mad – it could be that maybe the light from the stoplight if its dark outside feels too bright and suddenly i’m off on a ‘blind’ rage (pun intended) that only later will i realize was absolutely ridiculous. so this also makes me lean heavily towards hormones as the cause – did i mention i’m a dude, lol?
anyway, i don’t think it is diet or sugar, etc, in my case at least. i know that my cortisol levels are very very low (a bad thing), and i think like jim above that that may be significant. (you’d have to search online (zrt labs, for example) to be able to do the saliva test, because if there is such a thing as a urine or blood cortisol test, they aren’t nearly as accurate as saliva testing.)
continued…
i know my adrenals are shot (dhea is way too low, too), and i suspect that i don’t produce enough good-feeling endorphins. i think that somehow my low cortisol may be affecting or affected by my overal adrenal fatigue and/or my inability to produce proper endorphin levels. somehow, i suspect that even a short 30 minutes of medium to low intensity exercise – with very short spikes of high intensity perhaps – causes me to go into ‘incredible hulk angry’ mode immediately after i stop exercising. does that help anybody or give anyone some ideas about what might cause all this for us? can anyone relate to low endorphins, cortisol, or adrenal function if that might help us hone in on a cause? maybe people like me have low cortisol, and actually can produce a spike in cortisol production during an intense moment of working out, and that makes that little cortisol release feel alot bigger than it really is – and being deficient in endorphins, there is nothing to control or temper the cortisol release, as minor as it is? just a theory.
i will just add that i have found the books “Adrenal fatigue…” by Dr. Wilson (adrenalfatigue.org) and “the mood cure” by julia ross to be enlightening and maybe the best resources i have found so far regarding supplements, etc, to fix low adrenals and certain unwanted moods, respectively (i’ve only just started the supplements, so i couldn’t say yet how effective they are). anyway, thanks for reading – good luck to us all!
ps – i’m hoping that low dose naltrexone may be the “ultimate cure” for endorphins and maybe adrenals as far as getting them back online and feeling good – if the gaba, 5-htp, and other supplements don’t seem to have an effect.
Snap! Aged 53 love intense working out once a week and have crashed into fatigue and depression by the time i get home which lasts for about 12 – 24 hours.
Culprits seems to be from this site
low cortisol
low fatty oils
seratonin deficit
but how do you isolate the variables and choose the right solution?
Something that make a HUGE difference to me, though financially I just cant do it atm, is to eat organic. Getting rid of all the chemicals they put in food is the thing that makes the most difference, iv much more energy and am more clearheaded
In my previous posts, I talked about triumphing over this miserable condition by interval training with TWO DAYS rest in between.
What also works for me is to dial my exercise WAY down, to about 20 minutes of walking or housekeeping, and nothing more. This I can do every day, without intervals of rest. If I stray from either of these two methods, the black dog returns with a vengeance.
However, I have not cured myself, I’ve simply learned how to work around it. See my next post for some oddities.
I’ve learned through having bloodwork done that my C-reactive protein is abnormally high, a marker of inflammation and depression. Does the depression cause the high CRP or the other way around? Inflammation has been shown to disturb sleep. Disturb sleep chronically and you end up with depression, according to the data.
I also have chronic fasciculations or muscle spasms, up and down my legs, nonstop, and sometimes migrating to my belly.
My doctor has no idea what’s going on and no changes in my diet have been able to stop them. Anybody else have these symptoms?
Forgive me for hogging these posts, but I have one more item that may be of interest. Has anyone out there read the new book, ANATOMY OF AN EPIDEMIC? It uses reams of data to show that antidepressants not only don’t work for mild or moderate depression, but they in fact can permanently alter brain receptors and chemistry to create chronic depression and bipolar disorder. If you’ve been on antidepressants for a long period of time or plan to take them for such, you must read this book. It may partially explain why some of us can no longer exercise and get a normal brain reaction as we once did.
So glad to have discovered this. I’m 28 and have been suffering from anxiety and depression for 8 months. I have definitely been on the road to recovery over the last few months and have been feeling happy and encouraged at my progress. having put on weight during this time I had finally been feeling motivated to getting back to my previous levels of fitness. I have been increasing my excersise and started to notice a pattern emerging when I do too much muscular excercise – lunges, squats, weights, etc. I tend to crash into depression and anxciety the next day.Yesterday I took part in a boot camp which was fab and i felt so great afterwards, However, i woke up this morning feeling worse than i have done in months. V. down and anxious etc. So nice to know that it’s not just me. Hopefully someone will come up with an answer.
Interesting column of comments and mostly reflective of my own or my clients experiences.
I am a personal trainer with Bi-Polar currently exploring the interweaving of psychological and physiological aspects of exercise/activity. I am interested in how exercise affects mood, in positive ways and more recently in negative ways.
From personal experience I have found exercise to be of profound benefit to my mental well-being, until.. I start to ’stretch’ my normal moderate/intense workouts to either a longer 2 plus hour session and/or burn more than 1800-2000 calories within a single workout. I have found, the day following such high intensity sessions, I fall into a very deep depressed mood.
I have decided to try and look into this phenomenon with a view to understanding, even slightly, how these effects come about. It is my intention to place everything I do onto an open web area.
Z
I am a 30 yo PE teacher who has never had problems with mood and has been participating in high levels of cardiovascular exercise all my life. At the end of last year however, I experienced very sudden psychotic depressive episodes. It was as though someone had just flicked a switch. I was totally out of reality and I couldn’t string a sentance together. All of a sudden I was so compulsive to do something destructive to myself. I was petrified having never experienced this before. Naturally none of the doctors knew what to do with me. I was totally suicidal and highly compulsive. I have spent 140 days this year in psychiatric care and I have never experienced anything like this in my life. I have been getting no answers whatsoever even from the most expensive ‘experts’. I am keen to know if anyone has experienced a similar thing with the rapid onset.
Heidi.. your experience with psychotic moods is interesting. Can you remember if you did anything different in your workouts (longer, more intense, diet changes) prior to your psychological problems. Did you find your sleep patterns changed?
Z
Let’s try something new
I wrote in this thread over two years ago and have been coming back to look for updates regularly. Many talk about adrenal issues, about cortisol, a lot about blood sugar regulation, about inflammation and of course about exercise intensity. I think they are all worth looking into and experimenting with though I’d like some of you to try the below experiment for me and report back (if you’re up for it of course)
1. The basic idea is that it’s the inflammatory response after exercise that causes us to feel bad. This response starts immediately and cytokine levels are increased for many days post exercise. I don’t want to speculate on exactly what in the response loop causes us to feel bad, just that it does.
2. Ibuprofen (over the counter pain killer) inhibits the inflammatory response.
3. Many depressed individuals for some unexplained reason have found that they feel better after taking ibuprofen. http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/22084-ibuprofen-and-moodcognitive-function/
4. Most of us feel good when we don’t exercise. We know that exercise triggers an inflammatory response. We know that something after exercise triggers depressive symptoms in us. Could it be inflammation and if so, could it be avoided with an anti-inflammatory agent such as ibuprofen?
Interesting discussion! I know I’ve looked here before and seems like many more comments now.
@Raz: I’m one of the people who posted in the thread above. I had to stop taking ibuprofen at bedtime, because side effects eventually overwhelmed any benefit.
For me blood sugar regulation has been extremely important. I found, years ago, that eating sweets would plunge me into weeks of terrible depression. Suspected hypoglycemia. Tests proved inconclusive–as they almost always do. I’m not diabetic. About 3 years ago, I found this paper on postprandial reactive hypoglycemia:
http://www.alfediam.org/media/pdf/revuebrund&m5-2000.pdf
The paper is well worth reading. It was a life-changer for me.
I asked my physician to try Acarbose. We did, at a dose of 50mgx2 three times a day (actually divided more at my discretion depending on meal size). It worked very well to increase my energy levels.
For those struggling with what seems to be hypoglycemia, diet modification/eliminating simple sugars and trying acarbose may change your life.
(part 2…)
I do think depression/inflammation are very strongly linked. I’m a biologist, and my surprising personal experience with ibuprofen and prompted me to look into a link with inflammation. There is a large and growing body of scientific literature on “sickness behavior” in animals as a model for depression in humans. The idea is that cytokines and other inflammatory mediators secreted in response to illness or injury can modify mood through an evolutionarily conserved mechanism, and bring on depressive symptoms. One classic example is that people who receive interferon treatment for hepatitis for example often become severely depressed.
It’s a fairly well established paradigm at this point, though LOTS of research remains to be done, and this connection is NOT yet recognized or appreciated by most clinicians, to their patients’ great detriment. Related to this is gut permeability (which increases dramatically after intense exercise, and alas, with intake of NSAIDS) and exposure to mold, for example, both of which produce an inflammatory response and have been connected to depression.
To briefly trace one mechanism by which intense exercise may lead to depression, as described by many on this thread… It’s known that intense aerobic activity increases gut permeability. This could cause pro-inflammatory bacterial products to travel into the bloodstream. In susceptible individuals this could, hypothetically, set up an inflammatory reaction that affects mood.
(as mentioned–injecting LPS (lipopolysaccharide) from bacteria into lab animals causes secretion of inflammatory cytokines and induces “sickness behavior” that looks very much like human depression…)
This argues that perhaps the solution is at least in part in attending to what one EATS. Extrapolating from my own case (which may not be warranted) I wonder if lower sugar and higher fiber intake might help.
I wonder if posture and muscoskeletal problems have something to do with it as well in some cases. I have no problems if I bike or swim intensely, but jogging or playing even a little basketball can leave me depressed for weeks, with head and neck stiffness. I think it’s the impact that sets up the injury/inflammation. Dr Jolie Bookspan has a good website and some excellent (and mostly free) advice on improving posture and avoiding this source of chronic stress/inflammation…
One last thing…
Curcumin has helped me a lot.
Seems to act as an anti-inflammatory without the side effects of NSAIDS.
I take three tablets of different and relatively expensive “high absorption” formulations of curcumin daily. I didn’t know which would work best so I decided to go with three different products. I still don’t know which is working–but overall the difference has been significant.
Good luck everyone!
Great stuff. I’m in my 50s, have had this all my life, just found this forum. Depression and lethargy begins the day after exercise, lasts for a day or two. Worse when thin, not as bad when weight was up. Worse after hard exercise, also noticed effect after sauna/hot tub. Faintness/headache on standing (positional hypotension?) after exercise may be an effect or may be part of the trigger to further depression/lethargy. Thanks all, lots of ideas to follow.
#404 – tianyt – interesting companion article to ‘Postprandial Hypoglycemia’:
EXERCISE HYPOGLYCEMIA IN NONDIABETIC SUBJECTS
http://www.alfediam.org/media/pdf/RevueBrunD&M2-2001.pdf
#408 is spam – do not follow.
Are you over-training and/or doing high-intensity workouts?
——————————
“While explosive forms of exercise and sports generate a rise in epinephrine and adrenaline, low to moderate intensity exercise tends to create a rise in serotonin. Long distance running, cycling, hiking, swimming, yoga, and sports that rely more on endurance than power create a rise in serotonin levels. Therefore, any sport or exercise that recruits more slow twitch muscle fibers than fast twitch muscle fibers, will increase serotonin levels. When we recruit slow twitch muscle fibers, the purpose is to be able to perform moderate intensity exercise for a long period of time. While the chemical connection between moderate intensity exercise and increased levels of serotonin in not fully understood, one could speculate that completing a difficult task, such as a long run creates an increase in positive emotional states, which would positively affect serotonin levels. The rise in serotonin that is experienced with moderate intensity exercise, seems to be similar in nature to the rise in serotonin that is experienced when one is surrounded by good friends and family. In general, when one engages in positive experiences, including exercise at low moderate intensity levels, we see a rise in serotonin levels.
…… It seem then that low to moderate intensity exercise has a positive effect on dopamine levels, while exercise that is very intense can lower dopamine levels, causing a disruption in sleep. In fact, one of the symptoms of overtraining is a disruption in the athlete’s sleep pattern. ”
– http://www.clairedorotik.com/NLWC-EXERCISE_AND_MOOD.htm
Hope this helps
Hey,
Anyone knows a healthy way of losing weight after the Holidays feast ?
I’m not into the lose weight in 2 days thngies…
Thanks
I’m glad I’m not alone. After reading everyone’s comments and relating it to my own problems, I’ve come up with this solution. This past fall, I worked out vigerously every day of the week and never had a problem with my emotions. I recently picked back up on my workout routine (I stopped for a while because I got mono.) But now I’ve been getting severely depressed a few hours after I work out. I still drink a preworkout mix and have a protein shake after I’m done. The only difference between last fall and now is that I don’t drink an intra-workout mix now. I believe this is the problem. Drinking something like gatorade or a designated “intra-workout” while you workout to replenish your cortesol and blood sugar levels as you lose them could stop the problem. I am going to put this to the test. I have high hopes.
Have had similar depression after exercise, here are mt thoughts for me after researching for years and hearing some commonalities amongst io posters. I’ve suffered from bouts of major depression and postpartum depression and gestational diabetes. Started in early childhood but didn’t know till decade later that it may be sugar related.
1. Lactate threshold is super low, I am trying to keep my hr under 60%. Btw, my heart rate goes up really fast so it would mean walking for me. Don’t know why do low but maybe I’m terribly out of shape and I just didn’t know it
2. sugar sensitivity, I have reactive hypoglycemia. Simple sugars and wheat cause a spiral into depression. Potatoes not Prozac explains a lot about how it can cause sugar sensitivity.
3. Adrenal fatigue-I stress easy, physically and emotionally. my body seems to tire quicker than most my age, 32.
I can’t believe there are so many people who have this problem. I have been an avid (compulsive, actually) exerciser for years. Started with weight lifting in 20’s then got into running. Ran competitively for years and ran several marathons. Eventually got into pilates and yoga in thirties. Had no problems when I was younger, but I am now 43 and basically just walk and gentle stretching because I find I can not tolerate much else. Yes, I can do it and get a buzz right after, but after a couple days of anything remotely hard, I get angry, wound up and find myself unable to relax. Tried running a few months back and felt horrible after. Tried hot Bikram yoga a few weeks ago and same thing happened. Obviously, my body does not want to be worked like this. It wants to relax, and eat food that tastes good. This is what seems to make me feel good right now, but I am reluctant to listen to it because from everything we are told by the “experts”, this is unhealthy. Not sure I believe it, because when I think about it I come up with some interesting questions. Who decided exercise was so good for us anyway? And look at where it is used — the military, as a training tool to make men and women aggressive enough to kill, or in sport, where the goal is for one person/team to defeat/conquer another. So maybe our bodies know this and don’t like this feeling — don’t want to be revved up, angry, driven — and this is why we are sad, down, tired after exercise. Maybe what our bodies want and need is more nurturing and less driving, especially for those of us approching or in mid-life. Personally, I feel this is what is happening in my case and it’s nice to know I’m not alone.
Part 1
I agree with Billie above.
Most people probably need to relax more, not exercise more. It’s not a lack of “exercise” that causes weight gain and ill health or lack of mobility and strength, it is stress and poor sleep. Poor sleep in particular dramatically and profoundly destabalizes blood sugar control, increases stress hormones in the blood which increase levels of inflammatory visceral fat and can make one hungrier and overeat and leads to insulin resistance and diabetes, sleep apnea, mood and mental health issues and all the other individually names diseases and issues which have blood sugar issues at their root. To add insult to injury, people deal with poor sleep with a powerfully psychoactive substance in the form of coffee and caffeinated soda which further compounds the sleep problem and keeps stress hormones elevated. Then, to try and relax from all this stress, people use alcohol (often at unknown to them “binge levels”) which can initially dissolve mental stress, but then makes sleep even worse and boosts cortisol levels keeping them elevated.
Part of the cause of all this is just modern life with its bombardment of media, news and especially in the west and asia, the drive to produce and almost macho attitude towards working hard, having little rest, little vacations, a full life etc. It’s information overload and too much focus on doing and not being and reflecting and relaxing… which is almost looked at as lazy instead of necessary and natural. No doubt part of this attitude is encouraged by those who gain so much from it.
Part 2
Exercise, especially long aerobic exercise, in addition to being potentially injurious to joints and muscles and almost always do long term, is stressful to the body. Most people i know who closely monitor their weight – gain weight from exercise and it is not muscle weight they are gaining. It appears to be water and weight from an increase in eating due to a raised appetite. It is a stress effect. One reason it is not recommended anywhere near sleep is because it can interfere with sleep.
It is important to be active, but a well rested body wants to be active, to explore, to walk around. Activity is a natural result of restorative rest. Artificial structured exercise, running around a track or treadmill, is a poor substitute for being active and as studies have shown, has zero positive effect (even in high amounts) on the poor health that is brought on by excessive sitting.
Hi guys,
Part 1:
Wow! I’m suprised at how common this is and thank you everyone for posting, it has helped me a great deal to see that its not just me experiencing this. I hope the below might help.
My situation – I have just started to run again after about a year and a half of not doing any serious running or excerise and have noticed an obvious negative effect on my moods and mental wellbeing. I started a run-walk programme 2 weeks before Christmas and found that I was becoming increasingly impatient and irritable. I stopped over Christmas due to a cold and the bad moods went away. I started again just before the new year and am back to being impatient, irritable and a bit weepy and depressed.
I used 10-20km up-hills regularly a year and a half ago so I should have found a couch to 5km training programme easy if I was in good health.
My reason for taking such a long break from exercise is that I managed to burn myself out to the point where I crashed completely (i.e. nervous breakdown) and had to take 3 months off work and have spent the past year and a half recovering. I can say with 100% confidence that my burnout was due to my stress hormones and especially cortisol becoming deregulated, the symptoms I am now experiencing are very similar to just before I burnt out although not as extreme.
…
Part 2:
My conclusion is to slow it down (i.e. gentle swim and yoga rather than running) until I am really back up to full health (I hoped I was healthy enough). I am going to seek advice from my doctor and other health professionals about the dgeree to which I should start to exercise again with the right nutrition etc, but at the end of the day you have to listen to your body – this I have learnt the hard way!
Please if you are feeling bad i.e. your moods are affected badly and not just the usual tired achey musles, after exercise do not just push yourself through it (for more than 2 weeks) as you will not benefit from it and you may well get worse and it can take an extremely long time to recover.
Cortisol (a stress hormone) is the key. Blood sugar is related in that your body will start to produce cortisol if your blood sugar drops. So diet can help immensely but depending on your health it may not be enough i.e. if you are still recovering from an illness esp. something like glandular fever.
Plenty of vitamins (multivitamin + vit B complex + omega oils + magnesium +/- glutamine +/- rhodiola rosea (or similar e.g. holy basil)). Protein powder and supergreen powder smoothies and plenty of fresh veg and protein in your meals with help. Plus eating small snacks between meals to regulate bood sugar.
Apart from taking special care with your diet inc. supplements, the only thing you can do is slow it right down and start to build yourself up from the beginning again (or from a place you find easy) and seek help and advice. A few months complete rest may be whats needed to allow you stress hormones to rebalance and your adrenals (if thats what it is – the only explanation I’ve heard that makes sense to me) to recover.
Hope this helps and good luck!
RAZ – I’ll try your experiment and will post results here.
I’m so glad I found this page, I’m having the same problem.
Here’s a brief history:
Lost a lot of weight in my late teens by working out and dieting… in retrospect, I was very badly anxious during those times. I never attributed it to excessive working out though – I never made the connection until now.
I’m in my late twenties now and having gained back some weight, decided to go back to working out after about a five year absence. That was three months ago. Initially I overdid it – doing about 80 minutes of pretty hard cardio + weights four – five days a week. After that I couldn’t leave my room for about three days. I stayed in and just ate ice cream and watched comedies to try to feel better. It was very bad depression.
I recovered after about 2 weeks and returned to the gym, taking it easier, but the same thing happened, but not as bad this time – just more generalized anxiety, irritability and aggression.
Now I’ve stopped working out entirely. I used a steam room and sauna last night, which elevated my heart rate and I feel like crap today again, after feeling great for the last week. There’s a bit of a knot in my stomach and I feel like I could throw up … and that’s just from a steam room.
I’m completely giving up on hard exercise. There’s plenty of evidence anyway to support the contention that heavy cardio and a consistently elevated hart rate is not good for you. I’m using books like ‘Intuitive Eating’ and ‘Eat what you love, love what you eat’ to lose the weight… it’s going to take time but doing it this way makes much more sense and the easier I am on my body, the better I feel. In fact, I would go so far as to say that returning to the gym made me realize just how important relaxation is.
Good luck everyone and go easy on yourselves!
I suffered with exercise causing depression for almost 4 years. I tried practically everything and none of the many doctors I saw had ever heard of it.
6 months ago, I saw a naturopath and he found that I have 2 conditions that hinder my ability to absorb and convert B-vitamins into the activated forms that the body can use. He put me on mega-doses of activated B vitamins and my depression began to lift after a week. After a month, I was able to exercise without any problems. I know that this isn’t the answer for everyone, but I never would’ve thought to see a naturopath if my family doctor hadn’t suggested it because she was stumped. I don’t completely believe in all aspects of naturopathic medicine but my doc gave me an answer that had stumped countless MDs over a period of years. Thankfully, I found a naturopath who was more sciency than spiritual.
thats an interesting story happydays86. Could you tell me which and how much vitamin B you take exactly? Ive tried almost everything and nothing seems to work.
PT1.
Having been fairly fit into my late 20’s, a sedentary job has taken it’s toll over the last decade or so. Now, at 41, I’m trying to loose about 20 pounds of unwanted baggage by increasing my daily activity.
I’ve been shocked by experiencing mood changes ranging from euphoria at increased energy levels, through to anger and emotional imbalance. It’s quite bizarre how seamlessly one seems to change into the other. The physical feeling resembles panic while my mental state is closer to anger. It’s the classic fight or flight scenario, with the emphasis on fight!
In general I’m a very positive person. I strongly dislike the word depression – it’s flippant, dismissive and non-specific. So, I’ve been trying to find a plausible, holistic explanation for what I’m feeling…
The stress hormone Cortisol is secreted in part to increase blood sugar through the process of gluconeogenesis. This process may occur with more significance in people trying to lose weight because they are likely to consume less glucose and perhaps follow a lower carbohydrate diet. Cortisol also depletes potassium.
There’s a condition referred to as HSP (high sensitivity) which affects approximately 15-20% of the population. The condition has many positive implications associated with emotional awareness: creativity, empathy, intuition, etc. However, it is also associated with hypervigilance, higher than normal levels of Cortisol and a greater sensitivity to the associated stress.
PT2.
When we exercise our blood sugar decreases and without enough glucose Cortisol is increased. This is normal, but for about 5-10% of people (at the more extreme end of HSP), this is ramping up previously elevated levels of a hormone that we are already overly sensitive to.
While running or working out, everybody will experience increased levels of endorphin, adrenalin, norepinephrine, etc., so even for people in the “normal” range, a level of crash is to be expected after exercise. What goes up must come down, right? For most, this is offset against the feeling of wellbeing, accomplishment and controlled by the slow decrease of endorphins, promoting the myth that exercise always makes one feel better.
For a minority though, it can mean pushing us beyond our tolerance for internal, chemical stress and leading to a more significant crash.
While fish oil supplements are always good advice, my remedy is to eat a ripe banana before and after exercise with a small handful of seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, flax and hemp). Bananas are potassium rich and the fructose stops your blood sugar from dropping which helps suppress the Cortisol response. A good seed mix is even richer in omega 3 than fish, and their high protein content will make the fructose metabolise slower than normal, leading to less of a sugar spike and less of a crash.
Hello fellow sufferers. I HATE THIS PROBLEM. I cannot workout for more than 5 minutes without feeling like total crap. I walked up 6 flights of stairs and felt horrible next day-headaches, cranky and tired like i haven’t slept in a week. I am 38 years old and was athletic my whole life and never had this issue. I started taking EFFEXOR XR, an antidepressant when I was 30 and taking ever since. Does the antidepressant have something to do with my mood after exercise? I have gained 40lbs since starting effexor and just feel happier when i don’t exercise. Exercise just makes me feel worse…..WHY?????????
Gosh, I am hitting this in a bad way, as well. Desperately taking L-Carnitine, D-Ribose and CoQ10 for my heart . . trying to facilitate my body to renergize while I exercise. Strength training absolutely dumps me at my worst, but exercise routines of 1/2 hour that FEEL so EASY dump me emotionally, (strength training will drain me emotionally and phsycially) and ALL exercise is messing with my sleep, which isn’t good anyways! Taking rhodiola and 5-htp trying to keep my sanity.
So, searching, searching, searching! Doing a sleep study Tuesday – but, in reading the threads and noticing sweating at night being related to hypoglycemia – I’m doing the sweating thing – not wringing wet, but repeatedly waking up for a round of hot flashes, over and over. I found an article that said a woman and her husband started drinking a sugar free fiber ‘cocktail’ before bed and it stopped the nightime hypoglycemia in it’s tracks. I’m going to try this!
While I agree with the low blood sugar potential I have an additional theory surrounding aggressive/extreme sports and heavy cardio workout routines.
Perhaps at peak cardio levels in endurance sports or survival scenarios (climbing/mountain biking/skiing) a hyperarousal state is elevated calling on the sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system -the classic fight or flight situation.
From my own experience, this massive alert phase of outdoor exercising is followed 12 hours later with mental lethargy and fatigue nearing acute depression, a bit of confusion and a general retraction from social activities. This lasts for 24-48 hours while the nervous system replenishes itself and the fear state subsides.
In this case -simply recognizing this post workout state eliminates some of the confusion as to why exercise did not equate to elevated upticks in mood. The post exercise period may benefit from a recovery phase involving both nutrition but also safety and comforting to the nervous system.
Group, we are out of shape and this kills us when we try to exercise right, so stop over thinking this and go back to square one, start slow, slower than slow, how you ask very slow set self awareness alerts, if I start to sweat I over did it seriously, it’s something I try hard not to do! I walk slow and not far started out going a round the block and that was it, not sweat just a nice walk after that became very easy i upped it to two or until I started to sweat and that told me to stop and to continue to build my endurance. I also do pushups and crunches. Again 10 to 15 and stopped if I even thought I was starting to sweat, after each became easy I added more again only pushing myself enough without sweating. This is working, if I step over the line I feel it just like before but by slowly building up my endurance I feel good to great. If you ever talk to a body builder that uses steroids they get “Roid-rage” because the drugs drive them past what their body can handle. Think about, try it, it’s working!
DEAR HEY
I am so tired of people like you coming into forums and assume that what you are going through is what we are going through. I am not out of shape I have been working out for over a year and I get true depression when I work out.
I am so tired of people who do not have a clue about depression imposing their crap on me. SO SICK OF IT
IF YOU DO NOT HAVE DEPRESSION YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT. ITS NOT JUST A MATTER OF CHEERING UP ITS OUR BRAIN NOT LETTING US CHEER UP NO MATTER WHAT WE DO AND WHEN WE SAY WORKING OUT MAKES US DEPRESSED WE ARE NOT WHINING ABOUT BEING OUT OF SHAPE YOU PRESUMPTUOUS INSENSITIVE ASSUMING INEXPERIENCED ARROGANT POMPOUS JERKS.
Thanks for the upbeat response Jason sounds like you have it all under control… this is a forum to allow everyone to give input, sorry for you if you feel you are the only one depressed from exercise (the bases of this forum) Depression is real we all have it and we all found some root causes and ideas on how to help ourselves and other. Your comment that you worked out over the past year, so it sounds like if you stopped or reduced your exercise activities you would be less depressed. My input is simply based on experience same as yours – work out and pay for it with depression. Drink your drinks, take your pills whatever works for you just stop yelling at me for sharing what is working for me. And get some help before you hurt yourself or someone else! Everyone else thanks for all your input.
I have just done some workout exercises for just over an hour as in sit ups, dumbells toning and i can honestly say i feel like crap now.
First i got a terrrible headache which does not go and i drank some water after and felt really cold afterwards. I had the urge to eat a jacket potato with cheese, it felt comforting and drank some cranberry juice with 2 ipbrophen tablets for my headache.
I dont mean to sound thick but does having hypoglocemia mean you have diabetes?
In terms of my emotions i feel really low, sad and i also cried too. I feel this type of excerise has made me more depressed. I’m think that this type of gym training is not right for me and perhaps i should go with some light fitness classes instead.
This “hyperarousal” state explained by MM likely plays a significant role in our symptomology. Exercise potentiates the release of CRH from the hypothalamus. CRH sets off the stress response.
CRH is known to be elevated in individuals suffering from melancholic depression.
Thus, in individuals with an “oversensitive” nervous system, too much CRH is likely released following exercise. Or there is already too much CRH “in the system” and exercise exacerbates the issue. This outflow can lead to increased ACTH production and an increase in cortisol. Paradoxically, too much CRH over time can cause a downregulation in CRH receptor sites causing an eventual decrease in release of ACTH.
CRH antagonists would likely be of great benefit in all stress-related disease. Limited efforts have been made to develop such drugs. I question whether the universal effect the drugs could probably have on all stress-related disease is a deterrent to the development of the drugs from self-interested big pharma.
So are we any closer to a solution? I’ve got about 80 lbs to lose and as it is, I would just cycle 20K a day and be done with it. But I simply can’t do that.
There has to be a solution!!
@Raz: Yesterday evening, I tried taking 400mg of Iboprufen an hour before jogging for 12 minutes VERY slowly. This morning – as usual after exercise – I woke up with a very foggy and depressed mind. I took another 400mg of Ibuprofen this morning, but it did not affect the feeling.
So ibuprofen does not seem to work for me, or at least not with this dosage.
Do you have any further ideas? In a different forum, I have read about someone successfully a combination of St. John’s wort, milk thistle and Ibuprofen to combat post exertional brain fog. Has anyone here tried it?
Here is information from “WedMD” received from a Body builder friend: (Phosphatidylserine is used for Alzheimer’s disease, age-related decline in mental function, improving thinking skills in young people, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, preventing exercise-induced stress, and improving athletic performance.) He told me that Body Builders are always looking for ways to reduce Cortisol to improve their workouts and the after effects. this sounds much like many of us have? He also said most BB’s take high levels of vitamin C and Fish Oil to help reduce Cortisol levels to control the lows. here is a link
http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-992-PHOSPHATIDYLSERINE.aspx?activeIngredientId=992&activeIngredientName=PHOSPHATIDYLSERINE
Good luck and be safe
For me, after complaining for 2 years that I had suicidal thoughts after 15-20 minutes of moderate exercise, I finally got an answer: secondary hypogonadism.
My testosterone levels were at 188 – the level of a 80 year-old man. The normal range is usually between 400 and 750.
Long story short, I started hormone replacement therapy last week, and just last afternoon, I walked for 45 minutes (3.75 km) and I had a huge grin on my face the whole time. No more depressive mood, problem solved.
Check your testosterone levels ASAP.
I am quite excited, because I think I have found a way to drastically improve my post-exercise brain fog. On three days last week I gave myself a vitamin B12 injection (1000 ug hydroxocobalamin) 90 minutes before exercising (30 minutes jogging). Usually, 1 hour after having exercised, my mind would have become completely foggy and during the following day I would have been unable to concentrate at all. But with the B12 shots, everything was fine. I will keep on playing with this a bit and test what is possible.
I told my doctor that I get depressed after working out since the birth of my son 3 years ago… she said it sounded like Adrenal Fatigue and sent me to Barnes & Noble to get a book called Adrenal Fatigue by Dr. Wilson….
After reading this book I have concluded that a LOT of the stuff in that book sounds just like the things I go through on the daily. Not just the depression after exercise but also the brain fog all day, weird hunger cravings and sudden weight gain around my mid-section (I thought it was just from lack of working out because of the depression I got).
You guys should also look into this book and see if maybe it could be the root of your problem as well. I am going to start altering my life style, and I will be back to post about any changes if they happen… hopefully I get better because I can not stand not working out!
Anybody else who also suffers from erectile dysfunction/impotence ?
hey exercise.about.com Started exercising about three months ago and no abs. Questioning what I am doing wrong. Any good assets?
Like so many of you, I am thrilled to have found this forum! I’m 30 years old, and I thought I was unique with this problem. I apologize now for how lengthy this is going to be…
I was an athlete as a child and teenager. Exercise never made me cranky or depressed back then, but I didn’t really get that “endorphin-high” either. I played sports because I loved the social aspect, so the physical benefits were just a bonus for me, and I had no psychological side effects.
After high school (1999) I stopped playing sports, and due to my already lousy eating habits, I gained lots of weight. I did get back into low-moderate level exercise over the years though, like hiking, canoeing, disc golf, and skiing. And I even completed a marathon (walking it) after 7 months of training in 2006. I found these activities to be fun, and again, they caused me no psychological discomforts.
Keep reading the next posts…
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Then about 2.5 years ago, I had gradually lost a good amount of weight purely by adjusting my diet… but I was plateauing. I realized to keep losing weight I had to add more exercise to my life. So I went out and hired a physical trainer 2x/wk… what a disaster! After every workout I had to lie in my car in the fetal position for about half an hour before I could drive home without vomiting. Then when I got home I was severely depressed and extremely irritable. I would snap at my husband without provocation, and I would just want to be left alone. This lasted for about 12 hours after every intense 1-hour session with my trainer. I told him about it, and he gave me strict guidelines on what to eat before and after (which I admit I’ve now forgotten), but even though I followed his plan, nothing changed. He wanted me to go to the gym on my own between workouts, so I could get the max weight-loss benefits, but I couldn’t make myself go, because the fear of more depression was just too much. I finished the 3 months with the trainer that I had signed up and paid for, and I never went back to the gym again.
In the 2.5 years since then, I’ve put back on nearly all the weight that I had lost… but guess what- no more depression. No one believes me when I tell them my experience, that I had the OPPOSITE reaction to exercise than we’re “supposed to” have. I’m bummed that I regained the weight, which has more to do with my diet than anything… but I’ll take feeling “bummed” ANYDAY over how awful and debilitating that depression felt.
Keep reading below…
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Which brings me to now: 3 weeks ago I signed up with my sisters for the Warrior Dash, which is a 5K obstacle course this June. Now, I haven’t done distance running in about 13 years, so I knew I had to ease into it. I started using the “Couch to 5K” program on CoolRunnings.com. The first 2 weeks were fine… but this past week things started getting rough. The workouts are only about 25 minutes long 3x/wk, and I would call them moderate-high level, in terms of exertion. Well, for the last 5 days I’ve felt completely hopeless, like I can find no reason to smile. (My life is fine, there’s nothing to really be sad about.) I ran the program this afternoon, and tonight I’ve had 2 episodes of crying outbursts, plus nearly constant nausea. I couldn’t hide it from my husband any longer, so I tried to explain how I’m feeling (which I thought would be useless, because he’s an exercise/health-junky). Believe it or not I had almost forgotten about what happened 2.5 years ago, but he reminded me: “This all reminds me of back when you had that trainer.” Which is why I typed into my search tonight, “can exercise cause depression?”, leading me here.
One more post to go…
…OK, this is the last one…
So here I am, and I just want to thank you all for your contributions to this site. I plan to spend the next several days/weeks going through your posts and suggestions. I don’t think the amount of exercise I’m doing is over the top, so there’s no reason I should have to stop. In fact, it’s helping me to lose weight again, so there are definitely reasons for me to continue. There’s got to be a way to have my cake and eat it too (so to speak)! If I can find a way to combat this depression and push through all this, I will let you all know, and I may even find myself in debt to one of you.
I’m really hoping I’m not diabetic (both my parents are, along with my 2 paternal grandparents), but my blood sugars seem like the best place to start investigating. If that’s not the issue, I’ll look into the cortisol-reducing vitamins, and continue from there. I’m already feeling better just thinking about fighting this… THANK YOU again!
I tell people I have this problem and they always are totally surprised. I’m sorry we’ve all got it but it’s nice to not feel so alone or freaky or that it’s all “in my head”. I look forward to taking the time to go through these comments and will update if I find a solution for myself.
I had posted a few months ago about Exercise Intolerance or Post Exercise Malaise or whatever you want to call it. Unfortunately, the illnesses spoken about in this forum don’t all fit under one umbrella or present even with the same symptoms. This has been mentioned previously. The challenge for those of us, myself included, who have not conquered their conditions is to find the cause, to recount the history of your illness. Solutions must target the source to be effective.
To those of you who experience dullness, apathy, and lethargy for days after intense or even moderate physical exertion, I have a personal breakthrough to share with you: it could be all in your head. Literally, physiologically. Consider your own personal history: did you have a stressful job, did you overtrain, did something emotionally traumatic happen to you? And then consider that you may have done lasting damage to modules of your brain responsible for complex thoughts, memory, and spatial navigation, which in turn affect your self-confidence and ability to feel and understand and enjoy things, broadly speaking. Chronic exposure to stress hormones will kill brain cells ultimately and shrink brain module volume considerably in the process, making it vulnerable to ordinarily tolerable levels of persistent, exertion-mediated byproducts (specifically, inflammation).
Adrenal fatigue was my own diagnosis before. But my body wasn’t wasting away. I was experiencing a normal amount of inflammation. Only my mind was sick and unable to cope. So with this new understanding of my condition, what am I doing about it and what do I suggest those of you with similar symptoms look into doing?
REMOVE THE STRESSOR. The rate of healing must outpace the rate of injury exacerbation. You increase your odds immensely when you get away from whatever is stressing you out.
TRY AN ANTIDEPRESSANT. Messing with neurotransmitter levels was something I strayed away from. I don’t tolerate significant modifications in my existing levels. But if you can tolerate antidepressants long enough, certain formulations can actually reverse stress-induced brain damage. I encourage you to explore this angle.
EAT WELL. You’ll need to do experimentation here. Just make sure to stay open-minded and pay attention to how you feel.
Sorry for the hastily written post. I want to address the variety in symptoms people are presenting in this space and I’m leaving out a lot of proof for my own argument. But alas, I’m sick and not thinking well. I assure you that you can start learning about everything I’ve put here simply by doing thorough web searches. Credible research is real and often ample.
Bottom line: To those of you who experience dullness, apathy, and lethargy for days after intense or even moderate physical exertion, you may have mild (but reversible) brain damage. Try that angle if you’ve struck out elsewhere.
Andrew Weil and I don’t always see eye to eye, but I’m going to quote an article he wrote that elucidates the inflammation-depression connection a little further:
“A commonly-reported side effect of interferon therapy [read: introducing proinflammatory proteins to the body to combat cancer] is severe depression; in fact, some patients have committed suicide. Long-term activation of the immune system, as in autoimmune disease, also seems to go along with depression. The reverse is also true: Depression seems to involve changes in various aspects of immunity, particularly those having to do with cytokines. People with rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma, systemic lupus (SLE) and other forms of autoimmunity are often depressed. And when proinflammatory cytokines are administered to animals, they elicit “sickness behavior”: The animals become listless, lose interest in eating, grooming, socializing and sex, and show increased sensitivity to pain, changes strikingly similar to those in humans with major depression.”
Normal-functioning brains can tolerate normal levels of inflammation. But again, if you’ve been through a traumatic event, or overtrained, or repeatedly stressed yourself out expecting the world to be different than it actually is, it’s realistic that you’re still recovering from chronic exposure to stress hormones. To reiterate: chronic exposure to stress hormones reduces the functionality of brain neurons, if not outright kills them. Areas of the brain responsible for memory and emotional intelligence have disproportionately more receptors for those hormones than do most other brain regions.
Again, there’s a lot of science out there on the inflammation-depression connection. Your experience or understanding of your own exercise-induced depression may be different. I’m just connecting dots here. It does get much more complicated, though…
Full article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-weil-md/depression-and-inflammation_b_1071714.html
It’s long time since I posted on this Forum. Now I see more than 400 people have similar problems. I think now we should bond together and solve this problem cause we understand the problem more than anybody else and if we don’t act to improve ourselves nobody will do. As a starting point I have generated a survey in Survey monkey. It has only 10 question but it can be a great start. Please take 10 min and answer these questisions. At the end of each month, I will post the results of the survey here. Alternatively, we can make a Google group to collaborate on this issue and share our findings.
Here is the survey
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/298BJ8F
The thing that I have been reading about that seems to fit a lot of what we are describing is dysautonomia which is a nervous system disorder.
When you have dysautonomia it causes the part of your nervous system responsible for the fight or flight response to be overactive among other things.
There are a list of symptoms one of which is the exercise intolerence that we all speak of.
@Dunno, talking about dysautonomia is certainly taking this conversation in the right direction. I’m going to elaborate a little.
The specific kind of immune system dysfunction probably experienced by a lot of folks on this thread is called hypothalmus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysregulation. The HPA axis regulates how your body reacts to stress. From the NIH:
“One of the major disorders characteristic of an overactive HPA axis is melancholic depression… [r]esearch has shown that people with depression have a blunted ability to “counterregulate,” or adapt to the negative feedback of increases in cortisol. The body turns on the “fight or flight” response, but is prevented from turning it off again. This produces constant anxiety and overreaction to stimulation, followed by the paradoxical response called “learned helplessness,” in which victims apparently lose all motivation.” http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/sep2002/nichd-09.htm
In other words, chronic stress causes prolonged release of stress hormones causes dysregulation of the body’s stress regulator which provokes “sickness behavior” (and sometimes results in brain damage). Nature did a review of studies that explain that cascade in much more detail. Please go here to read or skim: http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v21/n4/full/1395378a.html
Having always been thin and not very strong, I’ve never taken to sports or exercise. When I turned 40 I thought it would be fun to do a beginner’s triathlon just for the heck of it. I realized when I started crying my eyes out (for no reason) during the biking portion, that my body wasn’t made to exercise. It has the opposite effect on me. So my solution is to not exercise. I just keep moving and try not to be too sedentary. My family thinks I’m crazy, of course.
Tonya, good for you for trying a triathlon. Were you able to finish it? Describing a triathlon as “beginner’s” can be misleading. If the race you did is anything like the “sprint tri” I did a few years ago, it’s a 3 hour event.
My point being, if you’ve never taken to sports or exercise like you say, you probably shouldn’t be breaking into the scene with a three-stage, three-hour race. The term “beginner” is relative to how insanely intense triathlons get. Ever heard of the Ironman? (You run a marathon after biking 112 miles after swimming 2.4 miles)
You don’t have to be thick or strong to get fit. I also happen to be thin and not very strong. The human body WANTS to move/exercise. But you can’t expect to swim, then bike, then run after having not done ANY of that for at least a few weeks beforehand. You weren’t exercising during that race. You were racing. And your body wasn’t fit enough to handle that stress. So it screamed at you to stop.
You’re not crazy, Tonya. But I don’t think you’re not depressed. At least not because of exercise. Definitely keep moving. But if you want to race again, start slow and try working up to it. That’s how it works for everyone else.
Slight correction to the last paragraph: I don’t think you *are* depressed.
Hey all,
I’m 18 and I have the same problem.
In fact, it all has started in my early teens, around the age of 13 (or maybe it was the time when I became aware of it). I would start feeling extremely depressed (even cry) a day after the gym classes or other forms of exersising (depression lasts not less than 2-4 days, as well as some other negative consequinces).
That’s why I would like to break down the presumption that it is connected with lifestyle as at the age of 13 I used to eat pretty healthy, no coffee, smoking, alcohol, no stress, etc. I suppose it is innate or has something to do with the hormones as I’ve noticed that when hitting puberty..
I hope my story will help to guide some people to search for the roots of the problem in less superficial aspects. I still need to do a deeper research on this to state anything firmly though (Thank you all for the useful links and information!).
Also would like to the other thing following the train of thought that we are dealing with elevated cortisol levels.
I was reading about how if the demands for cortisol raise too high then it can start stealing the precursors from the other hormones.
Obviously an uneducated guess here but if you are in a state of elevated cortisol to start, followed by a further cortisol increase brought on by the exercise then would it seem out of the question that other hormone levels would possibly be skewed?
If we really are having trouble regulating cortisol levels then perhaps this state is lasting far longer than it should?
What I have found for myself is I have a somewhat mild form of Ankylosing spondylitis. I have two brothers with serious cases. This is essentially inflammation of the spine which of course gets much worse with exercise. This inflammation causes a stimulation of the nerves which creates poor sleep etc.. leading to depression etc.. Sucks!!
(had a hard time getting this posted, sorry if you end up seeing duplicates)
Hey guys, wanted to update y’all on my progress. First, @Dunno, the hormone imbalance due to excess cortisol is certainly possible. I know I’ve chased down an understanding about the balance between cortisol and DHEA and testosterone and other hormones, but hit a dead end and looked elsewhere.
The problem for me and a wealth of other people on this thread is that we’ve produced so much cortisol in response to chronic stressors that the adrenal gland just stops producing it. It’s called a negative feedback loop. People who take glucocorticoids (hydrocortisone, cortisol, prednisone, etc) for autoimmune conditions (arthritis, asthma, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, etc) for an extended period of time experience the same symptoms, mainly a blunted ability to mount a stress response. Even after you remove your personal chronic stressor (I found a new job and stopped hating myself with my practice of Stoicism), your body’s ability to produce cortisol and neutralize excessive inflammation continues to suffer. For some, the suppression is permanent. For most, it’s not so bleak.