The central thesis is excellent, but this really caught my eye:
> Depression is usually catalogued as a mental illness, but it’s as much a metabolic illness as cardiovascular disease, which itself has significant mood-related symptoms. These two diseases occur together so often that some medical researchers believe that one may cause the other. That perspective is steeped in Cartesian dualism. Both depression and cardiovascular disease are known to involve problems with metabolism, so it’s equally plausible that they share an underlying cause.
I wish this to be true. I'm in excellent cardiovascular health - low BP, 60 bpm resting heart rate, extensive cardio/endurance activity 4-5 days per week. Utterly miserable every waking hour.
I struggle with depression for periods of time but have mostly always been fit. In my experience, even though it's contrary to most "broscience" out there, diet helps more with depression than working out.
What working out does definitely improve is my sex drive and self-esteem, so it's important to know what's the triggers for your depression, as it may help anyway.
As someone who has dealt with anxiety, depression, and OCD, I am truly sorry that you have to go through that. I don’t know if you’ve talked to doctors about it, but if you found their support lacking, please keep trying. It took 5 different doctors, psychs, and therapists before I finally found a team of professionals that could treat my OCD effectively. And they really did help.
> Depression is usually catalogued as a mental illness, but it’s as much a metabolic illness as cardiovascular disease, which itself has significant mood-related symptoms. These two diseases occur together so often that some medical researchers believe that one may cause the other. That perspective is steeped in Cartesian dualism. Both depression and cardiovascular disease are known to involve problems with metabolism, so it’s equally plausible that they share an underlying cause.