[HN Gopher] Mentally-passive sedentary activities linked to 43% ...
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Mentally-passive sedentary activities linked to 43% higher
depression risk
Author : grammers
Score : 37 points
Date : 2023-11-28 16:35 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.psypost.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.psypost.org)
| Bostonian wrote:
| As usual, a study that finds an association needs to be followed
| by a study that uses a randomized controlled trial to establish
| causality. Quoting the paper:
|
| "Participants reported time spent in TV viewing (mentally-passive
| sedentary behavior) and sitting during work or driving (mentally-
| active sedentary behavior) at age 44. Waist circumference,
| C-reactive protein, and glycated hemoglobin were also measured at
| age 44. Depression diagnosis was self-reported at ages 44, 46,
| 50, and 55. ]"
|
| If you are unemployed and not in school and living alone,
| watching TV is a default activity. The cause of depression may
| not be watching TV but the circumstances leading to it. You could
| do a study where in the treatment group people's cable TV is
| turned off. I doubt it will make people happier.
| potatopatch wrote:
| While the cause of the initial depression may be something
| else, shutting off the TV may be the most viable cure for a
| long time depression where TV is the default activity. With
| enough entertainment there's not enough motivation to do less
| entertaining things that are ultimately less depressing because
| they are challenging.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| Shutting off the TV is likely a cure to all kinds of mental
| conditions
| iammjm wrote:
| I don't own a TV and am nonetheless somewhat depressed. I
| think TV is not any worse than other passive activities,
| such as watching YouTube, browsing news, scrolling
| Instagram, playing games, online shopping, ... (and I don't
| mean from time to time, but hours upon hours every day)
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Indeed. TV is just one of many possible negative passive
| addictions.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| yeah, we should generalize "tv" here to broader "screen-
| time"
| kobenni wrote:
| Maybe we should even generalize further to "mentally-
| passive sedentary activities".
| toasted-subs wrote:
| I am unemployed in my late twenties and feel like nothing to go
| right in my life. I pray to die everyday, but I cant say that
| without getting sent to a mental ward taking another 20 grand
| of my money and a week of my life.
|
| Everybody involved with mental health is sick. Especially when
| the healthiest thing I can do would be going outside, but I
| cant without police harassment. And I am an extremely
| attractive person who dresses well. Seems like a societal
| problem.
| sleeplessworld wrote:
| You may have reached a core existential struggle. This is in
| my experience fundamental to existence: does existence itself
| make up for the pain and adversity of the world? The
| spiritual struggle is in many ways to accept that life in
| this world has pain, struggle and adversity, but that this is
| a learning experience. But I guess this requires a spiritual
| look at things. Cause without this, I also think things look
| pretty bad... but if it is a spiritual quest, then there is
| light at the far end of the tunnel.
| CobaltFire wrote:
| I'm sorry you feel like going outside means harassment; I
| don't mean that in a negative way. Everyone should be able to
| head outside and enjoy the public spaces. Have you identified
| any root causes? I have no idea what part of the world you
| live in, so can't give any pertinent advice.
|
| This is not a judgement in the slightest, just an
| observation:
|
| Your post history on HN shows a very negative streak, about
| pretty much everything. Is this because of your depression,
| or is it the cause?
|
| If you frame everything you see negatively, it will have an
| effect on your emotions. Maybe try seeing the positive in
| something you don't agree with offhand once a day and see if
| that helps at all?
| sleeplessworld wrote:
| This is not meant to belittle your positive and well
| meaning post. But for people with real depression, giving
| the advice to just cheer up and look a bit more positively
| on things is the worst possible thing you can say and give
| as advice. I know it is often well meaning and comes from a
| place where people simply does not know what to say or do.
| And this leads to slight desperation. But it is wrong and
| leaves people with and in depression in even more
| blackness. Being a bit more positive has nothing to do with
| it. Depression is debilitating and has deeper causes. And
| one thing you experience with depression is that you loose
| the ability to use internal automatic denial to filter out
| the bad realities of the world. And basically the world is
| a horrible place, with some positive things in it. Not the
| other way around, even though that is what normal people
| see.
| CobaltFire wrote:
| I'm aware; I deal with depression constantly. I'm not
| interested in getting into a "my depression is worse than
| yours" discussion here because it sucks no matter how bad
| it is. Suffice to say that a TBI resulting in lifelong
| crippling depression and anxiety, which caused suicide
| attempts, is sufficient for me to understand what it's
| like.
|
| I'm the last person to tell someone to simply "cheer up";
| I noted that almost every post the OP made was framed
| negatively and thought that may be a single factor that
| might help a little. It's not a solution, but depression
| can be a fight of a thousand small things. Maybe that one
| thing helps them or someone else that reads it. Maybe
| not.
| onetimeuse92304 wrote:
| I came up with what I think is good explanation for what is
| happening.
|
| 1. People are paid to find topics to publish. Whether you are a
| media person that is forced to find something to write about to
| buy bread or you are a researcher that needs to show results.
| You are looking for anything with any value that can be put out
| there and create some traffic.
|
| 2. For any piece of research, you don't get from zero to hero
| immediately. You first find a correlation, then it takes time
| to gather some more facts and maybe, if you are lucky, find
| causation.
|
| Nowadays, if you are waiting for the whole proof, you are
| already late. Somebody will publish it before you and by the
| time it really is ready to publish, it is old news.
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(page generated 2023-11-28 23:02 UTC)