[vjk800]

Heavy exercising, especially aerobic exercising. Something light like half an hour walk isn't enough, I have to properly exhaust myself calm the fuck down. Some different workouts that are usually enough are: one hour of heavy barbell training at the gym, 45 minutes of running, two hours of brisk walking.

Also interacting people in a non-bullshit way works but is often more difficult to do. Keeping up appearances and roles works the opposite, but if I tell people what I actually think and let myself be more emotional and less reserved around them, I actually feel more connected, which alleviates anxiety.

I think that at the hear, anxiety is born out of insecurity. Being connected (in a real, non-pretentious/bullshit way) with people raises my security. However, this is often easier said than done. I guess exercising works as a sort of a patch by reducing my energy levels so much that I don't any left for my anxiety.

[Terretta]

> Heavy exercising, especially aerobic exercising.

Possibly all this activity means hour(s) of not-stressor focus is calming you down. All your "free" time is exercise instead of stewing.

To rule out the time, swap these high time consumption activities for 4 minutes of HIIT (high intensity interval training) bookended by 2 mins warmup and 2 mins cooldown, which is proven to have even better metabolic benefits due to the 4 minutes of anaerobic intervals (sprints).

It's a shame more people don't know "this one trick". Few of us have extra hours a day to gambol about. Most people can find 8 minutes.

> I think that at the heart, anxiety is born out of insecurity

Maybe exactly at the heart.

As noted in a discussion here last week, there's a heart-brain link for anxiety, heart can cause the brain to feel anxious. HIIT improves heart better than, say, beta blockers, so it could be the mechanism is something like exercise is improving heart which signals less anxiety to brain.

[vjk800]

I've had enough lifestyle variation to say with quite good confidence that it's the aerobic exercising that helps me. Before I learned to manage my anxiety I tried to calm down by just, you know, lying down and trying to relax, but it never worked very well. My mind would just generate more anxious thoughts and it would often get worse, not better by just relaxing.

I've also don HIIT and I can confirm that 15-20 minutes of HIIT (maybe 5-7 intervals with a bit of warmup) provides the same results as one hour of more moderate form of aerobic exercising. However, HIIT, when done properly, is fucking horrible (several times I've been very close to puking afterwards). I still do it maybe once every two weeks, but I think I would die if I tried to do a proper HIIT workout every day.

[Terretta]

Agree.

That's exactly what prevented VersaClimber (a 95% muscle recruitment machine that gets it done in 4 intervals of 40 seconds on 20 seconds off) from getting popular. It made people puke. Apparently this is disconcerting in a sports club or gym.

To your point: it works though!

[Melatonic]

I am convinced that lack of exercise is exacerbating a lot of peoples mental issues (not claiming it is the cause, however).

Think about dogs. Anyone who has owned a larger, high energy dog knows exactly what happens when they do not get regular and intense exercise - they become an anxious mess and often become destructive or even self destructive.

Are we really that different from dogs?

[FastEatSlow]

Love this. Anxiety isn't a new-fangled piece of tech, it's primitive and should be treated as such.

[jwmoz]

Martial arts was always my natural medicine. Have not been training much the last year or so, hoping to get it back on track but it worries me as I can't do that forever as I get old.