Okay, today's tip for healing from depression is exercise. And I know what you're thinking, I'm just going to say, "do lots of exercise. it's good for depression", like everybody else. Well, exercise IS good for depression, but I want to give you two modifiers.💙

Firstly, I don't like the word "exercise" because it brings up connotations of getting hot and  uncomfortable and out of breath and people with depression just don't have the energy to even think about exercise.💙

So the first thing I want to do is talk about "movement" instead. If you can't lift weights, if you can't do cardio, just start with movement, start with gentle stretches, start with maybe some easy yoga, start with a walk as far as you can.💙

So we're changing the word exercise for movement. See if you can build some movement into your system, even if it's small, just start at the beginning.💙

And the second thing is that what's really interesting about exercise or movement that you never actually hear is that it generates the same uncomfortable feelings physically as uncomfortable emotions do.💙

So by doing a bit of exercise and getting to the stage where it's uncomfortable, you're actually training yourself to be able to sit with uncomfortable feelings and emotions. And I've found that to be absolutely huge.💙

This could actually be one of the reasons why you don't want to exercise or build exercise into your lifestyle, because as soon as you start getting uncomfortable, it may be associated with uncomfortable emotions. And if that's really hard for you to bear, you'll be like, "I'm not doing exercise"!💙

So if you can come at it from the opposite point of view and say that exercising and feeling a bit uncomfortable, which you are in control of, is a way to titrate your experience of feeling uncomfortable with exercise, which will allow you then to sit with more uncomfortable feelings and emotions!💙