It has been two years since Iris Chang committed suicide in November 9, 2004. Many people tried to understand why she did that, but nobody can give a satisfactory answer. It seems to me that Iris is predisposed to depression and she might have set herself up when she started working on those arresting topics. Nevertheless, the death of Iris is a loss for all Chinese. Except for her untimely death, Iris lived a fruitful life and was a role model inspiring many Chinese Americans.

In memory of Iris Chang, I have thought a lot about depression recently. How can we treat depression? Medication is one choice, but only for those clinically diagnosed depressed people. For many mild cases and those who are always in blue mood, they need some other advice.

One common prescription in treating depression is exercise. Studies have suggested that regular exercise, even moderate ones, can boost mood and relieve depression symptoms. The mechanism is unclear. Researchers hypothesized that exercise may offer a confidence and satisfaction when completing some physical tasks, create distractions from depression, teach coping skills to deal with health issues, and introduce interactions with other people during exercise. In summary, exercise is good for both physical health and mental health.

During past 40 days, I have engaged vigorous exercise regularly and successfully lost 20 pounds weight. From the physical health perspective, I have achieved all goals. However, in terms of mental health, I found that physical activity had not accomplished much.

It is true that during the first few days, I felt more focused and less stressed. The exercise distracts me from those depressive thoughts. I didn’t feel as anxious as before. However, during the past few days after I have achieved the weight loss goal, I started to feel depressed again. Retrospectively, I think exercise only temporally relieve depression symptoms rather than cure the depression.

Many people get depressed for no obvious reason, but if they search themselves thoroughly, there are reasons behind depression. In my case, I fully understand that my mild depression is from my procrastination. I know that I need to read papers and do more analyses to sort things out, but I always postpone them, hoping magic will happen. However, there is no magic except depression and anxiety.

To cure depression and other psychological disorders, you need to find the sources that cause these diseases. That’s what Freud believed 80 years ago. Medications or even electronic shock may temporally relieve symptoms or make it appear cured, but without addressing the sources, the diseases will relapse. That’s why in behavior therapy, people are told to identify sources for their anxiety and either avoid contacting the sources or learn to deal with them. The same principle should be applied to depression treatment.

Therefore, exercise is at most moderately effective in relieving depression symptoms. It is not a cure for depression. People should not put too much confidence on exercise to treat their depression.

However, that is not to say that exercise is useless in mental health. Based on my experience, successfully adhering exercise regime can improve self-efficacy which serves the basis for other advanced treatments. This is why I set up another goal to treat my procrastination, the root of my depression. Hopefully I can cure my depression.