I remember a nice phrase in Andrew Solomon’s book on depression, “The Noon Day Demon,” which I first read in the New Yorker. That “exercise exorcised the depression from his body”.
That’s exactly how it is with me. In a typical depressive pattern, I often wake up sluggish and with low mood, and gain in alertness and spirit as the day winds on, ending up wide-awake at night.
The light therapy I am trying is helping.
But running also helps enormously, filling me with alertness, endorphins, serotonin, all that is good.
Yoga too fills me with calm, alertness and a feeling of well-being.
And, it is one of the mysteries of being me that I run almost every day, rather than every day when running makes me feel so good. Ditto with yoga