How cycling can help with depression

Recently I was able to catch up with an old friend, and I told him that I’d started a bicycle blog. He was interested as cycling had played a significant part in shaping the person he is today. After talking to him, I felt that his story was one that many others, including myself, could relate to. So I decided to share it with you all today with his permission. Hope it helps. Mike

How the bicycle helped my friend

I was never one of those kids who rode their bike around all the time. In fact, it was many years before I even owned a bike, never mind learned to ride one. The place where I grew up was very hilly, and not ideal cycling country. Even then, I suppose I could have found ways to ride, but the impulse was just never there.

I was fifteen when I finally learned to ride a bike. My parents paid a cycling instructor to teach me. I know, most kids’ parents get them bikes for Christmas and birthdays, mine got me a teacher. But it was nice to have a new skill, and for a little while, I made an effort, taking the bike down to the nearest park and riding it around for an hour or two at the weekend.

Then life got in the way. A levels, University, and I gradually stopped cycling. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy it, it’s just that it didn’t have as much an appeal for me. After leaving university, things started to fall apart for me. I managed to get a job, but the hours were long, and it wasn’t much fun. On top of that, I split with my girlfriend who I’d been dating since the first year of university.

To save money I moved back in with my parents which was okay because we get on well, but the loss of independence hurt. I was unhappy at work and afraid to talk about it because on the surface I had a lot to be grateful for.

I had a job when so many of my old course mates were struggling to get anything, and I could live cheaply with my parents when the average rent was upwards of five hundred a month. It got to a point where I was taking more and more time off work because there were days when I just couldn’t get out of bed in the morning.

Whatever the causes, depression isn’t a rational thing. It can creep up on you out of nowhere. Even at that time, there were good days when I could seem to the world like a fully functioning human being. Most of the time I was barely keeping it together at best. Then there were those days when I shut myself in my room and wouldn’t come out, wouldn’t talk to anyone, wouldn’t eat.

My guilt at skiving off and taking it out on those around me made me feel even worse. It wasn’t until I started talking about my problems that I found a way to help.

First I spoke to my parents, then some of my closest friends (Mike from this blog was one of them). One of them happened to mention that exercise can help with depression. I was skeptical because exercise does involve actually getting out of bed in the first place, but it seemed worth a try. I don’t jog, and I can’t stand going to the gym, so the only possibility was cycling.

My sister had left her old bike in my parents’ cellar. One morning I took it out for a ride. It’s true what they say; once you’ve learned how to ride you never forget. It was a lovely morning in early summer, just before it gets too hot to do anything but just after the wild spring weather clears up.

I wasn’t out very long, but for that brief half hour or so I felt not exactly happy, but strangely at peace. There’s something therapeutic about just riding along. You’re concentrating on the bike, so you don’t have mental space for all the bad stuff going on in your life or in your head. It’s just you and the bike.

I cycle all the time now. It took a while, but after cycling every day for a few weeks, I started to enjoy it. Now I cycle everywhere, even though the hills in my hometown are a nightmare and there aren’t always safe places to leave a bike.

I still have bad days, but they’re less frequent now. When I’m at my worst, I imagine myself just riding along without a care in the world and it helps a little. And on my good days, I can ride long distances for hours on end without hesitating, and I’ve even started cycling to work. I’ve made new friends as well, at the bike repair shop and in a local group of cycling enthusiasts that meet up once a week at the pub and go riding together. I’m a solitary animal at heart, so I prefer to ride alone, but it’s nice to have a support group of like-minded people. I spoke to some of them and was surprised to learn that one or two of them had had similar experiences. They were in a bad place physically or emotionally, and cycling had helped them to cope.

I don’t know how common this is, but then I only really know what works for me. Cycling didn’t cure my depression or get rid of the problems that caused it, but it gave me a new enthusiasm for life and a reason to get up in the mornings.

If someone asked me what my definition of happiness is, I’d tell them it is being on your bike in some wide open country and riding your way towards the horizon.

Help information

If you need to talk to someone please contact:

• Samaritans 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org
• Pieta House 01 601 0000 or email mary@pieta.ie – (suicide, self-harm)
• yourmentalhealth.ie
• Aware 1800 80 48 48 (depression, anxiety)
• National Suicide Helpline 1800 247 247 – (suicide prevention, self-harm, bereavement)

If living in Ireland you can find accredited therapists in your area here:

• iacp.ie
• iahip.org
• counsellingdirectory.ie