can skydiving cure depression

[virgin-burner 1]

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No it can NOT cure depression. In the short term it may mask the effects. But how do you deal with it if you can not jump?

Or worse still what happens if you feel you need to jump more and more often to temporarily hide the effects of depression?

Or even more worse what if you start to take more risks to get an ever increasing buzz?

I did not think jumping whilst suffering from depression was allowed anyway.

My advice would be to seek professional help with your depression and use Skydiving as a goal for when you are cured of it.

BP

I think treating depression with skydiving is just treating a nuerosis with an addiction; but I'm sure it works short-term. I can hear the counselor's questions now:

Do you feel you need to skydive to have fun?
Do you skydive alone if there is noone else to skydive with?
Do you find yourself spending all of your spare time with other skydivers?
Does skydiving effect all of your non-skydiving activities at work, home, school, etc.?
If you knew you could never have another skydive, how would that make you feel?

if you mean neurosis, depression isnt that.

but yea, if i'd get to hear i couldnt skydive no more, i'd threw myself from a building or an antenna, then a bridge and at least, a cliff..

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[livendive 8]

I think skydiving can help correct chemical imbalances to some extent (and similarly cause them in another). I think the bigger impact skydiving has for me is keeping things in perspective. Daily problems can loom larger as time passes, and far surpass the worries they merit. There's something about flying among friends and later hurtling toward a nonchalent planet that helps shrink problems back down to their proper size. I mean by comparison, is it that big of a deal that your neighbor's dog keeps shitting in your yard (e.g.)?

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[LuvToFly 0]

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I think treating depression with skydiving is just treating a nuerosis with an addiction;

I don't believe that to be the case at all - but neither would I consider it a "treatment."

I have had the opportunity to interview many people that have suffered from depression and it's clear that there is merit on many fronts to an activity such as skydiving.

The fact is that many people who are depressed live in a world constricted by fear. Afraid of losing control; afraid of what others think of them; afraid of death; afraid they are inadequate; afraid of embarassment; afraid of not being able to pull it together when they need to in life - all while still on the ground in their everyday lives. The list is endless.

But to many, skydiving - which combines both conquering fears and mastering your emotions - if even for a short time - comes as a breath of fresh air.

In a mental environment where negative thoughts are constantly racing, each one jockeying for position to be the next troubling one in focus, the at-hand requirement to bring all that under control so that you don't die on a skydive is actually relief to many sufferers of depression. It is the "quietest" their minds get.

This could never be compared to someone replacing one addiction for another, or simply a "rush." It is in fact a self-demonstration that a person can successfully care for themselves because of the skill involved. To compare that to some mindless addiction (not implying that you did) which requires no such constructive elements is to overlook the rather courageous attitude of those who cross their perceived barriers to get there.

And while no one would suggest that such an experience could address what would be a clinical depression (for which there are proper treatment avenues), the trick for depressed skydivers is to see what they are doing for what it really is: A huge victory over the mind, over the self. They have chosen, on their own, to take control of their body and mind, if just for a few short moments, And the realization that they can do such a thing can and should have very positive implications. It means that they can pull their minds and emotions to serve them when needed, providing hope for the same while on the ground.

The very definition of a constant has implications of something that is unchangable. When someone finds that they can conquer all of this, it can serve to dispell the self-taught myth of their own thought-born limitations. The take-away from this challenge can be rightly applied to other situations. And therein lies the power of such a revelation - which can go a long way towards empowerment of a life which to many has in fact felt powerless.

But this involves perspective. Depressed persons often don't see the value in the things that they do. They often don't recognize their own achievements, discounting them to dumb-luck or a chance break in an otherwise perceived string of bad-fortune.

And so it would be if the focus is on the "need" to jump rather than the truth that comes out of the experience. And that is, those who have suffered with depression and chosen to face the challenges inherent to skydiving have fought and conquered many issues of self-doubt or feelings of being ineffective to get there. And that is to be commended.

"The helicopter approaches closer than any other to fulfillment
of mankind's ancient dreams of a magic carpet" - Igor Sikorsky

[lawrocket 3]

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what if your lovely wife divorces you!? i'm sure you keep on feeling just as great as you are now. the sky will always be there. your wife may not. so whats the more temporary solution?

To spend all the time that heaven will allow me to spend with my wife - the time is certainly finite. The sky will always be there. She may not be. To do the contrary would be senseless.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[dfairleigh11 0]

I doubt there's any one thing that cures depression - there are undoubtedly happily married people that still suffer from it, obviously as well as people from all other walks of life.

I personally started jumping at a low point in life - just permanently broke things off with the girl I'd been with for 7+ years (yeah, yeah, SAVE IT ), had just been diagnosed with melanoma (cancer, thankfully it hadn't spread yet and all got removed with 1 surgery, and somewhere I heard chicks dig scars) and lots of other stuff - the first few jumps didn't do anything but make me frustrated, but once I got to the "I sorta get this" stage (around 15sec delays), I realized just how much being in the air improved my outlook on life - I sometimes refer to jumping as freefall therapy - and when I wasn't jumping I wanted to be in the air, because it made me feel ALIVE - the rest of the world doesn't matter when you see the views we see in freefall and under canopy. It just makes life... ...more alive.

But if it's supposed to be a "cure" for depression, it'd probably be cheaper to see a shrink and buy a girlfriend . I suppose when skydiving stops making me feel that way it'll be time to go to Twin Falls and fall off a bridge. And after that maybe an antenna in Holland, and then a cliff in Norway, and then a building in Australia.

Okay, I ban myself from the soap box for now. Bubye!

"We'll start the ass kissing with you"

[RhondaLea 3]

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I doubt there's any one thing that cures depression -

Finally.
This explains why certain antidepressants work for some and not for others and why talk therapy works for some not for others and why nothing works for some, etc.

With that said, high novelty and high sensation-seeking behaviors are both associated with low levels of dopamine, as high harm-avoidance behaviors are associated with high levels of serotonin--I just read an article that mentioned this, as a matter of fact--so it makes sense that skydiving would do a lot to alleviate certain types of depression.

What I would note from the replies to this, as well as my own experience and that of many others I know, is that if one recommends not jumping until the depression is dealt with by conventional methods (as was implied in an earlier post), a good percentage of the skydiving community is going to be grounded.

rl

If you don't know where you're going, you should know where you came from. Gullah Proverb