Comment by doright

For a long time I tried to start an exercise habit, but it didn't stick. I could jog 15 minutes every day for a month and instantly be sick of it a few days after.

I was only able to gain an exercise habit by addressing my mood and anxiety first. First, with my mental improvements I became actively motivated to exercise and didn't hate it anymore. I kept at it for several weeks, only stopping every so often due to fatigue. Eventually I did earn the habit of exercise. This wasn't intuitive to me, but the typical causality was backwards. Exercise was not what directly made me healthier, but being healthier (mentally) from the start allowed me to initiate and keep exercising, from which I earned even more health benefits.

A mental deficit in being able to form habits is arguably even worse than a lack of exercise, since you would try to apply the "exercise cure" advice and just burn out after a while like I did. It's not like you didn't exercise, but you could not internalize what all those people typically say must be the case if you just exercise a lot.

Even as my mood fluctuates I am now able to still go for a jog once in a while. These days I understand that if I had started off exercising in a state of low mood, I would have no chance of making it stick. The habit carried over from when I persisted at it in my limited window of improved mood.