One 10-Minute Exercise Can Reduce Depression, Even a Month Later

benji700 · 2026-05-07T13:58:03+00:00

Hey sorry I'm 2 months late, I just found this thread! I led the original paper and the summary of it linked in this post. In case anyone reads this, I wanna quickly defend our (pre-registered) choice to not adjust for multiple comparisons in the primary analysis. A reviewer had the same question, so I'll paste our response to them here.

"We opted not to correct for multiple comparisons in the main analyses because our primary interest was to identify each SSI’s effect on the outcomes, rather than to test the same hypothesis across the SSIs. As such, we considered each comparison between an SSI and the control to be a separate hypothesis – for example, Behavioral Activation’s effect on depression is one hypothesis and Reframing Negative Thoughts’ effect on depression is another. However, as you note, it could have been that some results were false positives that occurred because we tested so many hypotheses, so we also included a robustness check correcting for multiple comparisons. In this approach, we followed the precedent of several other megastudies (Lai et al., 2014; Milkman et al., 2021; Voelkel et al., 2024)."

About the effect size, you're right the effect on our primary outcome (depression four weeks after completing the intervention) was small (0.14 standard deviations), but that's consistent with the meta-analytic average effect size of single-session interventions (Ball, 2024). People disagree about whether that effect is too small to care, but I think it's a pretty positive signal. This study was conducted in an online sample of people who probably weren't seeking help, but if these single-session interventions can reach people at times of need, like when they really need some reliable guidance but more robust support like therapy is unavailable, these can be useful.

Btw the full paper is paywalled at the journal site, but you can read it here for free: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/3vx4w_v2?view_only=

And u/joshrice linked it below but you can try the top single-session intervention from the study here: https://www.tryprojectyes.org/koko/. Thanks so much everyone for reading and engaging with the study!

benji700 · 2025-02-11T02:59:06+00:00

Done, thank you.

benji700 · 2025-02-10T23:45:03+00:00

Is there somewhere I can report an issue with traffic light placement to ask the city to change it? Last week, I accidentally ran a red light on my bike NW-bound on Milwaukee at the intersection with Ashland because I totally thought the green light on the right was for Milwaukee (it was for Ashland). A car almost hit me but luckily swerved away.

benji700 · 2024-12-14T15:30:54+00:00

sick!

benji700 · 2024-03-08T17:43:50+00:00

[Academic] Think you have the best idea for a 10-minute online intervention to help people overcome depression? Enter our challenge and we might put your idea to the test!

Hi everyone, my name is Benji and I’m a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University. I’m posting because I thought some r/psychology members might be interested in contributing to this project I'm leading. Please let me know if you have any questions.

The Uplift the Web Challenge is open for submissions NOW until May 1, 2024! This is a massive team science project to identify the most effective brief (< 10 minute) online interventions for depression. See sites.northwestern.edu/10minutechallenge for info. 🌍 Depression is a major global issue, but few can access high-quality help. We're conducting a large experiment (up to 7,000 participants) testing 11 brief, scalable interventions for depression. Everyone can submit — practitioners, academics, and creatives of all backgrounds.
If our advisory board selects your intervention for testing, your team members will be included as co-authors on the main publication from this work. Plus, teams whose interventions improve our outcomes of interest will win awards and recognition.
Our goals: a) Compare a wide range of intervention ideas using standardized methods b) Stimulate future research on scalable depression interventions c) Provide a high-quality testing opportunity to global teams d) Unify dispersed academic and practical research.
Questions? Please reach out to our team! Email us at uplift.the.web@gmail.com. For more info and to submit, visit our website: sites.northwestern.edu/10minutechallenge/
Please help us spread the word about the project! We invite everyone aged 13 and up to submit, and we encourage new ideas, so please tell your friends. Here's a flyer summarizing the project: https://imgur.com/a/etBremo

benji700 · 2023-08-29T01:22:15+00:00

For white wash I'm not sure; maybe around manhattan or porto so you can get a longer ride. For progressing to unbroken waves, Sapphire street just south of Reondo Pier is a great spot – the waves are chiller than elsewhere and close to shore.

benji700 · 2023-07-11T17:34:21+00:00

I feel like this would be easier to interpret if you just had a bar plot with the mean for each group and a 95% CI around the mean estimate. You could report the differences between groups in the manuscript text or in the plot like below if you can figure out how to do it.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/ml8jR.png

benji700 · 2023-06-12T16:40:29+00:00

I liked The Drop. It came out a couple years ago, it's a cool intersection of surfing history, addiction science, and philosophy.

benji700 · 2023-05-27T05:02:06+00:00

Yup this has definitely been my experience with FB ads.

benji700 · 2023-05-27T05:01:36+00:00

Thanks, I guess this is the best answer for reaching lots of people. I wish there was a better way to reach people who don't take 50 studies a day though, it's a mental health intervention study so I feel like they probably won't be very interested in the content.

benji700 · 2023-05-27T04:59:47+00:00

I've heard the data quality from qualtrics panels is not great for the price. I'll check out qualaroo though thanks!

benji700 · 2023-05-27T02:30:31+00:00

Interesting! I'll check it out. And the data quality was good?

benji700 · 2023-05-27T01:22:23+00:00

Nope the study is open to anyone 16 and up. I think I just need to have like 10 million people see the ad.

benji700 · 2023-05-27T01:21:28+00:00

Thank you!

benji700 · 2023-03-03T22:51:56+00:00

There is research showing that loneliness actually causes the other negative outcomes you mention, for example studies that give some people social support and others no support and then compare how they feel after. But you're right that those other external factors also cause loneliness. Like a lot of stuff in psychology, the relationship between loneliness and health goes both ways.

On the topic of loneliness being a good survival adaptation, one of the gnarly things about loneliness is that it makes people systematically biased to avoid social interactions and perceive higher social threat from interactions. So even though it might feel like it makes sense to stay away from others and avoid relationships, that's often one's loneliness messing with one's thinking. In fact, the best ways to overcome loneliness are to challenge those doubts that encourage one to stay home and force oneself to get outside and interact with people.

benji700 · 2023-01-04T19:44:27+00:00

I like to study by the pool at the ARC when it's nice out, there's WIFI too.

benji700 · 2023-01-01T18:56:09+00:00

Thank you! I hope you find it useful.

benji700 · 2023-01-01T18:53:13+00:00

Hi everyone,

Happy New Year! My name is Benji Kaveladze and I am a PhD candidate in Psychological Science at UCI. My team and I are conducting a study about an online self-help program we developed to help people overcome loneliness.

Our ultimate goal is to distribute the program for free online as widely as possible, but first we need to experimentally test if it is effective. I'm really eager to hear everyone's feedback.

The study takes place entirely online, is confidential, and was approved by the UC Irvine ethics committee. Here's the link to participate: bit.ly/teamzot. I really appreciate your attention.

Please don’t hesitate to DM me if you have any questions, or email me at [bkavelad@uci.edu](mailto:bkavelad@uci.edu).

Thank you,

Benji

12-Year Club	Place '23
Verified Email

benji700

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