TheraFIST: The Art of Punching Depression in the Face

By Josh Fingerhut, LMFT

At eighteen months sober, I almost killed myself.

Dramatic, I know.

I’d just gone through a breakup. I was stuck in a job I didn’t care about. I lived far from my friends and had no direction. I hadn’t started grad school. My life felt like a long hallway with no doors.

I wasn’t living.

I was waiting to die.

My logic was simple: I’ll always feel this way. If this is permanent, why not skip the line and tip the bouncer to get into Death, the hottest club on earth?

Flawless reasoning. Great job, Josh.

Earlier that day, I’d been paraded around a fundraiser for my old treatment center. My meth-induced scar made for great optics. Donors gave me their pity faces. I hated every second of it.

This is what I’ve become.

A circus act.

A show-and-tell exhibit.

Driving home, I planned to press a knife to my wrist and hope an earthquake handled the rest.

Then another voice slid in.

Enter Vanity.

Vanity: Josh, relax. I’m not here to stop you. One idea though. Hit the boxing gym first. One last class. Burn a few calories. Go out looking ripped. Maybe get that Fight Club V in the lower abdomen going.

Me: I think they’re called cum-gutters.

Vanity: Imagine the funeral. “What a tragedy,” someone cries. “And he lost weight!” “He looked incredible!” A hot girl screams, “I wish he were still alive so I could sleep with him!”

Me: …Fucking brilliant.

So I drove to the gym.

I wrapped my hands, put on the gloves, and started swinging. At first it was a normal class. Then each punch hit something deeper. My anxiety. My fear. My shame. My depression.

Boom. Pow. Crack. Smack.

Every strike had weight. Not emotional weight. Biological weight.

Sixty minutes later, I collapsed and sobbed.

Not out of despair. Out of release.

Something inside me had shifted.

I didn’t just feel better. I felt different.

And here’s the part that matters.

It wasn’t magic.

It wasn’t willpower.

It wasn’t positive thinking.

It was biology.

The real science behind punching your way back to life.

High-intensity exercise like boxing does several things at once, and the effects stack.

1. It floods the brain with endorphins.

Endorphins bind to opioid receptors and reduce both physical and emotional pain. They create a sense of relief and clarity. Studies show endorphin release is strongest during explosive, repetitive movements.¹

2. It spikes dopamine.

Not the chaotic dopamine of addiction—the regulated, task-driven dopamine that restores motivation and focus. Dopamine is the brain’s “do that again” signal. When depression flattens it, effort feels impossible. Boxing flips the switch.²

3. It releases BDNF.

BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor)is brain fertilizer. It supports neuroplasticity, repairs stressed neurons, and strengthens new neural pathways. Low BDNF is linked to depression, PTSD, and chronic stress. High-intensity training increases BDNF more than moderate exercise.³

4. It regulates the autonomic nervous system.

Depression often pairs with a frozen, shut-down state. Trauma pushes people into sympathetic overdrive. Boxing activates the system, then brings it back down through rhythm and breath—this oscillation is what rebalances the system.⁴

5. It restores interoception.

Interoception is body-awareness. Trauma and addiction distort it. Boxing demands attention to contact, timing, breath, and stance. This reconnects you to your own internal signals, which is a cornerstone of trauma recovery.⁵

6. It creates agency through action.

Agency is one of the most protective psychological factors we have. Movement with force tells the brain: I can do something. Agency is the antidote to helplessness.⁶

This combination hits the brain on multiple levels at the same time.

Chemical.

Neurological.

Somatic.

Psychological.

It’s not “mind over matter.”

It’s matter changing the mind.

Why boxing works when nothing else does.

Depression disconnects you from your body.

Trauma disconnects you from your power.

Addiction disconnects you from your agency.

Boxing reconnects all three.

It’s rhythmic.

It’s intense.

It’s bilateral.

It’s embodied.

It’s expressive.

It’s safe aggression.

It’s controlled chaos with a clear container.

You don’t need skill.

You don’t need to be in shape.

You don’t need technique.

You just need to move with force and breath.

That’s enough to wake up the parts of your nervous system that shut down when life got too heavy.

Why anger matters

People fear anger. But anger is the first emotion that returns when someone starts to thaw out of a shutdown state. It signals aliveness. Motion. Activation.

Anger is energy.

Boxing channels it through direction instead of destruction.

You aren’t hurting anyone.

You aren’t hurting yourself.

You’re using the biology of anger to restore balance.

This is why people cry after their first real boxing session. It’s not sadness. It’s release. It’s the nervous system unclenching.

The science is catching up to what fighters, trauma survivors, and addicts have known for decades:

Movement is medicine.

Intensity is clarity.

Force is information.

When you hit something that can take it, something inside you rearranges itself.

Trauma research calls this bottom-up processing. The body shifts first. The mind follows.⁷

That day in the gym, I wasn’t doing “self care.”

I was doing neural surgery with gloves on.

What saved me was not boxing.

It was agency.

And boxing was the doorway.

You can access that doorway too.

Start with ten minutes.

Hit a bag.

Shadowbox.

Throw sloppy combinations.

Let your body lead for once.

See what happens.

A spark might show up. It might be small. But it will be real.

That spark saved my life.

See you in the ring.