I’m not the person you responded to, but I’ll throw my hat in with them and say that running helps my mental health too! I’ve had a terrible history with exercising consistently, but I’ve been running at least a couple times a week for over a year now and the thing that helped a lot was getting away from “my goal is to run X number of days” and focus on rather “my goal is to make the idea of running less painful.” I didn’t want to get super active, I just wanted to lower the bar for action so that it was something I would continue to want to do. I never shame myself for not going, it’s always an open choice for myself to help me feel better, and I let myself even just “go for 60 seconds” or “down the block and back.”

And one thing that helps a lot is if you can figure out a time of day that works the best for you. I have a harder time going on weekends because I normally run during my lunch at work. On the days I don’t run, I walk, because I sit a lot at work and it drives me mad to spend lunch sitting around too. Plus running is a lot more fun if it’s literally taking you farther away from responsibilities, lol. Also, if you tend to do better forming habits with the buddy-system, don’t be afraid to look into trying to use that as a motivator too! :D