41–50 of 115 posts
He explores the new and old science behind Psychedelics and their ability to cure depression, addiction and other aliments of the mind.
Another active study in this field; Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) https://maps.org/
What worked for me is letting go of therapy and focusing instead on what matters to me, or my self/character/personality/whatever you want to call it. There are some things in the world you can't control so focus on what you can control. Win your own small battles one at a time, they build up.
Once I was getting enough sleep, I could sort out my eating/weight and had energy to exercise, which were big contributing factors.
Then meditation, to learn "you are not the voices in your head" and a touch of stoicism to put your feelings in perspective.
Cardio helps a lot for me personally. I'm a firm believer that most people (myself included) don't get enough exercise when compared to hundreds of years ago. It gives me a dedicated hour or two block of time to listen to podcasts, and exercise in general is healthy anyways so its a win-win.
What style of cardio do people like? Some people have knee issues for example, or long winters. What do they do?
It depends on how depressed you are and also evaluating whether it's clinical. A combination of medicine and extracurricular activities will get your life back on track!
I know you mentioned that you were looking for non$$ solutions but hear me out:
An overly simplified analogy to depression is like diabetes. Your body does not produce the right chemicals to process things. In the case of diabetes, it's insulin. For depression, there's some imbalance of serotonin or dopamine.
With diabetes, you must control your sugar intake via exercise, eating fewer carbs, fewer desserts, etc. With depression, a lot of same applies such as more exercise, meditation, journaling, etc.
If you had diabetes and all you did was limiting your sugar intake, then most doctors will say that's not enough. You must take insulin. Depression is similar. If it's clinical, behavioral therapy will definitely help, but you need to balance your chemicals.
If you need to chat more, let me know! I don't see a chat feature here, but we can find a way.
You can try attending this meetups if you have one nearby http://coda.org/, not sure if codependency is the root of your depression but at least you can talk and hear other people talk and get some inspiration.
I also really enjoyed reading A man search for meaning, by Viktor Frankl, which gave me a lot of perspective and motivation to move forward.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I try to don’t forget the words “keep your heart pumping”. It really helps your whole body, especially the brain.
I tried jogging in the evening to clear my head and get blood pumping,but I slid back to the same valley after like two hours
But I also wasn't as depressed as a lot of clinically depressed people are. But it could literally be a matter of volume.
But I learned a lot about myself, and once you do an Ironman even once, you have some confidence about doing something really really hard, and you have a (minor) superpower while you're in shape to do one.
So it might be a matter of volume. It might be a jog doesn't sufficiently trigger a subconscious feeling of accomplishment that a longer distance will.
It could be triathlons give you Napoleon Dynamite skills in more that one thing. Nice thing with exercise: you can do lots of things to get it, so try branching out from running. Lift a bit, yoga bit, bike a bit, swim a bit, X-C ski a bit, shoot buckets, trail run, etc.
Meditation, diet, sleep, and exercise can all help, but ultimately it was talking to a professional that made the most difference; all those other things have helped to sustain it since then.