Do you exercise? It releases a ton of hormones that are other artificially replicated.
Ask HN: Beating depression with or without anti-depressants?
251–260 of 388 posts
Re: Ask HN: Beating depression with or without anti-depressants?
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why’d you stop Prozac? I’ve been taking it about the same length.
reasons: 0. A few well placed acid trips helped me decide that I should follow my passion instead of toiling away at The Normal Path which brought me nothing but sadness. Acid beats a lot of cognitive distortions. 1. Root of my depression was trying to do 4 years of college courses that bored me to tears and required a ton of homework. So, I dropped out to go work in tech. 2. Much of my social anxiety was gone after…
Hmm. It sounds like Prozac helped you and then you stopped taking it.
Depression sucks. If you ever need someone to chat with, DM me on Twitter.
Re: Ask HN: Beating depression with or without anti-depressants?
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
I found strangers online to be more effective than doctors, simply because they read to much on the matter, then they interact too much with you. I basically got diagnosed online by 2 different people about 2 different issues, one is biological, and the other is mental. And they were right. This is nerds out there who read about topics constantly, way more than the average doctor, not even close. So a stranger can he…
This isn't a video game. Your sample size of one is not indicative of the greater population. Don't cause people to mess up their health by appealing to the notion that they can do better than trained medical professionals. This is dangerous.
I don’t know what you hope to accomplish by saying this, but it’s not having any effect. Trained medical professionals have to handle thousands of pathologies, each with dozens of possible treatments. The search space alone should make someone at least question whether their Zocdoc is really giving it their wholehearted effort, or if they’re just doing a day job like all of us.
I agree that someone should go to the doctor. But almost everyone agrees on that, and yet very few actually go. I didn’t, for a decade, and mostly out of laziness (not going is after all the default option). Going around commanding people not to do X is only going to make them X.
Re: Ask HN: Beating depression with or without anti-depressants?
#254I do not have chronic depression (what you are describing) but I know many people who struggle with chronic anxiety or depression, so mental health is important to me.
I spoke with a colleague who admitted to dealing with anxiety for two decades, which I recognize is not depression but there is some overlap, and the best summary would echo jemfinch's comment if you can find it below. It's really good. In more detail, here's the jist of the conversation I had with my colleague:
It is lifelong, but not unmanageable. He tried to "solve" it for 15 yrs before he accepted that it would be lifelong. It is lifelong because anxiety (or discouragement in your case) is a combination of genetic and environmental factors, and your body is genetically programmed to overproduce the chemical in charge of misery. But you have a little control over environmental factors, so you can mitigate the extremely of it. The things in your environment that you have direct control over are your sleep patterns, eating habits, and exercise (with exceptions depending on certain disabilities, but you can try to work around those) These are the long term solutions but they don't remove the problem, they just reduce it. Sometimes you need a now solution when it still is too much. My colleague's now solutions are specific for anxiety, so I don't have a good answer for this, but two friends of mine who have chronic depression go on walks a lot when it's too much.
Re: Ask HN: Beating depression with or without anti-depressants?
#255First thing to try is exercise in particular running. 4 -5 days a week. Cycling is also good
Another this is taking a big break and spending whole time in the nature, even just a week or two will help. For me even 1-2 days in the mountains hiking hard tends to fix a lot of issues. Nothing gives as much joy of life as sun rising in the mountains when it cold and you woke up 2 hours before and been hiking up.. those first few rays of warmth are special. I guess the advice is to have joy as the animal in us wants. I never feel depressed in the mountains angry, tired, cold miserable, paranoid etc but never depressed.
Good luck
Re: Ask HN: Beating depression with or without anti-depressants?
#256Honestly: go and talk to a doctor you trust. My opinion (not a doctor): What is wrong in your life? Are you: + Working too hard + Commuting + Not exercising and taking care of yourself + Eating a diet with lots of processed foods + Using drugs and alcohol as a crutch + Overweight + Not resting regularly + Sleeping poorly + Have other health issues not addressed + Without genuine friends + Without a good partner + A c…
You can't always just pin depression on lifestyle. There's a strong biological component that influences your susceptibility to depression and every other mental illness. Some people fall in a pit over what might seem like a minor inconvenience to someone else. Some people get depressed over absolutely nothing.
Re: Ask HN: Beating depression with or without anti-depressants?
#257As someone who has struggled with depression and generalised anxiety for most of my life, I can attest that drugs (SSRI, SNRI) work. They take time to get used to. Use it in combination with therapy and counselling.
Re: Ask HN: Beating depression with or without anti-depressants?
#258Please talk to a therapist first and foremost, preferably a psychologist or psychiatrist. Antidepressants are not an insant cure - you MUST pair them with actual therapy, always.
The test of this comment will be about my personal experience.
I have/had depression (its hard to say if its well and truly gone). SSRIs did not help me. They're effects were somewhere between doing absolutely nothing, placebo, and just making me extremely irritable.
What did help me? Its hard to say. Therapy definitely helps a lot, getting things off your chest. Therapists won't tell you how to think - they'll teach you how to overcome the way you're feeling. I sometimes feel like I just learned to live with depression, rather than being cured of it. Maybe that's not what you want to hear, but that's my experience.
Re: Ask HN: Beating depression with or without anti-depressants?
#259Honestly: go and talk to a doctor you trust. My opinion (not a doctor): What is wrong in your life? Are you: + Working too hard + Commuting + Not exercising and taking care of yourself + Eating a diet with lots of processed foods + Using drugs and alcohol as a crutch + Overweight + Not resting regularly + Sleeping poorly + Have other health issues not addressed + Without genuine friends + Without a good partner + A c…
You can't always just pin depression on lifestyle. There's a strong biological component that influences your susceptibility to depression and every other mental illness. Some people fall in a pit over what might seem like a minor inconvenience to someone else. Some people get depressed over absolutely nothing.
I agree, but I prefer to start with these things. Smaller measures should only be passed over if they fail. I know what you mean though, I know people with mood issues like what you describe. It’s impossible to make a recommendation that suits everybody.
Re: Ask HN: Beating depression with or without anti-depressants?
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the reason you are getting so many "I disagree" responses is because many of us have had awful experiences when it comes to medical professionals and mental health. It's important to understand the economic pressures in psychiatry. I went to see a psychiatrist, who prescribed me antidepressants. They helped give be a baseline level of energy to get me out of my acute depression, but they addressed none of my…
> I think the reason you are getting so many "I disagree" responses is because many of us have had awful experiences when it comes to medical professionals and mental health. > I've heard it said that giving antidepressants to a depressed person, without any therapy, is like giving amphetamines to a tired person: yes, they may temporarily cure your "tiredness", but what you really need is to go to sleep. I don't even…
I had a horrible experience with a psychiatrist.
Then a great experience with another psychiatrist who managed to get me to function just enough for me to go see a psychologist who not only "cured" me but gave me a superpower of being resilient against life's wraths.
So your mileage may vary.
To whom might be reading this: don't give up. It sucks but sometimes we get unlucky and need to change doctors.