> "thinking your way out of it" is something that's going to be regarded in the future the way that we regard blood-letting a fever now As someone who spent mo

> "thinking your way out of it" is something that's going to be regarded in the future the way that we regard blood-letting a fever now As someone who spent more than a decade struggling with a diagnosed depression and the numbness that came from trying to get better with 5 different prescription drugs that addressed a few symptoms while making the whole thing a lot worse, what worked for me was, eventually, thinking my way out of it. And it's funny that you compare it to some medieval treatment because the method I used to think my way out of it has been taught for 2500 years. The key is you can't just try to think your way out of it. There is a specific technique to meditation and mindfulness that the watered down versions of mindfulness training miss. Go to the source and learn the traditional practice, not the bits and pieces that psychiatrists have tried to marry with more recent psychotherapeutic theory. Now with daily anapana/vipassana practice, I'm able to live much more in the present moment, which allows for enjoyment and sadness free from the suffering that I now realize was manifesting in my depression. It's a form of delusion to deny or ignore the truth of what's happening right now, no matter how simple that truth might be. And when I delude myself often enough, I start to feel depressed. It's cause and effect, and I see it so clearly now. But now that I understand the cause and how to stop causing it, I can recognize when I'm feeling depressed and bring myself out of it. Nothing used to frustrate me more than people insinuating that I could fix my depression by just trying harder. And that's what "think yourself out of it" sounded like to me. My motivation was so zapped that that kind of advice just made me more despondent. So I want to make it clear that thinking your way out of depression is not a matter of trying harder. In fact once it clicks, it becomes easier...like riding a bicycle downhill. And that's a good metaphor, because if thinking your way out of it is riding a bicycle, how effective you are at it and how hard you have to work depend entirely on which direction you point, not how hard you pedal.