5 ms·

Throwing in my two cents. I used to suffer from seasonal mood swings, since taking a daily multivitamin this has been the best winter of my life.

by ravar 9y ago

themodelplumber 9y ago
I've been tracking my depression for a few years now, and I'm amazed at the number of things that can trigger a depressive episode. I used to think I had a disease called depression, but it now appears that I had arrived at a collection of various life circumstances that made experiencing depression on any given day more likely for me. Some of the main triggers have been: - Attempting to proceed without a plan - Pushing for more productivity when less is called for (New year's resolutions were a great example personally) - Bad sleep (I now use the calculator at sleepyti.me and have had great results) - Too much exercise without rest days - Too much exposure to social experience - Too few dopamine-injecting experiences (e.g. not enough achievement, not nibbling away at my problems and watching leverage build up) Strikingly to me, some of these seem tied to my psychology and I would hesitate to tell others "hey not having a plan is bad for you" when I know some people for whom planning is a mental health liability. Personalized medicine can't get good enough, fast enough.
- jciochon 9y ago
  This is interesting and resonates with me. While I agree with your conclusion about giving advice, could you perhaps share your methodology for discovering your triggers?
  - themodelplumber 9y ago
    Every negative episode I deal with gets tracked and logged. I have a notebook just for this purpose, I time stamp my results, and I try to develop my own theories of what might be going on, and what might have happened, while remaining open to trying others' ideas (that's how I found out about sleep cycles, dopamine, etc.). My purpose is to develop a framework which gives me greater leverage against the suffering. When I feel low, I immediately put myself in a resting state (usually laying down) and start logging and taking notes. Incidentally my lowest periods of depression produce about 2 to 3 negative thoughts per minute for up to 30 to 45 minutes at a time, whereupon my body naturally seems to cycle out of that a bit before returning. So I'm noticing that even really depressed days have lots of little less-depressed leverage points where I can trust my judgments and rally myself to make smart decisions. This tracking and logging and modeling stuff was not something with which I was familiar before I started studying a bit of personality psychology. I basically looked for tools that would help someone like me, but that I hadn't yet tried.
    - appleiigs 9y ago
      Your tracking reminds me of the book Eloquent Javascript. A chapter walks through a story where a guy would turn into a squirrel every night and he doesn't know why. He tracks everything and run correlations on it to find a cause. http://eloquentjavascript.net/04_data.html http://eloquentjavascript.net/04_data.html Thanks for sharing your methods... very proactive and persistent.
- lloeki 9y ago
  > some of these seem tied to my psychology Indeed, I personally do see similar triggers, but for me too little exerting exercise and I'm starting to mentally fall apart. This means daily exerting myself. I can skip a few days here and there but then I have to play catch up to "fill back the tank". The trickiest thing for me to notice that was that there's definitely some buildup phenomenon (the "tank" thing), when it's going down I think I'm fine but by the time I start to feel bad it's already too late and filling it back up takes as much time as I skipped exercising, which is even harder since I'm mentally down, driving a nasty feedback loop. As the best exercise for me is outdoors (skateboarding and calisthenics) this puts me in a delicate situation where I'm constantly on the edge during winter time. As for social experience is a tight rope for me: too much and I'm burning out, too little and I'm crashing hard.
- jventura 9y ago
  > Bad sleep (I now use the calculator at sleepyti.me and have had great results) Interesting site, didn't knew about it! I've checked it out, and as I wake everyday at 7am, it suggests me four different hours: 10pm, 11:30pm, 1am and 2:30am. What I find interesting is that none of it matches exactly the 8h average sleep value. As you say that you have had great results, could you comment a little bit on that? Thanks!
  - kowdermeister 9y ago
    I often push it too far and stay up till 3AM and wake up around 7:45 and then I can just proceed normally that day. I'm a bit melancholic on those days, but that's it :D I was a bit surprised that this site suggested the 3AM as an option to fall asleep.
  - Kuiper 9y ago
    The point of the calculator is to time your sleep so that you wake up between REM sleep cycle (rather than being awoken by your alarm in the middle of a REM cycle, which usually puts you in groggy zombie mode). The calculator works off the assumption that the average sleep cycle is 90 minutes (1.5 hours), so it calculates times that would allow you to wake up between sleep cycles (9 hours, 7.5 hours, 6 hours, and 4.5 hours all being multiples of 1.5 hours). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_cycle
  - joncrocks 9y ago
    It's offering sleep patterns that match multiples of 90 minutes. I think this is on average one 'sleep cycle'. Waking is easier between cycles and you wake feeling more refreshed (I think).
  - twobyfour 9y ago
    8 hours is typically time from bedtime to wake time. It allows for some time spent falling asleep, and maybe one wake-up to visit the bathroom. You'll notice that your suggested wake times are an hour and a half apart. Natural sleep cycles tend to run about 90 minutes (on average). So 7.5 hours would be 5 cycles. 8 hours is 5 cycles plus that buffer time. I haven't used the app you mention, but I have begun a habit of getting out of bed between cycles instead of whenever in the cycle my alarm goes off. It definitely increases morning alertness and willingness to get up. Not sure it affects restedness much. And I've been measuring my sleep in cycles (or at least in 90 min increments) instead of in hours - which gives me a much clearer perspective on how much I've had and need.
- methodover 9y ago
  > Too few dopamine-injecting experiences That is an awesome way to phrase that. I took a 3 week vacation for the first time since I started working 8 or 9 years ago. Did wonders for me. Should've made the time for a long long vacation a while ago.
  - distances 9y ago
    Real vacations also help to put work stress into a proper perspective. In day-to-day worklife it's sometimes too easy to forget that work is there to support the other aspects of life, and not vice versa.
- pascalxus 9y ago
  magnesium deficiencies have been known to cause depression and anxiety as well, so make sure to eat plenty of leafy green vegetables and pumpkin seeds.
saryant 9y ago
I have very severe anxiety attacks which I finally have under control partly through vitamin B and fish oil supplements.
- cageface 9y ago
  Consider replacing the fish oil with algae-derived omega 3. It has all the benefits with none of the downsides (toxic metals, fishy burps, environmental cost). Fish get their omega 3 from algae anyway so why not go straight to the source? https://www.amazon.com/Ovega-3-Vegetarian-Omega-3-Dietary-Supplement/dp/B004LL7AXE https://www.amazon.com/Ovega-3-Vegetarian-Omega-3-Dietary-Su...
MrBuddyCasino 9y ago
Same here, D3 with Magnesium and Calcium since they are co-factors. Should take K2, too. You probably won‘t believe it when I say that my immune system and energy levels are better than any winter before, but thats how it is. I wonder if light therapy is actually just indirect vitamin D therapy.
- visarga 9y ago
  I take D3, Mg and Ca regularly and I noticed better sleep, reduced anxiety and increased libido. All in all, it makes me feel 10 years younger.
nvarsj 9y ago
Call me skeptical, but I severely doubt multivitamins can help with depression of any kind. Maybe placebo. TFA is about mortality.
- icelancer 9y ago
  >>severely doubt multivitamins can help with depression If the multivitamin has sufficient Vitamin D, it definitely can. There are plenty of research papers indicating at least some sort of link, and Soviet Sports scientists have known about the performance benefits for a long time, well prior to oral supplementation (they irradiated athletes). Here's one of many metasources available. https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/depression/ https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/depression...
  - BeetleB 9y ago
    As I mentioned in another comment, the evidence of a link between mood and Vitamin D is poor. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15870969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15870969
fasteo 9y ago
You should try cod liver oil ("tran" for Norwegians). It has been the traditional food to combat SAD in their long winters.

Throwing in my two cents. I used to suffer from seasonal mood swings, since taking a daily multivitamin this has been the best winter of my life.

by ravar 9y ago

Throwing in my two cents. I used to suffer from seasonal mood swings, since taking a daily multivitamin this has been the best winter of my life.

themodelplumber 9y ago

I've been tracking my depression for a few years now, and I'm amazed at the number of things that can trigger a depressive episode. I used to think I had a disease called depression, but it now appears that I had arrived at a collection of various life circumstances that made experiencing depression on any given day more likely for me. Some of the main triggers have been: - Attempting to proceed without a plan - Pushing for more productivity when less is called for (New year's resolutions were a great example personally) - Bad sleep (I now use the calculator at sleepyti.me and have had great results) - Too much exercise without rest days - Too much exposure to social experience - Too few dopamine-injecting experiences (e.g. not enough achievement, not nibbling away at my problems and watching leverage build up) Strikingly to me, some of these seem tied to my psychology and I would hesitate to tell others "hey not having a plan is bad for you" when I know some people for whom planning is a mental health liability. Personalized medicine can't get good enough, fast enough.

jciochon 9y ago
This is interesting and resonates with me. While I agree with your conclusion about giving advice, could you perhaps share your methodology for discovering your triggers?
- themodelplumber 9y ago
  Every negative episode I deal with gets tracked and logged. I have a notebook just for this purpose, I time stamp my results, and I try to develop my own theories of what might be going on, and what might have happened, while remaining open to trying others' ideas (that's how I found out about sleep cycles, dopamine, etc.). My purpose is to develop a framework which gives me greater leverage against the suffering. When I feel low, I immediately put myself in a resting state (usually laying down) and start logging and taking notes. Incidentally my lowest periods of depression produce about 2 to 3 negative thoughts per minute for up to 30 to 45 minutes at a time, whereupon my body naturally seems to cycle out of that a bit before returning. So I'm noticing that even really depressed days have lots of little less-depressed leverage points where I can trust my judgments and rally myself to make smart decisions. This tracking and logging and modeling stuff was not something with which I was familiar before I started studying a bit of personality psychology. I basically looked for tools that would help someone like me, but that I hadn't yet tried.
  - appleiigs 9y ago
    Your tracking reminds me of the book Eloquent Javascript. A chapter walks through a story where a guy would turn into a squirrel every night and he doesn't know why. He tracks everything and run correlations on it to find a cause. http://eloquentjavascript.net/04_data.html http://eloquentjavascript.net/04_data.html Thanks for sharing your methods... very proactive and persistent.
lloeki 9y ago
> some of these seem tied to my psychology Indeed, I personally do see similar triggers, but for me too little exerting exercise and I'm starting to mentally fall apart. This means daily exerting myself. I can skip a few days here and there but then I have to play catch up to "fill back the tank". The trickiest thing for me to notice that was that there's definitely some buildup phenomenon (the "tank" thing), when it's going down I think I'm fine but by the time I start to feel bad it's already too late and filling it back up takes as much time as I skipped exercising, which is even harder since I'm mentally down, driving a nasty feedback loop. As the best exercise for me is outdoors (skateboarding and calisthenics) this puts me in a delicate situation where I'm constantly on the edge during winter time. As for social experience is a tight rope for me: too much and I'm burning out, too little and I'm crashing hard.
jventura 9y ago
> Bad sleep (I now use the calculator at sleepyti.me and have had great results) Interesting site, didn't knew about it! I've checked it out, and as I wake everyday at 7am, it suggests me four different hours: 10pm, 11:30pm, 1am and 2:30am. What I find interesting is that none of it matches exactly the 8h average sleep value. As you say that you have had great results, could you comment a little bit on that? Thanks!
- kowdermeister 9y ago
  I often push it too far and stay up till 3AM and wake up around 7:45 and then I can just proceed normally that day. I'm a bit melancholic on those days, but that's it :D I was a bit surprised that this site suggested the 3AM as an option to fall asleep.
- Kuiper 9y ago
  The point of the calculator is to time your sleep so that you wake up between REM sleep cycle (rather than being awoken by your alarm in the middle of a REM cycle, which usually puts you in groggy zombie mode). The calculator works off the assumption that the average sleep cycle is 90 minutes (1.5 hours), so it calculates times that would allow you to wake up between sleep cycles (9 hours, 7.5 hours, 6 hours, and 4.5 hours all being multiples of 1.5 hours). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_cycle
- joncrocks 9y ago
  It's offering sleep patterns that match multiples of 90 minutes. I think this is on average one 'sleep cycle'. Waking is easier between cycles and you wake feeling more refreshed (I think).
- twobyfour 9y ago
  8 hours is typically time from bedtime to wake time. It allows for some time spent falling asleep, and maybe one wake-up to visit the bathroom. You'll notice that your suggested wake times are an hour and a half apart. Natural sleep cycles tend to run about 90 minutes (on average). So 7.5 hours would be 5 cycles. 8 hours is 5 cycles plus that buffer time. I haven't used the app you mention, but I have begun a habit of getting out of bed between cycles instead of whenever in the cycle my alarm goes off. It definitely increases morning alertness and willingness to get up. Not sure it affects restedness much. And I've been measuring my sleep in cycles (or at least in 90 min increments) instead of in hours - which gives me a much clearer perspective on how much I've had and need.
methodover 9y ago
> Too few dopamine-injecting experiences That is an awesome way to phrase that. I took a 3 week vacation for the first time since I started working 8 or 9 years ago. Did wonders for me. Should've made the time for a long long vacation a while ago.
- distances 9y ago
  Real vacations also help to put work stress into a proper perspective. In day-to-day worklife it's sometimes too easy to forget that work is there to support the other aspects of life, and not vice versa.
pascalxus 9y ago
magnesium deficiencies have been known to cause depression and anxiety as well, so make sure to eat plenty of leafy green vegetables and pumpkin seeds.

saryant 9y ago

I have very severe anxiety attacks which I finally have under control partly through vitamin B and fish oil supplements.

cageface 9y ago
Consider replacing the fish oil with algae-derived omega 3. It has all the benefits with none of the downsides (toxic metals, fishy burps, environmental cost). Fish get their omega 3 from algae anyway so why not go straight to the source? https://www.amazon.com/Ovega-3-Vegetarian-Omega-3-Dietary-Supplement/dp/B004LL7AXE https://www.amazon.com/Ovega-3-Vegetarian-Omega-3-Dietary-Su...

MrBuddyCasino 9y ago

Same here, D3 with Magnesium and Calcium since they are co-factors. Should take K2, too. You probably won‘t believe it when I say that my immune system and energy levels are better than any winter before, but thats how it is. I wonder if light therapy is actually just indirect vitamin D therapy.

visarga 9y ago
I take D3, Mg and Ca regularly and I noticed better sleep, reduced anxiety and increased libido. All in all, it makes me feel 10 years younger.

nvarsj 9y ago

Call me skeptical, but I severely doubt multivitamins can help with depression of any kind. Maybe placebo. TFA is about mortality.

icelancer 9y ago
>>severely doubt multivitamins can help with depression If the multivitamin has sufficient Vitamin D, it definitely can. There are plenty of research papers indicating at least some sort of link, and Soviet Sports scientists have known about the performance benefits for a long time, well prior to oral supplementation (they irradiated athletes). Here's one of many metasources available. https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/depression/ https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/depression...
- BeetleB 9y ago
  As I mentioned in another comment, the evidence of a link between mood and Vitamin D is poor. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15870969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15870969

fasteo 9y ago

You should try cod liver oil ("tran" for Norwegians). It has been the traditional food to combat SAD in their long winters.