| Lots of good comments. Some consistent themes: 1) physical labor (gardening, kitesurfing, etc): provides endorphins you're not going to get from a desk, and Vitamin D from the sunshine. Both are needed for a stable mood. 2) Socialization (mass, relationships, travel): plus-minus. Without some retooling of your thought patterns, more talking with the same people isn't necessarily going to help. Regarding travel, I wonder if there is an element of physical labor and sunshine in that as well. 3) therapy: the standard for depression is cognitive-behavioral therapy, which has two main components: a) identifying problems and making concrete progress on resolving them b) re-tooling your automatic thoughts: "If A then B". Andy Thompson, a U of Virginia psychiatrist has a very provocative theory making the rounds, which I'm somewhat partial too: the analytic rumination hypothesis. Fits in well with the effectiveness of the first part of CBT. (http://andersonthomson.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Andrew...) 4) meds: he SSRIs appear to be not so helpful for mild-to-moderate depression (http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/303/1/47). Different story for major depression. If you don't remember 8 months of your life, then Prozac may well be for you. Regarding Omega-3 fatty acids: yeah, they raise your HDL a little bit, and maybe they're ok for maintaining optimal complex fats for the nervous system (myelin, etc), but few Americans have any problem with adequate fat intake :-) Finally, I'm starting to wonder if depressive tendencies are a recurring theme in the HN population in particular. Certainly negative thinkers are well positioned to identify new problems early and work on fixing them. How would one test this hypothesis? |