[fredley]

If your depression is serious, and it's preventing you from living your life, or if you're feeling suicidal, see a doctor or call a hotline. Now.

If you have mild depression, or want to not get depressed in the first place, I'd recommend the following:

Do exercise, do it outside if at all possible. Even light exercise like going for a walk is better than none. Don't take your phone.

Turn off and shut away your electronic devices an hour before you go to bed. Under no circumstances have your phone by your bed. Buy an alarm clock if need be. Disrupting sleep is the best way to get depressed quickly.

Delete or neuter[1] your social media accounts. They are engineered to make you feel bad (so you click ads).

Get something to look after. A dog, or if you don't have time or space, a cat, or if you really don't have time or space a plant or two.

Put effort into your relationships with friends. Even if you don't feel it's being reciprocated. No friends where you are now? Find local meetups and go to them regularly. e.g. Parkrun, reading group, musical group, dev meetups. Keep going every week.

Put effort into yourself. Tidy up your living space, dress and groom well every morning.

1: https://blog.mamota.net/posts/solving-facebook/

[wilsonnb2]

> Get something to look after. A dog, or if you don't have time or space, a cat, or if you really don't have time or space a plant or two.

As someone with two dogs and occasional bouts of mild depression, I would caution against getting a dog for this purpose.

It's a lot of responsibility, and it helps some people with depression but hurts others. A plant is a much better idea. If it doesn't work out, just throw it away. You can't (easily/responsibly) get rid of a dog, in many cases.

[gremlinsinc]

I don't know... I got a baby a year ago... the responsibility factor here trumps a dog by a factor of 10, but my baby has probably saved my life countless times this year.

My depression this year has been the worst ever - because of external factors like losing a good source of income, getting hired by an employer who then never paid, and some marital issues around faith/church (I left the church we belong to (Mormonism) because I no longer believe and am leaning Agnostic), and then celebrity(Chester Bennington)/external influences of people I know who died by suicide. Plus, I can't help feeling that death's around the corner and could happen any day. Watching 13 Reasons Why probably wasn't a great thing to do either in hindsight, though it was a pretty good series.

I've gone from one month making 7k to <500 the next and spending all our savings just to get by. I'm trying to build up my freelance docket, and hopefully through word of mouth grow out of this phase (plug: Laravel + Vue is my stack).

The point of the rant is... without my son, I think I probably would've done the unthinkable. There's also many times where I just felt crushed inside, and I didn't know what to do... but I'd go upstairs and just hold my son, and cry a bit, and it's hard to stay upset when you think of this kid and the life ahead for them, that they can do things better than you did and hopefully not make the same mistakes. Not to mention the cuteness/cuddles cheer you up a bit, I'm sure there's probably some endorphins being released even.

My dog died this year, but in the past holding/petting her helped some with depression too. Sometimes I will go a day or two without even going outside, and I find my mood also brightens if I just take out the trash or walk around the block.

[NathanCH]

Perhaps you don't see the value in having a pet during depression because you already have one.

Being responsible for someone or something is difficult, it's supposed to be.

[wilsonnb2]

I do see the value - I specifically said it helps some people but doesn't help others. The reason I don't suggest it is because getting rid of the dog once you've gotten it can be difficult.

[pavel_lishin]

> Under no circumstances have your phone by your bed. Buy an alarm clock if need be. Disrupting sleep is the best way to get depressed quickly.

I hope a lot of people are making a correlation between their friends who have recently had young children, and why they often tend to look tired, miserable and depressed.

[wincy]

Which is caused by the western notion that it makes sense for a helpless infant to sleep away from its mother. We got rid of our bed frame (to prevent falling accidents) and cosleep. We all (including our daughter, who is now three with another on the way) sleep happily through the night.

[pavel_lishin]

No, it's caused by the fact that most very young children wake up regularly no matter where they sleep, since they usually need to eat fairly often. As they get older, they tend to start sleeping through the night - some with co-sleeping, some in their own room - but some will wake up repeatedly until they're much older no matter what you do with 'em.

I'm glad your specific approach with your specific child worked out great.

[Infernal]

Where “recently” can be up to and including six years.... (and counting, I’ll let you know next year)

[PeterisP]

This chart about effects of life events on happiness is quite informative - https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Life-e...