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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   3841 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for May 14, 2023

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On the brink of a depression and I want to be proactive about it. Is there a good progress tracker app with a calendar function that I can use to track sleep quality, weight, whether I did sports that day, enter numerical values for user-defined items, etc.? Preferably something that graphically shows progress over time and perhaps tracks correlations.

This is what you want https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.daylio&hl=fr&gl=US&pli=1

I also advise you to use the xmind zen mindmap

Now about depression, the thing that has always scared me is that there are vicious cycles but the same is true for virtuous cycles.

I have a very extensive expertise in psychopharmacology and yet I can tell you the things that will have the most impact on your well being are:

good and sufficient sleep hygiene, increase your sleep duration, for that you can start listening to ASMR made for sleep.

fight loneliness at all cost, you need to see your friends frequently

listen to music that give you joy for example you might surprise yourself dancing in front of a mirror with https://youtube.com/watch?v=cD5TrBtiCsM and https://youtube.com/watch?v=BNig6xG36i4&t=15s

improve your hobbies e.g. start reading a great book

do regular physical exercise it is a decent complementary antidepressant although not as much as sleep and environnemental enrichment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_enrichment

Something easy to achieve is to pay a gamepass pc subscription and play games with your friends such as e.g. Worms

Now pharmacologically speaking

daily vitamin D at 3000 IU is an effective antidepressant benign contrary to the classical ones

there are other benign not officially considered antidepressants with complementary action mechanisms such as ALCAR e.g. 1000 per day

more generally checking your health biomarkers including hormones can help, e.g. TRT or fight a deficiency, e.g. taking selenium 200mcg everyday (not more) can improve your health and lifespan and depression if the depression stems from some health related deficits.

About traditional antideps, they mostly have semi serious side effects, the only mostly benign ones with statistically reasonable effectiveness are the RIMA (not a MAOI) moclobemide and the melatonin agonist agomelatine. Always check CYP inhibition concerns with other coadministrated drugs or supplements. Do not trust doctors to do those checks for you, they do not know how to do their job and this is systemic.

Do not obsess about medication, it can help some but for most lifestyle and consistent mindset changes are both sufficent and effective.

Good luck dear human, it gets better :)

I feel frankly good in my life right now btw

Thanks for taking the time to do the write-up, those are great!

I managed to go into a virtuous cycle with my exercise routine (as in, actually having one), and it's done me tons of good. It's still lingering in the background, but crisis averted so far.

I take the burns depression index and log the score every month, that might be a good addition to your metrics:

https://www.uwgb.edu/UWGBCMS/media/Continueing-Professional-Education/files/Assess-Pkt-1-Burns-Depression-Checklist.pdf

I'd also agree to just do it in a spreadsheet. Apps get too annoying as health trackers because they all want to push coaching and subscriptions over data entry and display.

Don't forget to treat yourself like a human being. Compassion, patience, kindness. Helps with depression more than anything you can measure numerically in my opinion.

How do you mean?

I mean, if someone you loved was depressed, it would be obvious that you can help them by being kind to them, patient with them, and treating them with understanding. The same concept applies to the way you treat yourself; how you talk to yourself, how you react to your own failures and successes.

Just a suggestion for a supplemental strategy on top of your other good ideas, like tracking sleep and exercise.

That is good advice. But I think my problem might be the opposite: I have been enabling myself in the sense that I let myself find excuses for a bad lifestyle.

Unfortunately if you want that level of detail probably nothing beats just using google sheets. That's what I do for tracking weight, daily calories, measurements, etc.

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