Things are becoming more depressing every day and I can’t afford for professionals and don’t want to jump to the last resort or drugs. Is there a medicine that can make me happy if I take it in proper doses and does not require a doctor’s prescription?
There are lots of medicines that can help, but none of them should be taken without working with professionals.
Please be careful pf taking any medical advice from strangers on the internet that isn’t “you need to talk with a licensed professional.”
Even suggesting diet and exercise and vitamin D can be harmful advice under the wrong circumstances.
D3 with K2 supplement can help.
If you want something that’s legal (but probably shouldn’t be) I recommend kratom. Look for something that says Super Green. The less you take the more energy and vitality it gives you, the more you take the more it feels like an opiate.
Some additional advice:
Chasing happiness as an adult is difficult. It’s better to seek being satisfied instead.
Medicine won’t really help if you’re feeling depressed due to external factors. People who feel depressed because of their life situation typically benefit more from therapy both to learn how to cope more effectively and for guidance/support on making life changes. Look for sliding scales or low/no-cost therapy options in your area
Vitamin D and some exercise is generally helpful for me
Big one for me too. I notice a massive downturn in my mood when I haven’t managed to stick to my exercises.
Exercise = endorphins = happy
It’s works for me and makes sense that it is how our bodies have evolved to work.
Good food and lots of water also
dose: 1k-2k
I know it sounds obvious but walking or any light cardio will do wonders for your mood. Pilates also.
It’s not universal though. I’ve been regularly doing 60-minute cardio workouts for the last 10 years or so. Not once did I experience the “runner’s high”. I’m pretty sure I’m an outlier though.
It sounds like you might just be too fit for that to work. I used to do 14 hours of (recreational) dance a week and I would only really get a runners high when I went to a weekend long dance event and was doing cardio for at least 6+ hours.
Or it’s not universal, who knows.
Not OP, but that’s a nope from me. I’ve been trying to break into up jogging, so I’m nowhere near “too fit”. Not getting that runner’s high during or after any of these sessions. I mostly just feel like I’m dying both during and afterward. Any small positive effect I get from it is being able to check off the boxes in the app I’m using lol.
Hehe, what gives me a “high” after a workout is looking at the recording of my heart rate and seeing the peaks and valleys. I do HIIT so there’s a lot of them.
Exercise boosts endorphins.
Physical contact boosts oxytocin.
Sex does both.
Chocolate helps produce serotonin.
Capsaicin-heavy foods will make your body produce adrenaline and endorphins.
Caffeine is a drug but can give you a long hit of dopamine — but overdosing will make anxiety worse, and can fuck with your sleep cycle. It’s also rapidly addictive and the withdrawal symptoms include malaise and depressive feelings.
A stable sleep cycle is A#1 for happiness, though. It won’t make you happy on its own but screwing it up will make you unhappy on its own, so it’s the foundation to build everything else on.
Exercise boosts endorphins.
Physical contact boosts oxytocin.
Sex does both.
My body does not do any of these
Sex does both.
I wish I had someone for that.
It won’t make you happy on its own but screwing it up will make you unhappy on its own, so it’s the foundation to build everything else on.
My sleep cycle is currently from 4 am to 11 am. Think I should sleep earlier? I do coding at night and surf social media during the day.
Try to reduce social media. I did and feel much better without the constant input from others.
What the above commenter said is generally good advice, but I would add on limiting your social media intake. Finding an online community to interact with (with voice or video chat kinds of things involved) is a better use of online time. For the coding, you could try moving that to the morning, and socialize in the afternoon/evening, and that will help you get on a more normalized schedule. If your leisure time is spent mostly with other people, it’s a lot easier to sign off and go to bed when everyone else does as well.
Edit: Also throw in a multivitamin and 2000-5000IU of Vitamin D3 because nutritional deficiencies can cause psych problems as well as exacerbate or prolong said psych problems.
Nah as long as it’s always 4am to 11am you’ll be fine. Consistency is the main thing.
Just mentioning this because I see all the others: spicy food. Your brain makes happy chemicals to help with the pain, apparently.
Adrenaline and endorphins, specifically.
Someone I think on mander.xyz was saying that regular 90-second cold showers seemed anecdotally to be maybe competitive with medication in terms of how well it combatted depression
Perika St. John’s Wort (or any kind of standardized StJW formula) isolates the antidepressant part of the herb and makes sure you get the same dose in every pill. It’s nonprescription as an herbal supplement, but it’s one of the few herbal supplements with scientific backing.
Do note that St. John’s Wort can mess with other medications you may take and can make them downright ineffective. A big one that comes to mind is birth control, but there are many others.
Always check with a medical professional and/or look up more information about supplement interactions before adding them into your regimen!
I don’t know about that kind of medicine, but resolve your repressed anger and depression will disappear.
That’s common, and why therapy works in a lot of cases, but not universal. Sometimes a chemical imbalance is only balanced with chemicals.
this might sound like a joke but this is pretty true. my anger issues were also the peak of me being known as a basket case by everyone I knew, i was so openly depressed back then. but once everything resolved, I felt a lot better and to this day even though I can be stoic at times I’ve not quite felt depressed like I used to severely be. yes I can be sad sometimes but it’s nothing like the disdain I felt for years.
but resolve your repressed anger
how to do that?
Sorry for seeing the comments now, but it’s never too late hopefully.
Therapy helped me. Looking back first important step was noticing that I am angry. It is strange how hidden and unrecognizable anger can be.
Second part is discovering why I was angry. As soon as we discover why are we angry, we stop being angry. When ai asked my shrink how does that work, he said “I don’t know, but it works”. And it really does.
Now when someone says “I am angery and I know why I am angre” I am sure they have no idea.
And I haven’t found other way to resolve that, than psychoanalysis as therapy.
I don’t feel angry, all I could feel is hopelessness about the future. I have no plans, no job and my girlfriend is going to break up with me but I don’t know when exactly she will and I don’t even have a clue what is the reason. I don’t hate anybody, on the other side I just don’t feel loving anyone, especially me. I wish I could have wings and fly across somewhere. That should clear my mind.
Check out Dr. K on youtube. HealthygamerGG is a channel ran by a psychiatrist that focusses on educating men and their mental health problems. It’s not a replacement for therapy, it may help you in the right direction.
Thanks, I will check that out.
There’s probably no non-spooky chemical that will make a significant dent. People are recommending, like, chocolate, but I’m certain the main effect is eating your feelings, with substances causing a rounding error.
However, I can predict pretty well what therapist homework would be, or at least what it always was for me. Basically just clean living stuff, and not giving in to the urge to avoid doing things. There’s CBT too, and resources to do it on your own, although it can get confusing without a helping hand. So, yeah, I suggest self-administering therapy. IANAT.
Whenever cognitive behavioral therapy is mentioned with an initialism there’s this risk of losing it to immature giggling when you substitute that other meaning for “CBT”…
I guess a helping hand is good either way, tee-hee.
Go on hikes through forested trails on a regular basis, no bullshit.
Honestly, morning walks in the park really bring my mood up for the rest of that day.
This kept me sane during 2020/2021. And I didn’t believe it till I tried it. Nature is awesome.
Read up on St John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum)
Worth mentioning it stops some medications from working so OP should check that out.
Aldo that it has sun sensitivity as a side effect
Interesting that you were downvoted for this. Another commenter above mentioned it and didn’t seem to get downvoted. I’m pretty ignorant of this substance. Would anyone care to elaborate in as scientific of a way possible on what this is and has the potential to do?
I was looking for this recommendation and would have made it myself if I didn’t find yours. My therapist specifically recommended it as a natural antidepressant. Honestly, it hasn’t worked well for me as my body seems to rebel against any antidepressant attempt; however I’m shocked to see this so heavily downvoted.
In terms of mental health, drugs that give any kind of relief should be treated as a shelter from the storm so you can rebuild. This means if you’re not rebuilding while you’re in shelter, your happiness is only going to last as long as your shelter is standing. Drugs wear off, and it is very easy to just want to keep putting your shelter up ad infinitum. This is where the second problem of drugs for relief comes in. The shelter is sub-standard compared to doing the things to build a lasting happiness. You can get stoned as shit, but if you and your life is still in shambles there’s only so much that can do.
All the above being said cannabis can help when you need a break. Psychedelics can help as well and microdosing incurs minimal risk. Neither of these will fix any of your problems, but they can enable you to work on your problems yourself when it was too difficult to before.
Alternatively, if you want to avoid drugs altogether meditation can be an option in some circumstances. This is barely a recommendation because meditation is a skill that you have to practice in optimal form consistently before you’ll get anything at all from it. It’s impossible to actually know whether you’re doing it right until you start to feel relief from it and so many things can make practicing mediation as a beginner almost impossible if you’re in crisis. If you attempt mediation with absolutely no expectations other than that you will fail at it until you happen to approach it in a way that works you may eventually get some relief from it. If you get it working consistently, it is far stronger than anything you can get legally without a prescription in terms of providing relief. I can give you some guidance if you’re interested in this path. Secondarily, Kava can help a little in that it dulls the pain.
Vallerian root, kanna, ashwaganda, etc. might work if you believe strongly that they’re working. Avoid depressants like alcohol because although they provide temporary relief they also make things worse when they wear off which can be a terrible cycle.
Depends on whether you live somewhere with legal weed
