Conquering depression

[Antifragile]

Goggins would tell you to increase your workout volume. 5 miles. Now. LOL!

Pain is weakness leaving your body

 

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[Kak]

[GOGGINS BOT MODE ON]

Man you a pussy for needing a Goggins bot to attack your weak shit. Sort it out yourself, bitch.

STAY HARD!!!

[GOGGINS BOT MODE OFF]

Bitch! You never turn that shit off!

 

[heavy_industry]

Try hill sprints. You'll F*cking hate me while doing them but they're incredibly good as a proper resistance workout. You can go for a jog first to warm up, do the sprints, and then jog back home.

Thanks for the advice, I think Joe Rogan does this as well. Seems like a very effective way to increase your VO2 max.

Calisthenics are a great way to increasing functional strength and coordination, but if you want to gain raw strength and/or muscle mass, lifting weights is the best tool available. I think it's a good idea to cycle through various ways of training.

 

[PetitBourgeoisie]

Day 8/30 review:

• 6 AM wake up time: No
• Morning cardio: No
• Cold shower: Yes
• Wim Hof breathing: Yes
• No entertainment: Yes
• Powerlifting: REST
• Caffeine removal: 5 tsp
• Nicotine removal: 32 mg

Notes:
I did the stupid mistake of waking up during the night and opening the computer. The blue light fragmented my sleep and I woke up feeling bad, missing the alarm and the morning run.

So the day started at a low 4/10, but it gradually turned better and better as it progressed. I will avoid using electronic devices at night, although it's very tempting to fall asleep listening to some podcast.

Overall I'm feeling great and I can't believe how quickly things have turned around. Looking forward to finishing the month strong and seeing the results at the end.


Overall rating of the day: 6/10

Much appreciation for this thread, as a man on self-improvement, myself, it's an inspirational thing to see such progress and dedication thereto. Keep up the good work.

After the month is over, meditation will be the next one to implement, and I think I will pair it with a Wim Hof breathing session, followed by an ice bath.

Had to look up Wim Hof exercises, fascinating stuff, may try this myself.

 

[K1 Lambo]

I love this forum and the amazing ideas that are being discussed over here. I've learned a lot and got inspired by other's stories of success. I used to post a lot and I was very optimistic and tried to encourage other users when they were posting about struggling in their life.

In the last few months I haven't made any meaningful progress towards achieving my goals, and in the last weeks my mental health went on a downwards spiral, and I'm heading towards a horrible depression (already half way there).

Long story short: I don't sleep well, I've gained 10 pounds, I look like crap, I can't focus, I get distracted, and I live with a horrible sense of dread and lingering feeling that it's "too late" (I'm in my late 20s).

Now it's time to take my own advice and take back control over my F*cking life. I am the only one responsible for my health.

Here is the protocol that I will be following for the next 30 days:

• 6 AM wake up time
• running in the morning
• cold shower
• Wim Hof breathing
• no worthless internet entertainment to fry up my brain
• powerlifting 3 times / week
• quitting caffeine and nicotine, in order to improve my sleep

At first, this may seem like a list of the regular self-help BS habits that people try for a few days and then give up because it's too hard. But it's not. All of those things are scientifically proven to alter your brain and body physiology for the better. There are observable neurological changes for practicing those things.

It's hard to do all those things for a month, but the alternative is worst. Depression is a special kind of hell that I am not going back to.

I'm making this thread both as a means of being accountable for my actions, track my progress, and hopefully inspire others that are struggling as well.

The life you are living is your own creation. You can choose either heaven or hell, and you vote with your daily actions. Let's begin.

Good to see you're taking action my friend. You're not just talking about it like most but you're creating momentum in your life. Keep it up.

 

[Happyheart]

Hey man,

For the longest time I had no clue whether my depression was due to my own laziness, poor lifestyle, or if it really was related to some physiological reasons.

I honestly try my best to work towards my goals. I schedule plenty of hobbies that I love, etc., but I feel like crap most of the time still. I work out, kick box, go to improv classes, I go to toastmasters, I’m trying to find a sales job right now as a stepping stone to my “fast lane” career, yet I still feel like shit all the time.

Most days I try to stay disciplined and push through the suck, but some days it seems like an insurmountable wall. Like it feels physically excruciating to do anything productive.

I’m only now realising that depression causes low energy because it changes your neurotransmitter levels(norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, etc.

So that got me thinking: if depression steals your energy/focus by impacting neurotransmitter levels, maybe if I take the right meds I can get them back to a normal, functional level.

I am considering taking therapy & going to a psychiatrist simultaneously to tackle the psychological & physiological components of depression.

Just an idea… maybe mental health treatment can help you too. Best of luck.

Have you ruled out any physical causes? Your thyroid and testosteron levels are important. Also look into vitamin B12. This should be tested in any person with mental or neurological disease, but is often forgotten and it will not reliably show up in all tests.

To be safe you can supplement high dose B12 (>= 1000 micrograms) in addition to your daily vitamins. It is also important to get enough natural light, especially during the dark months.

As for the time frame, if you start to have better days, you will think you are over the hill, but you have to expect bad and very bad days in between.
The journey back from deep depression typically takes 2-3 months. It takes some time for the brain to get „in the mood“ again because of biochemisry, rewiring and such.

 

[heavy_industry]

Day 12/30 review:

• 6 AM wake up time: No
• Morning cardio: No
• Cold shower: Yes
• Wim Hof breathing: No
• No entertainment: No
• Powerlifting: REST
• Caffeine removal: 3 cups
• Nicotine removal: ~25mg

Notes:
Today I was gone for most of the day. I socialized quite a lot, and it really helped.

Overall rating of the day: 6/10

 

[DougRMR]

Day 14/30 review:

• 6 AM wake up time: Yes
• Morning cardio: Yes
• Cold shower: Yes
• Wim Hof breathing: Yes
• No entertainment: No
• Powerlifting: Bench press 70kg / 155 lbs

Notes:
Getting back on track.

Overall rating of the day: 5/10

Question, when you put 'No' in 'No entertainment' is it that you watched entertainment or that you didn't?

 

[joel.nilsson]

Day 15/30 review:

• 6 AM wake up time: No
• Morning cardio: No
• Cold shower: Yes
• Wim Hof breathing: Yes
• Avoiding entertainment: Yes
• Powerlifting: Rest

Notes:
Starting from tomorrow I will taper off coffee once again.
The sleep that I was getting was amazing and it made me feel calm and restored for the entirety of the day.

Overall rating of the day: 6/10

Love your progress!

Just wanted to recommend you read a bit about it and maybe try to use a bit of Tyrosine when you feel that you have a hard time with your motivation

 

[MaxT]

I see that you don't abandon my brother, it's good, don't let go we are all with you!

 

[RicardoGrande]

Hey heavy!
Good job with everything

Looks like you're still working on waking up early. I don't know if you have a dayjob, but here's my two cents on how I went from being an after-midnight sleeper to an in-bed-by-8pm kinda guy:
- Switch to using only a desklamp in the evenings for your room/study, and swap out the bulb for a red-light only bulb (the best 8$ you will ever spend)
- Try not to eat after 6pm
- Set two alarms, one for 7:45pm and one for 8pm
- at the 8pm alarm every device is SHUT OFF
- Meditate for 10-20 minutes if you like
- Close your shutters/curtains completely and lay in darkness
- Upon waking, immediately step outside to catch the FIRST rays of sunlight you can
- Don't forget to get sun throughout the day

Falling asleep around 9pm is a challenge a first, you can take like 1-2mg of melatonin 30 mins before your planned bed time but only once or twice in the beginning to speed up the process, but basically you're going to try to reset your circadian rhythm. I used to be friggin horrible about "accidentally" staying up past midnight but after about a week I had a rhythm and two weeks and it was no problem. I also have a shiddy dayjob so I really need to be up at 5 which helps- maybe you're in a similar situation.

Hope this helps

 

[heavy_industry]

@heavy_industry

Have you tested for the MTFHR gene mutation? It is very common and specific supplementation can make a big difference. Some people call it life changing.

Thanks!
I haven't checked it yet, but I will look into it and have it checked in the future.

 

[heavy_industry]

Day 23/30 review:

• Anti-inflammation diet: Yes
• Cold shower: Yes
• Wim Hof breathing: Yes
• Avoiding entertainment: Yes
• Coffee removal: 2 tsp
• Nicotine removal: 6 mg

Overall rating: 6/10

 

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[heavy_industry]

Day 24/30 review:

• Anti-inflammation diet: Full day fasting
• Cold shower: Yes
• Wim Hof breathing: No
• Avoiding entertainment: Yes
• Nicotine removal: 3 mg

Notes:
I've once again stopped tracking my coffee because I want to focus solely on removing the nicotine. After watching this podcast I learned about the health effects of nicotine. It's way more dangerous than I thought.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXs-zPc63kM&ab_channel=AndrewHuberman



Overall rating of the day: 8/10

 

[DougRMR]

Day 15/30 review:

• 6 AM wake up time: No
• Morning cardio: No
• Cold shower: Yes
• Wim Hof breathing: Yes
• Avoiding entertainment: Yes
• Powerlifting: Rest

Notes:
Starting from tomorrow I will taper off coffee once again.
The sleep that I was getting was amazing and it made me feel calm and restored for the entirety of the day.

Overall rating of the day: 6/10

Also curious, what are you considering as entertainment? I'm assuming you're talking about like TV or Youtube and not including stuff like hobbies. Maybe you explained it in the original post but I can't remember. Cheers on the progress, man!

 

[Patryk.]

Today I was so lazy I couldn't do anything productive. Couldn't even focus on one simple task so I spent almost whole day in lethargy, close to being depressed (I don't know what serious depression means but you know - I was lost).
On the evening I decided to do at least some workout. Got my bicycle and rode to the nearest park. Before I got there I met an older guy on cool bicycle - small talk with him and just after that we decided to do some rides on bicycle together. Lol, we spent two hours just riding and talking in the woods - there was no more room for my "depression". I just enjoyed his company and thanks to him I found what was the cause of my temporary depression - I need to go out to people more. We aren't made to be lone wolfs.

 

[heavy_industry]

Day 25/30 review:

• Anti-inflammation diet: Yes
• Cold shower: Yes
• Wim Hof breathing: No
• Avoiding entertainment: No
• Nicotine removal: 3 mg

Notes:
Today was awesome.
I did 5 sets of pushups to failure and it felt amazing. I can't wait to get back to lifting weights.


Overall rating of the day: 9/10

 

[DougRMR]

Day 28/30 review:

• Anti-inflammation diet: No
• Cold shower: Yes
• Wim Hof breathing: No
• Avoiding entertainment: No
• Nicotine removal: 1 mg

Notes:
Unexpected energy crash after breaking the fast with a bunch of eggs. Perhaps a small allergy or I did something wrong with the fast. I will repeat this experiment in the future and see if I get drowsy once again.


Overall rating of the day: 7/10

Hey man, have you been trying CBT as well? I'm about a week and a half into it doing it "by myself" with a workbook and I'm seeing a difference. I've also been struggling with depression this year. Gotta recommend it:

Retrain Your Brain: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in 7 Weeks: A Workbook for Managing Depression and Anxiety by Seth J. Gillihan​

Pretty cheap for what it is. Gotta finish the seven weeks so that I can really give a good review on it but so far so good. Wish you the best, man. I'm thinking of making a progress thread as well, so thanks for the inspiration.

 

[heavy_industry]

Day 29/30 review:

• Anti-inflammation diet: No
• Cold shower: No
• Wim Hof breathing: No
• Avoiding entertainment: Yes
• Nicotine removal: 0.5mg

Notes:
Tomorrow is the final day.


Overall rating of the day: 6/10

 

[DougRMR]

I would like to thank everybody that has supported me throughout this journey. I was astonished by the kindness of this wonderful community.

Thank you.

Hey man. Thank you for this progress thread. It was pretty inspiring, tbh, and I admire that you really nipped it in the bud when it came to your mental health. Meaning, you took initiative as soon you felt that depression was "creeping" in.

One of the harshest lessons I learned this year is that, yes, mental health is everything. And it doesn't mean being completely stress-free because life will always throw stress at you. It's dealing with it in a way that helps and frees you rather than suppressing it and having it compound. So yes-- FOLLOW THE SIGNS! Your body will tell you when you need to slow down and if you don't, it ain't gonna be pretty.

So good on you, man. Keep doing what you're doing and you will get better! Hope you give CBT a try, I know I've been preaching it non-stop lol but it has really helped me. Good luck!

 

[heavy_industry]

It was pretty inspiring, tbh, and I admire that you really nipped it in the bud when it came to your mental health. Meaning, you took initiative as soon you felt that depression was "creeping" in.

I nipped in the bud because I got very scared.
I know what would have happened if I didn't take immediate action: more months of wasted time and opportunities. Time is very precious, and any day spent wallowing in misery is a day lost forever. I have awesome things to do.

One of the harshest lessons I learned this year is that, yes, mental health is everything. And it doesn't mean being completely stress-free because life will always throw stress at you.

100%
Life will always be hard and tragic. We will still suffer, that's the price of being alive. But we can withstand almost anything and live a life of purpose and meaning.

 

[MaxT]

Hi my friend, how are you ? Some progress ? I hope you are well !

 

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[heavy_industry]

Hi my friend, how are you ? Some progress ? I hope you are well !

Hey man!
I'm feeling great! Thanks for reaching out!

It was a great idea to do this 30 days challenge. Now I'm easily waking up at 6 AM, my diet is great, I've started supplementing with vitamin D, and I am working hard to achieve my goals.

I hope that you're doing great as well!

 

[MaxT]

Hey man!
I'm feeling great! Thanks for reaching out!

It was a great idea to do this 30 days challenge. Now I'm easily waking up at 6 AM, my diet is great, I've started supplementing with vitamin D, and I am working hard to achieve my goals.

I hope that you're doing great as well!

I'm really happy for you !!
It's great that you have found your way, stay the course and don't give up.
Vit D helped me a lot for sleep, a real wonder!
Don't hesitate to try new things, fail, learn... the highway to success is very wide and you have to find what suits you.
Keep the discipline and the good habits that you like and everything will be fine. As it is written in "Psycho Cybernetics", the man is a goal achiever.
Take care my friend, see you soon!

 

[sev969]

Hey man. Hope you're doing better!

Just wanted to share this with you. It's a process of meditation called 6R integrated with metta(loving kindness)

It's extremely effective in helping you develop a healthy reflex to unhealthy thoughts. Normal meditation trains you to focus on your breath or the movement caused by your breath or whatever other object. It's great but there's nothing really training your brain to actually let go and relax from a thought that is causing you to be sad or anxious. So when you stop meditating, those thoughts can come back and if you're in a state where you don't feel calm, those thoughts can take over. This process actually helps you to develop a reflex. You learn to recognise, then release and then relax. Super powerful process. Please try it out. Here's a link where a teacher explains it -

View: https://youtu.be/8u1JtRBJzqg


The 6 R's stand for:

1. Recognize the thought
2. Release - release the thought or let it go
3. Relax - actually feeling your brain relax as if it were a muscle. Try this out, you can actually feel some sensation
4. Resmile - smiling to somewhat step back from this process. Taking the pressure away
5. Refocus - focus on the object of meditation which will be loving kindness. Firstly sending loving kind thoughts to yourself, then a close spiritual friend and then all being etc
6. Repeat. Repeat the process

 

[K1 Lambo]

Thanks!

A lot of people that are chronically depressed blame their life circumstances or genetics for their issue. But I believe that in most cases the problem is due to brain or systemic inflammation. The modern diet and lifestyle may be the root cause of this issue.

The first line of defense against any disease is fixing your sleep/diet/exercise protocol.

Absolutely. Getting a fit body or just being fit in general will fix a lot of your mental health problems and put you in the positive direction.

 

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[heavy_industry]

@DavidePaco00 Thanks for the suggestion, meditation is great and it's strongly supported by science. The main thing that I want to get out of it is improving my ability to focus and control my emotions. This is done through strengthening the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which is what meditation does.

However, I want to finish the 30 days process I've outlined in this thread before adding more habits on my plate. I will keep making experiments to see what's helping me the most.

Thus far, regulating my sleep cycles through waking up early, reducing caffeine/nicotine intake and running in the morning has been nothing short of a miracle. Every single day I've been feeling better and better.

After the month is over, meditation will be the next one to implement, and I think I will pair it with a Wim Hof breathing session, followed by an ice bath.

 

[heavy_industry]

Day 9/30 review:

• 6 AM wake up time: No
• Morning cardio: Yes
• Cold shower: Yes
• Wim Hof breathing: Yes
• No entertainment: Yes
• Powerlifting: 72kg / 160lbs bench press
• Caffeine removal: 4 tsp + one extra coffee
• Nicotine removal: off the charts

Notes:
Today was pretty good.
The day started and ended badly, but was overall ok.

Today I just thought about how important consistency is. Even the smallest of improvements, if done on a continual basis, yield dramatic results over time.

Habits are very powerful. We truly are what we regularly do.

Overall rating of the day: 6/10

 

[heavy_industry]

Day 10/30 review:

After 9 days of linear improvement, today has been the first bad day since I've started this challenge.

Setbacks are expected, failure does happen. But the question is how quickly can you get back on the path? And the answer is right away. Tomorrow is going to be a great day.


Overall rating of the day: 3/10

 

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[heavy_industry]

Cold turkey the nicotine. Enough. Quit dicking around man, that one is the biggest ticket item on your list.

You want real change, or do you want marginal benefit mental masturbation?

I was a smoker for 15 some odd years. I cannot tell you how much better I perform after quitting. I was living with a low-level angst, anger, depression, headaches, and overall neurotic behavior. This only became apparent after I quit.

The first couple days are brutal - because you'll become aware of just how much your habitual nicotine intake was covering for your neurotic patterns. You'll be angry, highly irritable, and overall feeling like shit. Soldier through it.

You'll quickly learn to do something with yourself instead of masking whatever is going on with a vape/cigarette hit.

I support your endeavor and want the best for you. No more of this nicotine microgram adjustments on your daily reports - take the plunge like a man and make it 0. Be strong for a few days and you'll come out on top a champion.

Chop chop.

Thanks for the advice.
Interestingly enough, this was exactly what I was thinking yesterday when I was reading about nicotine side effects on health. I got very angry and my first instinct was to throw it all away and go cold turkey.

But then I remembered that I'm also trying to quit caffeine and start several habits which are very difficult. So I've decided to take it one step at a time and taper off using nicotine gum. By the end of the month I should be at 0.

I'm not sure if nicotine has affected my life in the way you described it, but as you've said, you can only see the effects after you quit.

The only reasons I want to quit are:
1. I don't want to be addicted to anything.
2. Cardiovascular health concerns - I don't need anything of this sort.