
Depression - Tomte
https://www.robertsapolskyrocks.com/depression.html
======
Waterluvian
From my amateur perspective, i think the history of how people treat others
with depression may be deeply rooted in the Human flaw of, "the way I
experience the sensations of existence must be how everyone else does."

I can't exactly fault the default response to be, "I don't get it. Just get
off your butt and go for a jog. I always feel better when I do that."

I remember being so ignorant to depression until I experienced it myself. It's
unlike anything else. Your drive to persist is just missing.

P.S. the entire lecture series this one is from is worth watching.

~~~
chongli
_I can 't exactly fault the default response to be, "I don't get it. Just get
off your butt and go for a jog. I always feel better when I do that."_

I've been living with depression for almost two decades now. I took up running
a few years ago and you're right, it did make me feel good. But there was no
way for me to keep it up through the Waterloo winters with mountains of snow,
disgusting brown slush, and deadly black ice.

So I stopped late in the fall and restarted in the spring. I tried to keep
active during the winter with an exercise bike and a rowing machine, but it's
not the same. Every time I got back to the spring it felt like I was starting
over.

Now, just over a year ago, I started university (at Waterloo) and the enormous
challenge and stress of the workload drove exercise out of my immediate
priorities. With the stress I ate more and gained weight, and stressed more
over school without the calming relief of exercise.

This past summer I tried taking up running again, after exams. I ended up
breaking my ankle, which is not surprising given that I was so out of shape
and trying to push myself too hard over a shorter window.

Now the depression is stronger than ever. I don't know how I'm going to finish
my degree.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Have you tried Vitamin D and magnesium aminoacid chelate / orotate / citrate.

~~~
mabbo
On the one hand, answers like this always seem to over-simplify. Oh hey just
take this vitamin and the soul sucking demon that's been riding on your
shoulder for years, decades, will magically go away.

On the other, I spent nearly two decades of my life suffering from this
horrendous illness, and nothing has helped as much as daily magnesium does.

I take a big Magnesium pill, a men's health multivitamin and I add D in the
winter. Even my sleep apnea went away, and there's no damn reason that makes
any sense.

Biology is stupid.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Yeah, on the one hand I'm strongly against drive-by one liners, on the other
hand vitamin D _cured me_.

I was already taking magnesium, B6 ... everything else.

8000 to 12000IU of Vitamin D a day for four weeks weeks cured me of my
suicidal ideation / depression / emotional instability / irritability.

I went to the doctor and got a prescription for antidepressants a couple of
times, drove to the pharmacist and sat in the carpark in my car crying for
half an hour before I drove home without getting the medication.

Vitamin D was the _keystone_ that's made all the other supplements work _way
better_.

Now I'm on a much lower maintenance dose, a few hundred IU a day average taken
as larger random doses throughout the week.

I guess it makes sense if I think about it, I get _almost no sun exposure_ ,
and when I am outside I'm covered in long sleep and pants because the sun here
in Tasmania is either too low in the sky to warrant shorts and a tshirt, or
it's summer and the sun here cooks my pale skin in minutes.

Your millage may vary. Vitamin D and magnesium are considered very non-toxic
even at stupendously high dosages for short periods of time. And they're both
fairly cheap.

Disclaimer: this does not constitute medical advice, do your own research, and
all of that. I'm not insured to give nutritional advice.

~~~
mabbo
Yeah, I added the vitamin D after spending most of a winter in Edinburgh.
Lovely city- but it's 56 degrees north. That city will get less than 7 hours
of daylight today.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
At the winter solstice, the city I live in, at 41 degrees south, gets 9 hours
and 10 minutes of daylight.

I spend 10 of those indoors at work.

It's not _feasible_ for me to get enough sun light most of the year.

~~~
mabbo
What I learned from my time in Edinburgh was to _make time_ in the winter. Go
for a post-lunch walk when possible. And of course take supplement too.

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shin_lao
I personally think that mental illness is the #1 challenge of western
societies.

It's not just about personality disorders, mood disorders, psychosis, and
other illnesses, but also milder conditions that have a very high, hidden cost
and not only affect the lives of those who suffer from it, but everyone around
them.

If you live in a big city, you will meet people with mental conditions and
knowing how to react can make a world of difference for them and you.

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zxv
Wow, Sapolsky's explanation of a various neurotransmitter mechanisms, starting
with transmission across a neuron synapse, is simply beautiful.

Video link starting at 14:48 min:
[https://youtu.be/NOAgplgTxfc?t=888](https://youtu.be/NOAgplgTxfc?t=888)

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qrian
Is it just me or is this site literally completely unreadable? Its font color
is too similar to the background for me. Screenshot:
[https://i.imgur.com/KFzMuaF.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/KFzMuaF.jpg)

~~~
gkcgautam
Yes, the mobile web version of the website has a dark background color which
makes the text extremely difficult to read. The desktop website has a white
background.

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datafatmunger
In this lecture, Sapolsky talks briefly about the genetic component but at a
super high level "good/bad" version of a gene.

 _Depression is a genetic disorder. It has some degree of heritability. 50%
identical twins, 25% full sibling. So again we have the whole nature-nurture
interaction. Have the bad gene (a serotonin one), add in major stressors and
uh-oh. A 30 fold increase in the likelihood of depression at the extreme. Oh,
and glucocorticoids regulate the expression of the gene._

Anyone know what gene he is referring to?

~~~
datafatmunger
So, I'm guess maybe this one:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp/rs25531#frequency_tab](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/snp/rs25531#frequency_tab)

...and despite: "According to David Hinds of 23andMe on community forums,
"nearly everyone (99.97%) is getting called as CC, and there is no clear
heterozygote cluster" ... "the genotype calls for rs25531 on our platform are
not meaningful." Looking at OpenSNP frequency data, this seems to be universal
for direct to consumer genotyping services at this stage.... "

... but went looking for this in my own data anyway, and couldn't even find
the rs#.

disclaimer: I have no idea what i'm doing.

------
thonos
this was a good read. I am currently myself spiraling down into depression and
fighting against it. It's very interesting to try to get a grasp of what's
going on and in the past year or so I learned more about brain chemistry,
receptors, amines, enzymes, etc than I did during my entire school curriculum.

I call myself a self-proclaimed guineapig: I read a lot of papers, talk with
my doc about different attempts of medication and things that I don't want to
touch such as SSRIs and why, and self-medicate for things that don't need a
prescription or are off-label useful for depression. Some things worked, but
aren't sustainable because they aren't prescribable where I live.

Yet after a long time of fighting, the feeling of hopelessness is getting more
and more stronger. Depression is horrible and I would give so much to turn
back the clock to when I didn't feel the way I do now.

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woodandsteel
This is fascinating. I didn't realized the scientists had developed such a
detailed understanding of depression.

~~~
Koshkin
Knowing the way we are made is depressing. Too many moving parts, too much
complexity, too much uncertainty, too many things can (and do) go wrong. And
there's not much we can do about it. At the same time, it is quite amazing
that we are sturdy enough not to fall apart the moment we are born but instead
last for many years.

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intralizee
As a programmer trying to imagine how I would construct & create depression
for a simulation. I think it would make sense to have a negative state that
turns "on or off" against the will, associated with unwanted thinking
patterns, current life circumstances and some type of past trauma playing a
big role in the illness. Anyone think of something different?

I believe past trauma is the root cause and I doubt people have depression if
they haven't had some type of experience they would classify as trauma. I
think one solution is defeating the trauma with after decoupling the negative
thinking patterns. Another problem is I think the illness cannot be defeated
in some rare circumstances. I think people get prescribed medication too
often. Doctors use the diagnosis too often from my observation. Some have
tried to label me with it, when I suffer from another illness "gender
dysphoria" and I think that isn't right for them to do. I also think the
diagnosis is too vague and should have classifications.

I believe more resources need to be put into educating people and how to
approach mental health as important to physical health. When I grew up in the
US, it was always about physical health and with a little sex education.
Mental health might be even more important because it can prevent a person
from having good physical health.

~~~
mabbo
> I believe past trauma is the root cause and I doubt people have depression
> if they haven't had some type of experience they would classify as trauma.

I had a great childhood. Amazing parents. A good upper middle class life. Good
friends. No real trauma to speak of at all.

By 12, if I'd shared with a doctor what was going on in my head they'd have
slapped me with the depression label. I wasn't healthy. There was no event or
trauma. This shit is genetic- I can tell which relatives on my Mom's side have
the demon riding on their shoulders. They, like me, were born with it. I'm
sure they can see it on me too.

Trauma can indeed trigger it, but there are a lot of other ways. Don't presume
that just because someone suffers from depression that they have been
traumatized, nor that someone who hasn't been traumatized can't suffer from
depression.

~~~
ettercap18
I got very depressed because I actually had undiagnosed Aspergers.

This caused me to get bullied, have problems in school which then turned into
depression later. People with Aspergers are incredibly sensitive and blind to
emotions making them easy targets.

The root cause for me was the Aspergers. What tipped me over the edge was not
knowing I was different and being put into a school environment not suited for
someone with all the sensitivities associated with Aspergers.

Yes bad things happened to me that made be depressed, but there was more going
on.

~~~
enibundo
What's the catch once your asperges is diagnosed? What can you do anyways..

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quantum_state
I had the good fortune to watch the lectures some years ago and the helped my
understanding greatly. Just would like to share this and encourage everyone to
take a close look.

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oarfish
why does this page have grey text on a grey background? ist it only me
(Firefox on Android)?

