This seems self-aware and accurate, and means you have a decent chance of being able to intervene and avoid going into a depressive state. The two things that sound particularly high leverage (and I believe tend to feature prominently in standard advice, because they tend to be key elements of self-reinforcing spirals) are sleep and diet.
Eating more sweets/carbs is a common depression failure mode, and people tend to respond by deciding that the carbs are bad, and trying to stop themselves from eating them. This is a mistake because what’s actually going on is undereating of everything else; sweets make up the gap because they’re very convenient, but the right intervention is to add more high-quality food until there’s no appetite left for sweets.
When I checked the list, I was like: well, most of this applies to me to some degree, too… except the part about nightmares… which I used to have a lot in the past, but I don’t remember having them recently… probably since the time I took care of my sleep apnea. Correlation is not causation, but it is a hypothesis worth exploring. In hindsight it seems obvious: lack of oxygen → heart beats faster → dreaming brain “rationalizes” this as fear.
This seems self-aware and accurate, and means you have a decent chance of being able to intervene and avoid going into a depressive state. The two things that sound particularly high leverage (and I believe tend to feature prominently in standard advice, because they tend to be key elements of self-reinforcing spirals) are sleep and diet.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/a6PMaSrfG9KYWL9tL/how-to-improve-your-sleep. Especially the bit about checking for sleep apnea, if you haven’t already.
Eating more sweets/carbs is a common depression failure mode, and people tend to respond by deciding that the carbs are bad, and trying to stop themselves from eating them. This is a mistake because what’s actually going on is undereating of everything else; sweets make up the gap because they’re very convenient, but the right intervention is to add more high-quality food until there’s no appetite left for sweets.
When I checked the list, I was like: well, most of this applies to me to some degree, too… except the part about nightmares… which I used to have a lot in the past, but I don’t remember having them recently… probably since the time I took care of my sleep apnea. Correlation is not causation, but it is a hypothesis worth exploring. In hindsight it seems obvious: lack of oxygen → heart beats faster → dreaming brain “rationalizes” this as fear.
Those are good to know! Thanks!