My third update on curcumin (previous: one, two): I haven’t been taking it very regularly lately. This is not unusual for me; as my focus on self-improvement waxes and wanes, so does my likelihood of continuing a practice that either is productive in itself or causes me to be more productive.
Mostly, I’ve been too depressed to take my pills. My antidepressant pills.
The thing is, the antidepressant effect is not so powerful as to leave one into a basically neutral mood absolutely regardless of what’s happening. It can help you withstand minor stress without being emotionally affected; and if you’re the kind of person who slips into a bad mood suddenly and without any exterior cause, it will probably help. But if sufficiently unfortunate events happen to you—say, your mother is in hospital with cancer, your father commits suicide, the love of your life rejects you and then kisses someone else right in front of you, all of your friends turn out to be fake, you have to survive on two dollars for the following week, and you find yourself having to drop out of college—all at the same time—then I’m sorry to say that curcumin ain’t gonna do shit for you.
I’ll be saving my current supply for a time when things go better for me and I can actually focus on the goals for which I chose to take curcumin pills in the first place. Or maybe I’ll just take them on days when I don’t expect much to be happening, to improve baseline mood.
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In a similar vein, I started experimenting with melatonin. I never had any problem sleeping when tired, and only very recently I experienced a couple of episodes of insomnia, but after reading gwern’s sterling recommendation of it I thought I should give it a shot.
I took it thrice so far. The first two times -- 2 pills of 1 mg melatonin each; I was surprised to see they actually worsened my problem. I got stuck into the unpleasant state of being extremely tired (from the melatonin) and still unable to sleep. I am not sure whether this was because of melatonin or in spite of it. The third time I only took 1 mg, and slept very well for a very long time—but then again I had amassed a very large sleep debt in the previous few days, and probably would have slept well no matter what. Needless to say, the data I’ve gathered so far is inconclusive. I have enough pills for the following two months or so; I’ll continue taking it and see whether my response improves.
Too depressed to remember to take depression medication… I know those feels. I know them well. Curcumin does not have that pesky 6-weeks-till effects problem does it? Shoring up the medication for a rainy day may be counterproductive if you’ll have to sacrifice some weeks worth of pills to start up a baseline level again.
Melatonin made me wake up early, tired, and irritable. The pills available in the store are usually too much—mine were 3mg, a bit too big to even break apart usefully—and it took me a while to realize the dosage was the problem. I use it nowadays at whim to get vivid dreams.
My third update on curcumin (previous: one, two): I haven’t been taking it very regularly lately. This is not unusual for me; as my focus on self-improvement waxes and wanes, so does my likelihood of continuing a practice that either is productive in itself or causes me to be more productive.
Mostly, I’ve been too depressed to take my pills. My antidepressant pills.
The thing is, the antidepressant effect is not so powerful as to leave one into a basically neutral mood absolutely regardless of what’s happening. It can help you withstand minor stress without being emotionally affected; and if you’re the kind of person who slips into a bad mood suddenly and without any exterior cause, it will probably help. But if sufficiently unfortunate events happen to you—say, your mother is in hospital with cancer, your father commits suicide, the love of your life rejects you and then kisses someone else right in front of you, all of your friends turn out to be fake, you have to survive on two dollars for the following week, and you find yourself having to drop out of college—all at the same time—then I’m sorry to say that curcumin ain’t gonna do shit for you.
I’ll be saving my current supply for a time when things go better for me and I can actually focus on the goals for which I chose to take curcumin pills in the first place. Or maybe I’ll just take them on days when I don’t expect much to be happening, to improve baseline mood.
--
In a similar vein, I started experimenting with melatonin. I never had any problem sleeping when tired, and only very recently I experienced a couple of episodes of insomnia, but after reading gwern’s sterling recommendation of it I thought I should give it a shot.
I took it thrice so far. The first two times -- 2 pills of 1 mg melatonin each; I was surprised to see they actually worsened my problem. I got stuck into the unpleasant state of being extremely tired (from the melatonin) and still unable to sleep. I am not sure whether this was because of melatonin or in spite of it. The third time I only took 1 mg, and slept very well for a very long time—but then again I had amassed a very large sleep debt in the previous few days, and probably would have slept well no matter what. Needless to say, the data I’ve gathered so far is inconclusive. I have enough pills for the following two months or so; I’ll continue taking it and see whether my response improves.
Also try reducing the dose. 1mg pills should be easy to split into quarters, thirds, and halves.
Too depressed to remember to take depression medication… I know those feels. I know them well. Curcumin does not have that pesky 6-weeks-till effects problem does it? Shoring up the medication for a rainy day may be counterproductive if you’ll have to sacrifice some weeks worth of pills to start up a baseline level again.
Melatonin made me wake up early, tired, and irritable. The pills available in the store are usually too much—mine were 3mg, a bit too big to even break apart usefully—and it took me a while to realize the dosage was the problem. I use it nowadays at whim to get vivid dreams.