This is kinda something that meditation is supposed to do. It brings problems you have to the fore so that you can see them clearly and fix them. This is something entirely ignored by the new-agey "im super spiritual" types. Meditation isn't something to make you blissful or happy or whatever they're saying it does these days. It's just a tool to see yourself just like a microscope is a tool that allows you to see what's already there.

Depression is a medical diagnosis because it has physical make up that causes people to be depressed.

I work and live with people who think depression is a "spiritual" or personal lifestyle problem. I think they are wrong.

I lost a sister to cancer when she was 15, my brother to probably suicide when he was 19 and my son died of cancer at 12. I seriously can say I never had a day of depression. I have had a broken heart missing them and feeling the pain. I will cry for them (I did for my son on Sunday while I was unloading groceries (Go figure)) But I have never lost the taste of food nor anything else. I have sorrow but their is a root cause for that. Depression is sorrow with no real root cause (to me). So I usually come out to defend people who are depressed since I feel like I should be the kind of depression but have never experienced it due to the luck of my genetics.

This is an incredibly insightful post on depression. As a father of two young children, I am incredibly sorry for your loss and reading about it really struck me... Strangely enough, this thread being about mindfulness meditation, made me halt my instinctive reaction to keep scrolling and confront the emotions I was feeling reading it. My instinct was to keep scrolling and distract my mind with other things, but instead I realize your post confronts me with the terrifying possibility of losing my own children.

I think you really illustrate the difference between depression and sadness. Depression I imagine is like experiencing dulled senses, a vapid gray world of numbness. While sorrow and sadness are incredibly vivid emotions that can overpower us, like when they struck you so suddenly unloading groceries. I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you for sharing such personal information.

I have dealt with huge, soul crushing depression. In my case it was absolutely a spiritual/lifestyle problem. Specifically, my core values involve personal growth, and contribution to society, and I felt incapable of either. I had a good job, a girlfriend, good relationships with family, etc, but none of that mattered. The rational I had was that my in the big scheme of things I didn't matter - I could just as well not exist, and outside of a couple of people absolutely nothing would change.

I feel like the massively connected nature of modern society is directly responsible for flourishing depression. Odds are, you are redundant; if most people disappeared suddenly, someone else could probably pick up the pieces in fairly short order. Additionally, being hyper-connected means that whatever you're good at, it is probably easy to find examples of people who are much better at it than you, which can be be somewhat marginalizing. Not feeling necessary or exceptional in any way is a pretty sure fire recipe for angst.

The nasty thing about depression is that it is a self-reinforcing cycle. When you start to get depressed, your ability to take measures to address the root cause of the depression is impacted. The result is a downward spiral that results in self obviation, through suicide, self destructive behavior or substance abuse.

But, there are lifestyle and "spiritual" things that can be done to help treat depression. Things like exercise, diet, social interaction, exposure to nature and sunlight, and other environmental factors can have an effect on the physical make up of the brain. Now none are cure alls and a lack of any one of them isn't necessarily to blame either, but there is merit to some of these "spiritual" practices that get more of those things in one's life.

> But, there are lifestyle and "spiritual" things that can be done to help treat depression

(I am the OP on going through loss and sadness and not being depressed.)

Yes 100% correct. Just like if you have heart disease or a bad back their are non-medical activities that will help those medical condition. My statement is that their is a medical piece that people discount and/or actually dismiss. A person can't just "fix themselves" and having the medical piece help them with treatment with counseling is a big help. Depression isn't that your sad.

Depression Definition: Clinical depression is a mood disorder in which feelings of sadness, loss, anger, or frustration interfere with everyday life for weeks or more.

Symptoms of depression include:

    Low mood or irritable mood most of the time


    Trouble sleeping or sleeping too much


    A big change in appetite, often with weight gain or loss
    Tiredness and lack of energy


    Feelings of worthlessness, self-hate, and guilt


    Difficulty concentrating


    Slow or fast movements


    Lack of activity and avoiding usual activities


    Feeling hopeless or helpless


    Repeated thoughts of death or suicide


    Lack of pleasure in activities you usually enjoy, including sex 

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003213.htm

Exercise is important, and it might help prevent depression, but the good quality evidence we have says that exercise is at best a weak treatment for depression for some people, and not at all a treatment for the rest.

Exactly, I've been to a Vipassana meditation retreat, and the whole point is to eradicate suffering by eliminating feelings of craving and aversion. To see things as they are, without passing judgment. This creates a clear mind, free from worries and dwelling, and a more stable personality. From this comes happiness, as this is our natural state of mind.

People tend to mix up pleasure and happiness and think meditation provides the first.

Meditation, just like a psychedelic experience, can show you where you stand in life, and this can be scary. One can find out that they've been doing things wrong all their life, or realize that they are on a destructive path. The changes required might affect their spouse, children, friends or their job, creating a seemingly impossible dilemma, to go on and keep suffering, or to change and hurt others.

Meditation can provide pleasure which is why it can be harmful without proper guidance. My last retreat I came to a state of bhanga very early. It felt wonderful but it fucked with my equanimity when it stopped I felt depressed. Guidance helped me get through it.

The key difference between meditation and psychedelics is regularity. Psychedelics are more like antibiotics in that they can be used in short bursts to shock the system but meditation should be used continually like a vitamin.

Whole heartedly agree. In my experience, meditation is a tool, not a cure-all. When I started getting into meditation, yoga, etc. I did a couple of legit non-new agey satsangs which is something like a chanting meditation type thing. Those were very deep, moving experiences, yet I felt extremely depressed after each one.

Some things can be too fast and unlock too much at once. This is where regular, consistent, meditation helps quell the unrest and let you tackle things at a sane pace. I had to work through those bouts of heavy depression, but now I can do very spiritual events and benefit from them.

This happened to me as well. I went to a two-hour gong-bath/satsang, and was nearly suicidal by the end. To be honest I'm relieved that this isn't unique to me.

>> This is kinda something that meditation is supposed to do.

Incorrect. Meditation helps to find balance, meaning, sort out things, but in a same way as it won't cure cancer, it won't cure clinical depression, or broken arm.

In Sufism (among other paths) the aspirants are explicitly and repeatedly warned regarding the "dangers" of unsupervised development.

> it's just a tool

Tools are a means.

> to see what's already there

That is also a means. (Unless one is merely curious.)

> blissful or happy

To arrive at-rest/contenment with Reality. At which point the distinction between "happy"/"unhappy" is understood to be nil.

Yeah, I thought the same thing, I know that feeling.

And combined with the statements from this poor guy about not being able to block out intrusive thoughts ... people with clinical depression or schizophrenia need to be careful not to practice dissociating instead of meditating. Especially beginners who may think the point is to "keep pushing thoughts away and think of nothing". Mindfulness meditation is pretty different, and it's the one most of the promising research is concerned with.

That said, I like more dissociative types of meditation as well, it can be fun to try and get calm and focused enough to approach no thoughts at all. It taught me how to cure my insomnia for one, now I can stop that narrating train of thought that would often keep me awake and fall asleep basically whenever I want.

Also they seem to be freely mixing facts about research on mindfulness meditation with anecdotes about all different kinds of meditation. That's nonsense, there is no reason to assume the long term effects are similar.

> Especially beginners who may think the point is to "keep pushing thoughts away and think of nothing"

So if meditation is not thinking about nothing, how is it different from just sitting with your eyes closed? If there's a physical impact of meditation then surely there has to be a feasible technical explanation of the process?

You observe, without passing judgment. If a thought comes, just let it come, and don't 'reply' to it. When you notice you drift off, just acknowledge that, without judgment, and continue the process of observation.

For the sake of clarity, let's look at the mind as if it's a separate entity (like a child) that is constantly asking our attention. When we give in, when we reply to our thoughts, its behavior is rewarded and it will keep asking for attention. If you just acknowledge that it's there, but don't act on every thought, the stream will become less and less. The main goal being that it eventually shuts up unless you actually need (ask) your mind to help you with a task.

Other comments have already talked about what mindfulness meditation is but that's only a part answer.

You could say it's not different, since anything done in that physical pose is something we're going to call meditation. There are a lot of different practices from different cultures, and really what they have in common is that you quietly sit and focus on being in a certain state of mind, continuously trying to bring yourself back to that state of mind if/when you get distracted.

For mindfulness it's non-judgemental awareness of the present moment and your own mind's activity

For zen it's controlled focused attention on the object of meditation (nothing at all in the cliche)

For compassion meditation it's compassion/kindness/love towards yourself/others/everything

For the various types of body awareness meditation it's your own feeling of your physical body

There are mantras and guided meditation and many others, with a lot of historical cross pollination and tons of wacky woo-filled stuff. Many types that are likely complete junk that's useless or harmful because the whole edifice is built on magical thinking.

I think the feasible technical explanation is pretty simple, "neurons that fire together, wire together". It seems very reasonable to me that practising attaining a certain state of mind will make it easier to do at will and/or make shift your normal state in that direction. A lot of it is literally as simple as learning "If I focus on X for a short time I feel like Y, so now I know how to feel like Y when I want"

There are many observable phenomena for which we lack a complete technical explanation.

You are actively trying to change how you think. It's not necessarily thinking about nothing. In many cases it's about coming at the same thoughts from a different perspective, often an external and non-judgemental one.

It really depends on which tradition or practice of meditation you're talking about. In the exercise I go through, it's different because it's specifically focused on acknowledging whatever thoughts come through without judging or reacting to them like I would impulsively. Being able to accept especially the negative thoughts at face value helps me a lot with managing the coping process.

My understanding is that you're supposed to let things come, but to note their happening in your mind's voice. I start by noting each breath, then as my awareness of it fades in and out I note people, noises, feelings, and thoughts.

In my humble opinion / understanding, mindfulness is about reaching a state where you observe what's happening around you without judgment. When you begin actively pushing thoughts away, you're once again engaging the ego.

> See a doctor. They can fix you.

Yes see a doctor. However, I feel that doctors often take a sledgehammer approach to mental illness, prescribing SSRIs and/or MAOIs whenever they hear the word "depression" or "anxiety". I'm not a MD, but after reading a little about the topic, it seems that a much better approach is to see what could be the cause of the deficiency in certain neurotransmitters. The reason could be that some of the enzymes involved in the process of producing them are defective due to genetic mutations. Certain tests (such as provided by 23andme) could reveal these defects, and could in theory provide much better treatment options. In many cases this could even start with taking certain dietary supplements, which help the body create the neurotransmitters. Such an approach seems so much more sensible than just "drowning" the brain in neurotransmitters, which is basically what SSRIs and MAOIs do.

However, I have yet to see a doctor that knows anything about metabolic pathways and such.

Look for someone who works with a lab that does neurotransmitter testing.

If you're not psychotic, but plainly depressed, the question is basically if you need your serotonine or your dopamine/noradrenaline boosted. A blood test can tell you that.

Other than that:

. Go outside every single morning. A study in a german hospital showed that 20 minutes of daily exposure to daylight can reduce meds by 30%.

. Go running for 15 minutes every single day. I say 15 minutes because it's supposed to become an easy "no-brainer" ritual.

. Keep a diary in which, every single day, you make a list about strictly only the positive things that happened that day.

This is good advice for supplemental improvement if you are already getting professional help.

I just wanted to add. If these things don't work, or you are feeling suicidal, or haven't talked to anyone -- please talk to your doctor. The same treatments will not work for everyone and it is not your fault if a regimen doesn't help or you can't stick with it. Even 15 minute no brainers are difficult when you are depressed.

Also, be honest about your symptoms. Anxiety may be easier to talk to your doctor about, but you can wind up prescribed addictive narcotics that will hurt rather than help.

Agreed. Thank you for this important amendment.

>However, I have yet to see a doctor that knows anything about metabolic pathways and such.

You have to keep in mind that the vast majority of psych-related clinicians are average to below-average performers that were too incompetent to become real doctors. That would explain why your "doctor" doesn't understand anything taught in a basic undergrad neuroscience survey course.

It's like expecting an auto mechanic to design a new car engine - sure, they could try their best, but at the end of the day, they're still an auto mechanic, not an engineer.

Well, I suspect doctors still get paid more than the average medical researcher :)

And that researcher is not accessible to the general public. The strange thing is that we now see people on the internet fora doing the metabolic/neurochemistry research themselves, for lack of better options.

Arguably, traditions with "metta" meditation treat this issue by enforcing the connection between people. Isolated meditators who make progress too quickly can disconnect from people and without some form of metta or some guide from an experience teacher they may find themselves in a tricky spot. Some people just advance too quickly into a more equanimous state than others. That's not depression, its progress and what many seek out when learning meditation or when they follow a spiritual path. You can't act surprised when you achieve an equanimous mind and you aren't interested in the things you were before.

I'm a bit like this. I don't crave bad TV shows, hollywood junk, conflict, drama, money, trying to be seen a very smart/successful, etc like I used to. I certainly still fail at this, but there's probably a practical limit here considering my lifestyle. I'm not depressed, its just I quickly outgrew what those in my peer group valued and that has left me with a social hole in my life. I just deal with it. I absolutely do not want to go back to how I was, even if the previous me was "more fun." I'm a very different person than I was pre-meditation/pre-whatever. I don't see that as a problem.

I think its dangerous to just dismiss everything you don't understand as mental illness. Not too long ago we were doing this with the gay community, non-neurotypicals, and those from cultures with different values. Its also crazy that Western culture can call anyone not "having fun" all the time depressed. A more quiet and contemplative life shouldn't be seen as some horrible pathological condition. In a perfect world, people like that should be valued, not dismissed, but unfortunately that's not the world we live in.

Yes, but with a small twist on what you are saying: Depression lies at the intersection of the external world and the internal. It's influenced both by it's contact with the external world and by the content of our thoughts.

It can be caused both by external factors and our internal mental life.