How to increase serotonin in the human brain without drugs (2007)

For a hypothetical example, it would be entirely possible that people who are sub-clinically depressed turn out to be more-often-than-not lacking in dopamine (due to e.g. Seasonal Affective Disorder), where their depression is secondary to things like fatigue and lack of focus brought about by this. These people would do better with exercise or vitamin D or light therapy or a dose of Wellbutrin... but SSRIs or meditation or behavioral-activation therapy or other "things that help people who are clinically depressed" wouldn't help at all.

"Clinical depression" isn't a disease (= a particular mechanism that causes symptoms.) It is, instead, a syndrome—a name for a cluster of symptoms that get studied because we have no good tests to isolate a particular etiology (cause) in each case. Different etiologies have different best treatments.

Since we can't isolate the etiologies well enough to name them, we can at least refer to "sub-clinical depression", "clinical depression", "treatment-resistant depression", etc. as separate syndromes, such that—hopefully!—each one more closely corresponds with a particular etiology, and thus we can develop a line of treatment best suited to each.

By the way, check out this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19551463

This is one of those things that a lot of members of the public at large do not seem to know; they think that depression is defined as some sort of chemical imbalance in the brain, and it is not. Depression is defined in the DSM more or less as, being sad too often, except in cases of mourning etc. where people are often incredibly sad. It is literally defined as an overabundance of feeling.

This matters to me because I no longer have depression—I am “cured!”—because I am no longer too sad often enough to qualify for the diagnosis. I did not use medicine but developed better coping mechanisms. The cause of my depression is still around—my negative thoughts will on average trigger one or more additional negative thoughts until I am paralyzed with self-doubt and negativity. Indeed, and this is somewhat hard to explain to folks who have never had this problem, I will sometimes luxuriate in those negative emotions because they have a sort of familiarity or nostalgia, I spent so much time being so sad that it is sometimes desirable to feel unpleasant again. That sort of complicated “if you seek out sadness is it really sadness” type of question is 100% interesting and valid.

But I developed coping mechanisms to deal with those sorts of emotional overloads and recognize that they are happening and escape them, and I do not frequently return back to those unhealthy thought patterns. In that respect I am cured. The psychiatrists define depression so that that is what cured looks like: we have not necessarily addressed whatever the underlying cause is, but we have treated the symptoms.

So it is literally impossible to be depressed if you don't feel sad often enough; it is part of the definition. Anyone who says “oh I get really sad and maybe even suicidal, but I am not depressed” is making a nonclinical statement that would not be directly translatable as a clinical one.

CBD is a very interesting substance. My main gripe is that, to get antidepressant and anxiolytic effects, dosages are higher than what can conveniently (and affordably) be achieved with the strength of currently available drops/flowers on the market.

I haven't used it in forever but when I did sort of just got accustomed to being itchy until it wore off. I've read that it can cause liver issues, though. I just quit taking pwo's altogether.

My guess is people with stress/gastro issues don't get the adequate serotonin for "normality"