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Yeah, I have it really bad too. Here's my list
Light therapy - big big help. Get one of those sunlamp alarm clocks, deliberately sit in bed with it pointing at the corner of your eyes for half an hour when you wake up and check your bears. I've also got one above my desk. I'm considering just replacing some of my regular housing lights with stupid bright ones. The converse of this is that you also have to start turning off lights before bed.
Melatonin - take one half an hour before bed, and try to always to go bed at about the same time of day. Doesn't really help against basic depressive blahs, but it stops most of the complete zombie days
Vitamin D supplements - maybe helps, it's hard to tell honestly
Exercise, eat yer vegetables, etc - I mean it helps, but it's also like the first thing that depression tries to undo, so I don't think this is that reliable
I wanna say with melatonin that a lot of the supplements out there are overdosed, supposedly because the correct dose is trademarked (after a study at MIT found it was best at about .25mg). I use a liquid melatonin by life extension where I only take 3-4 drops and that has kept my sleep schedule on point for years now, and I have pretty bad sleep habits.
How do you trademark a dosage?
I guess it was a patent thing? I dunno the story is weird. I think I found a blog that talks about it a bit
https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/12/did-a-melatonin-patent-inspire-current-dose-confusion/
Huge +1 for melatonin, helps me massively with sleep. Had struggled to fall asleep for years and years before I started.
Got any recommendations for specific sun lamps? I have one but its kinda just obnoxiously bright and cant tell if its doing anything
I got mine a gazillion years ago and they don't make them anymore, it's a Nature Bright Per3. I don't recommend any current Nature Bright lamps, but look that one up to get an idea - it's a small bedside table style lamp with a clock, sunrise/alarm feature, and one of those articulated swiveling heads like a reading lamp. Each of those details (clock, alarm, swivel) is great, look for something like that. It also needs to be 10,000 lux, but now that LEDs are cheap and everywhere, that should be easy.
And yes, the operative thing is that they're obnoxiously bright. They're supposed to be as bright as the sun (if they're 2 feet away and the sun is its usual distance away). Ideally it's pointing into your eyes at an angle for 30 minutes while you're doing something. Some people say first thing in the morning, others say as close to noon as possible. Regardless, because you want to aim it at yourself from a specific distance at an angle, some sort of pivot head is a very good idea.
I’ll give my current one another chance and look around for others. Thanks for the advice! My current desk lamp is quite dim i could probably make use of it that way and point it at the wall to get a lot more light
Oh yeah, pointing my sunlamp at a wall is easily enough light to see the whole room by. Handy.
Just tried this and using my dimmer lamp next to my bed and it honestly feels better already. Idk why artificial light only works if its pointed at a wall otherwise it makes me feel gross. Like ceiling bulbs make me feel exposed for some reason… just autism things.
For melatonin, you actually want to take it 3-4 hours before you go to sleep, as it takes a few hours to actually be absorbed/become effective. Also you generally don't need more than 1 mg. The low end effective does is 0.3 mg.