HI!

[Kelly47]

My Doc had me on prozac for a year. He felt because I couldn't sleep at night I must be depressed. Well, the meds didn't make me feel any different. I still couldn't sleep at night even though I continued to raise the amt of prozac, up to 40 mgs. So after 30 lbs wt gain I decided to stop. Then after talking to a psych friend of mine she suggested ADD.

BUT, I know that I suffer from some form of depression. I think it's more situational depression, though. Because I don't seem to have the overall symptoms of depression. I think stress plays a large part in my sometimes down mood.

When I'm really stressed, usually it's the kids (ages 27 and 25) I sleep a lot or over eat. But when things are not stressful.....I tend to be fine.

How do you know when you are depressed enough to go on meds? And are there natural things yoiu can take for stress/depression?

Thanks,
KellyO

[sharon]

I tried anti-depressant, melatonin, warm milk, no caffeine, no alcohol, etc. Nothing worked.
Then as I came into recovery for addiction, suddenly I was able to sleep at night.
I did find one thing that guaranteed to make me fall asleep, and that was a meditation called BODY SCAN.
Where I try to lie still as possible on my bed, and start feeling bit and bit of my body starting from my left toes.
I try not to move the part of the body I'm scanning, and just feel it.
After left toes, then bottom of left foot, then top of left foot, then the left ankle, then the bottom of lower left leg as it press against the bed, then top of lower left leg, then bottom of the left knee, then top of left knee, then bottom of upper left leg, then top of upper left leg, then left thigh, then left buttock, then crotch, then start scanning the right toes, and up the right leg the same way as the left leg, up to the right buttock.
I only remember so far on the lower body, because I usually fall asleep by the time I get to left buttock or the crotch.
The basic idea is to break down my body parts into the smallest portion possible and spend 45 minutes scanning through all the body.
I used to have a meditation tape that guided me through the body scan as I listened to it. After a few times, I didn't need the tape anymore, because I knew what to scan. I got the tape as a course material when I registered for Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program in our local hospital. The MBSR program is based on Jon Kabat-Zinn's book "Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness." I call it a dummies course for meditation. It basically teaching the people who has the least idea of what meditation is. Therefore, it breaks down to the most simplest easiest way to understand how to do meditation.