I don't drink coffee often. Maybe 1 or 2 cups a week. But when I do, I feel a bit euphoric and the stress and unhappiness is gone even though the external situation is the same. Does this maybe mean that some chemicals in my brain is messed up that gets fixed by drinking coffee?
Sorry, I can't suggest a nootropic because in my experience none have worked as reliably as coffee for my depression. The best was modafinil, but it lost effectiveness over time. I'm diagnosed with clinical depression, and when I get very down, which is daily, I drink coffee and it helps. Coffee helps me feel better. But I can only drink so much because as soon as I drink too much, then I'm anxious, sometimes bordering on full blown panic. Drinking coffee on an empty stomach relieves the depression more than a full stomach, but also increases the odds that'll I'll swing into panic.
Visualize I seem to exist mostly on a scale between depression on one side, and anxiety on the other end. Coffee, an effective anti depressant, also increases the chance I'll suddenly find myself experiencing excessive and persistent sense of dread, as if I'm about to die.
The only thing I can tell you is coffee is a drug, and it's more effective than any of the dozen or so psychiatric drugs I've been prescribed. There are unstudied chemicals in coffee that are beyond caffeine that would be an effective cure for depression. But coffee also comes with dosage needs and side effects. The trouble with coffee dosages is they're dynamic, one day I drink 300 ml of coffee and I'm not depressed and not anxious. The next day I drink 300 ml of coffee and I'm depressed, but not anxious. The day after I drink 300 ml of coffee and I'm not depressed, but I'm anxious.
So I've decided the effects of coffee also have to do with eating habits (stomach, empty or full?) and sleep habits (did I sleep well or not?) exercise habits, changes in the weather, the barometric atmosphere, the season, the quality of the air I'm breathing.
Sorry so long winded, my initial response was gonna be: Drink More Coffee. But then I thought no, that's a rude, inadequate response, I don't want to be rude to you or anyone else. But try drinking more coffee and document your feeling response. What I'm saying to you is you sound a lot like me, and coffee, which is cheap and ubiquitous, might be a cure for your depression. But the dosages and side effects are in flux.
Does that make any sense?
Edited by sthira, 08 October 2017 - 12:49 PM.