This just in, from CureTogether:
“When my amazing CureTogether co-founder Daniel Reda flipped his screen around to show me this infographic, my excitement at how beautiful it looked was quickly replaced by my curiosity for what it showed. I knew exercise, sleep, and therapy were popular and effective treatments for depression.
But a few things surprised me. Fish oil, also popular, showed up as much less effective than I expected. And light therapy, which not many people have tried, was quite effective. Take a look at it for yourself and see if anything surprises you.”
Read more…
What depression treatment has worked best for you?
I am really surprised about the fish oil finding. I suppose part of the problem with fish oil may have been that the participants did not chew them properly.
Personally, I take 8-10 fish oil gelcaps a day and I feel fine.
Of course I do exercise aggressively.
Massage is at the top of my list also. Gets those endorphins going!
Been interested in light therapy boxes, but they’re too expensive.
Didn’t know that fish oil caps are supposed to be chewed, or are you joking? Eeek.
Light therapy is not as expensive as you might think, you can select a wide range of lights and bulbs with different spectrums for quite reasonable cost. It can work pretty well, particularly if you work at something like a desk and can’t just “expose” yourself for hours during the day.
And I was joking about the fish oil. Well only the chewing, I do take mega amounts of fish oil.
Really, nothing has worked for me on this front except a low carb diet (with a lot of Omega 3’s), and exercise. The meds are bad for me, and only worked for a little bit. Now, with the D controlled, it’s almost nonexistent. The Wellbutrin XL gave me seizures and major hair loss… including no eating, at all… because I was always sick… It was pretty bad.
The ones I’ve seen were a bank of lights, lots of lights & lots 'o money. Maybe those are overkill. I don’t know if I’ve got bona fide SAD, but I feel better as soon as winter’s gone & the days are longer, but don’t we all:)
When I was a kid, my mother joked that I was like two different people in the winter & summer.
Glad you were teasing about chewing fish oil caps.
What helped me the most was “not thinking”. Maybe this falls under meditation. I learned that I am the thinker of my thoughts and that I have the choice to dismiss any thought. I cannot prevent thoughts from entering my mind. However, I can I refuse to dwell on a thought. I tell the thought: “You are an unpleasant thought. I will not spend any time with you.”. In the beginning the thoughts came right back. I used a stall tactic. I promised the thought that I would spend 5 minutes with it in an hour. After an hour the thought was old news and rarely held me up to the promise. In the case that the thought was still around I would not break my promise. 5 minutes is still better than non-stop. These days I am good and rarely have to fight negative thoughts. Maybe unpleasant thoughts are smart and look for easier targets.
Exercise - as hard as it possibly can get, for hours and hours at a time - outdoors in all kinds of weather. You cannot believe the heady (and egotistical) rush you get from passing some thirty year old climbing up a mountain pass - with an insulin pump shoved down your cycling bibs!
Thanks so much for posting this, Manny! 
If we can get 1000 people with Diabetes to participate at http://curetogether.com/diabetes, then we’ll do a cool infographic for Diabetes too!
Be well,
Alexandra
Co-Founder, CureTogether
Infographics is a wonderful way to easily present and understand data. If you could perhaps post a pointer to the method used and how it works, I would find it helpful.
I really like to look at evidence based medicine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-based_medicine) as a good basis for making objective medical decisions. Expert opinion is the lowest level of evidence and patient opinion generally has been considered totally worthless. What would be particularly interesting is to compare the results from your work to the results of our medical establishment. I suspect that the results would be better than we typically see from the “old white guys smoking cigars in the back room and voting.”
I never do Massage terapy because I feel too guilty that I spending all that moneyhat I don’t have … but in Venezuela, they are not that expensive, so I used to go with my mom and it works wonders… it is really amazing.
Oh, every night I massage my feet with oil or Vaseline and put some socks on… it is a ritual before bed… and it makes me feel great.
Nothing better that a sunny beach, chocolate and mint to lift my spirit 
I am a talk therapy advocate. I don’t think we listen enough to each other when we are trying to help someone who is depressed. Sure we’re not all therapists, but sometimes the actual listening is the best thing for a person. To be heard and somewhat understood is a very vital part of living. Babies thrive on being talked to, we all do from the very beginnings of life.
I take so many pills right now, that to take one more anything would be too much for me. So I’ll opt for swimming and talking…but not at the same time.
Here, medical journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee Robert Whitaker discusses the widespread use of psychiatric drugs. Very, very interesting interview… http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/05/08/rober… I know some of you don’t like Mercola, but this is actually an experience I have been through… being kept on strong antidepressants that were keeping me constantly depressed, would only work short term, and I would relapse over and over again…
I use celexia. I have for several years, after crushing depression. I also talk therapy, and before anyone wonders, yes I do regard myself as a little extreme in terms of staving off depression. It is a horrible disease, and while it is often associated with diabetes, I am not for certain diabetes is the root cause. Rather I think it is the cons sequences of the disease, including lugging a load of things around and the ever present threat of something terrible happening.
Light therapy seems interesting. I know my depression grows in the winter, and I assume that is because of light issues.
rick phillips