You can try getting one of the CBT books about how to combat negative and cognitive distortions. One book that has helped me is David D. Burns, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy.

Stoic philosophy is kinda a burden when dealing with depression, kinda of trying to run the 100 meter in one lunge, in my opinion.

I found all the stoic philosophers very helpful, also the tao te ching ang zhuangzi.

What are some books recommended for people with depression? Books on life advice, motivation, discipline. Ive read all the stoic philosophers, the Tao te ching, and zhunagzi. — nazgul

I do love Lao Tzu, but that's mostly when I'm feeling good. Philosophy doesn't work for me when I'm depressed.

There a lots of people on the forum who do use philosophy effectively to help deal with emotional issues. It surprised me when first came here because it's not the way things work for me. Take a look at TimeLine's stuff. She has a unique perspective.

Travel adventure story, fiction or nonfiction. Like Lord of the Rings or say something by Bruce Chatwin.

Read books that you really, really enjoy reading rather than reading books that you think might offer a cure. Books do not cure depression, but depressing books can make it worse. Avoid nihilism, for instance.

Antidepressants don't make depression worse and they sometimes help a great deal. See a psychiatrist.

Therapy means change. Is your life depressing? If it is, what can you change to make it better? Exercise regularly. Eat well. Sleep well -- you might have to work at that. Not getting enough sleep can make things worse. Do positive things. Think positive thoughts (such good advice, so easy to give.) Be as active as possible. Engage with other people: don't isolate yourself -- depressed people are very bad company for themselves.

Read books that you really, really enjoy reading rather than reading books that you think might offer a cure. — Bitter Crank

Yeah, I agree. And maybe read some non-fiction. Being fascinated works for me. One just forgets that one has problems when lost in the contemplation of something that is not one's tired old existential situation.

You're not going to find a cure for depression in a book. You're not really going to find a cure for depression anywhere except in practicing better coping mechanisms and finding out what bad ones you have. This is always hard.

In terms of books that can help you find bad coping mechanisms, I'd recommend 'Games People Play' by Edward Berne. There are loads of cheap copies of it on Amazon. Other than that, if you have no trouble with helping others emotionally - or at least find it easier than helping yourself - try to think of yourself as another person and ask how you'd try to help them... Then do it, as best you can.

If you're completely nuts and enjoy highly abstract approaches, try Anti-Oedipus by Deleuze and Guttari. Without much background it's like reading a self help book written by aliens.

Good luck!

If you're completely nuts and enjoy highly abstract approaches, try Anti-Oedipus by Deleuze and Guttari. Without much background it's like reading a self help book written by aliens. — fdrake

I downloaded it. I have a long list of stuff to read, but you make it seem like so much fun. I'll add it to the list.

The following is paraphrased from my own experience, conventional wisdom and Jordan Peterson's latest book:

1. Wake up the same time every morning, doesn't matter what time you went to bed but make sure you wake up at the same hour every morning, and make that hour the same as a typical person's would be, so say eight o' clock or so.

2. As soon as you wake up, before you do anything else, eat a high-fat, high-protein breakfast. A classic English fry hits the nail on the head here. It may not be the "healthiest" but for our purposes and intents it's the best thing a depressive can eat. (Essentially this will keep you going much longer than a breakfast based in sugars or carbohydrates will, which would provide a short boost and then a dip. Obviously it's much better for the metabolism than not eating breakfast at all.)

3. Try your best to get AT LEAST eight hours of sleep.

4. Daily exercise, thirty minutes to an hour; cardio one day, weight training the next day.

I can't stress how much building a daily routing out of the above will benefit your life. Try it for a week or two and report back.

all good advice

I can't stress how much building a daily routing out of the above will benefit your life. Try it for a week or two and report back. — Dogar

Also second this. I have a lot of problems with Peterson on an intellectual level, but I think a lot of his life advice is really good.

I wonder, if I were a person looking for help to find books that might give me insight into depression and everyone ignored my request and went off talking about how men are so funny how they like to be all "I'm right, you're wrong" and not really knowing anything, would that make me more depressed? Not sure. But you know, those men. They really are something.

What are some books recommended for people with depression? Books on life advice, motivation, discipline. Ive read all the stoic philosophers, the Tao te ching, and zhunagzi. — nazgul

Hey Nazgul, I would highly recommend Martha Nussbaum' The Fragility of Goodness and since you like the Stoics, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. She really expresses great commonsense on the subject of our vulnerability as people. In addition, I would recommend Erich Fromm' The Art of Loving. I too have a love for Eastern philosophy because I have a strict desire to adhere to my values, but it is also good to look at opposing viewpoints. Sun Tzu' The Art of War is great for that reason. For fiction, I would highly recommend Herman Hesse' Steppenwolf which is an excellent bildungsroman, as well as Albert Camus.

Calm yourself. :snicker:

Calm yourself. — TimeLine

Feelin pretty calm. I knew you would have good ideas. :meh: :death: :joke: :broken: :smile:

God, I hate emojis.

You're so conflicted. Fitting, considering the subject. How about this, in the absence of Susan, you can be his replacement as the emoji king?

Is Susan @ArguingWAristotleTiff? If so, {{{{{hug}}}}

Oh, wait. It's not Agustino is it? No hugs for you.

Couple of more possibilities to entertain your imagination:

'Game of Throne' books are great, very detailed and captivating.
'On the Road', see it as a spiritual quest.

On The Road? Cormac McCarthy's book? Are you out of your mind?

Nazgul, there is a reading approach I would suggest: Social Psychology, authors like Erich Fromm. Fromm places individuals in a social context (thinking of The Sane Society by Fromm). It isn't just you. We live in a society that drives people crazy, because it is, basically, a crazy society. Yes, YOU feel depressed and that's a big issue to you because, well, you feel what you feel, and it's hard to put that into the larger context.

It is quite likely that you feel depressed, not out of any personal flaw, but because you live in, interact with, and are immersed in a lot of craziness not of your choosing. What kind of craziness? Well, the incessant messaging to buy stuff, the many messages that we get that we are inadequate and only XYZ PRODUCT will fix our deficiencies. Because a good share of society (factory production, office work--all that every day stuff) really doesn't care about us. If we aren't a means of making money for somebody, then we are of no use whatsoever. All that crap.

Check out Escape From Freedom and The Sane Society. If you like those, there are a lot of other books by Fromm.

Fromm says, "Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence."

Are you out of your mind?

Sometimes

'On the Road' is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac,
'The Road' is novel by Cormac McCarthy.


Very different kinds of quest, but there are similarities and yes The Road depresses, it almost set in grays. 'On the Road' is about exuberance of youth as a kind of paradise :smile:

Oh right. On The Road, The Road, easy to get confused. I recently read Kerouac's ON the Road. I might have liked it better than when I was 21 than I did at 71. Not a bad book, by any means, I didn't dislike it -- it just wasn't liberatory. But at this point, I don't know what would be liberatory.

"Old Man and the Sea"

But man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated." I am sorry that I killed the fish though, he thought. Now the bad time is coming and I do not even have the harpoon.

Survival, "destroyed but not defeated"... liberation in the sense of Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton's ability to survive. There are several good books about him.

Philosophy for Life, Jules Evans, a website and also book of that name. Combines elements of stoicism with CBT (although is quite eclectic).

I recently read Kerouac's ON the Road. — Bitter Crank

Truman Capote's review: 'that's not writing, that's typing'.

I thought Kerouac was a disappointment - living with his mother and drinking himself to death. Gary Snyder and some of the others of the Beats, not at all.

This looks an interesting title; Meditations on Self-Discipline and Failure - Stoic Exercise for Mental Fitness

Meditations on Self-Discipline and Failure provides access to the ruminations, practices, and applications of ancient Stoic philosophy as deployed by a contemporary professional philosopher with twenty five years of experience teaching, researching, and publishing articles in academic journals. Each meditation is presented in the second person, encouraging the reader to examine their struggles and failures in the pursuit of self-improvement and enlightenment.

The OP asked for an abstract book, but maybe it's good to return to the sensual, to something that recalls life's potential sexiness.

--now Mardou cut out with me, glee eyed, between sets, for quick beers, but at her insistence at the Mask instead where they were fifteen cents, but she had a few pennies herself and we went there and began earnestly talking and getting hightingled on the beer and now it was the beginning--returning to the Red Drum for sets, to hear Bird, whom I saw distinctly digging Mardou several times also myself directly into my eye looking to search if I was really the great writer I thought myself to be as if he knew my thoughts and ambitions or remembered me from other night clubs and other coasts, other Chicagos--not a challenging look but the king and founder of the bop generation at least the sound of it in digging his audience digging his eyes, the secret eyes him-watching, as he just pursed his lips and let great lungs and immortal fingers work, his eyes separate and interested and humane, the kindest jazz musician there could be while being and therefore naturally the greatest--watching Mardou and me in the infancy of our love and probably wondering why, or knowing it wouldn't last, or seeing who it was would be hurt, as now, obviously, but not quite yet, it was Mardou whose eyes were shining in my direction, though I could not have known and now do not definitely know--except the one fact, on the way home, the session over the beer in the Mask drunk we went home on the Third Street bus sadly through night and throb knock neons and when I suddenly leaned over her to shout something further (in her secret self as later confessed) her heart leapt to smell the "sweetness of my breath" (quote) and suddenly she almost loved me--- — Kerouac

from The Subterraneans.

"Truman Capote called Mr. Kerouac’s method of composition typing, not writing. But Allen Ginsberg, who regarded his friend as the greatest American poet of his time, declared that Mr. Kerouac had created “a spontaneous bop prosody.”.

According to legend, he put a roll of paper on the typewriter and just typed out the entire novel, never rewriting. I imagine the idea that he never rewrote his work irked Capote's fastidious nature.

I prefer philosophy books for now.

Anyone recommend Schopenhauer, nietzche, camus or others? Ive never read any of their works. Also evola, hegel, kant, stirner, deleuze, land im reading are great philosophers but not sure if their message I can use as a guide to life.

I wouldn't recommend delving into the pessimism, nihilism, and absurdism that those philosophers tended to offer in their respective works. It typically tends to conform to the depressive mindset. But, I read my fair share of Schopenhauer while depressed, so I guess why not?