Natural depression remedies?

[away_she_flew]

I've struggled with depression for years, and am finally, happily, on a drug I like. However, I'd like to go off the meds and handle things on my own (I would most definitely work with my doctor, of course, when I do this). Plus, I can't take the meds I'm on when I'm pregnant, which is in the near future for me. I'd like to get everything under

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[ne_jyam]

Oh geez that's a really long sunless season to deal with! I'd definitely save up for a light therapy lamp, it was a huge help. I have the hardest time in October and November for some reason. December perks me up a bit with the holidays, and then around here we get a heat wave in January and our spring starts in February. I was taking 6000-8000IU of D3 and doing 3 45min sessions of light therapy at the worst of it, and I definitely noticed when I forgot a day of D3 or light therapy.

This helped me sooo much this year. It's not technically light therapy, but it helped me wake up better once the days got shorter, and getting my day going on a good foot is really helpful in keeping me functional through depression: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003XN4RIC

Another thing I thought of, is that I'm really careful about what movies I watch, what books I read, what music I listen to, etc. There are some exquisitely beautiful movies/music/books/etc, but they touch on depressing topics or have dark themes. And those can start sucking me in and trigger a depressive episode. So I try to surround myself with things that make me happy, essentially. I'm also careful about what news stories I read -- some days I'm feeling strong enough to handle the worst the world has to offer, but other days I know I can't handle it without feeding into the depression, so I don't.

That might seem totally obvious, but occasionally I'll stumble onto music or books or movies that I was into back in college, when I first began struggling with depression, and a lot of it is so depressing! I think there comes a point where the depression and the depressive stimuli feed off each other and nudge you further down that downward spiral.