Tricking Supplements Volume II

Save your tricking from winter depression

You become sad when the sun disappears during the winter. Sadness harms your tricking. Here are 11 things to try:

1. Vitamin D3: 10,000+ iu / day

Vitamin D is a fad. But the Vitamin D fad is good!

I noticed a recurring pattern: The sun goes away for the winter, I become emo Juji within two months; The sun comes back for the spring, I become joyful Juji within two weeks. The logic is simple: The sun provides an insane amount of Vitamin D; Without the sun, we're missing out on getting insane amounts of Vitamin D.

So, following this overly simplified piece of logic: Supplement with an insane amount of Vitamin D. I've done this the past two winters, and these were the only two winters I can remember since I started tricking I didn't get that "sad tricking funk" during January-February.

2. DMAE: 1 gram / day

It's a nootropic, so it's supposedly beneficial for your brain. Typical recommended dosing is about 250 mg per day, but I've never noticed anything at this dose. So I started knocking back over 1 gram / day. I noticed an "uplift" in my mood and a very slight sensation in my upper chest. I've found this "uplift" to be particularly appreciable during the first few days of a caffeine abstinence.



DMAE has an adequate amount of research backing it, and it's incredibly cheap. From a website like truenutrition.com, you can purchase almost 3 years worth of DMAE at the 1 gram / day dose for $35. Why not try it?

3. Fish oil: 10-18 gel caps / day

Fish oil is another good fad because it actually works.



I've found I can discern fish oil's efficacy by not taking it for a couple months, and then start taking it again at 10-18 gel caps a day. When I start taking it again, I notice less pain and discomfort in my connective tissues and muscles after about three weeks. Keeping in line with the theme of "antidepression", by virtue of alleviating post-exercise induced discomfort (probably partly by virtue of quenching inflammation), I feel better. Feeling better means less depression. This is, however, more appropriately a corollary to the piles of research indicative of it functioning directly as an antidepressant in-itself.

4. 5-htp: 300 mg / night

In my old sleep secrets write up, I noted that I was not impressed with 5-htp. However, that was at 100 mg / night.



Later, I inherited a bottle of 5-htp leftovers and decided to give it another shot. This time I tripled the recommended dose to 300 mg / night. Throughout the next week I had a series of intense nightmares every. single. night. At least one of them woke me up out of my sleep in a distinctive panic.



It was awesome. If anything helps fight depression, it's a nightmare.

5. Hot drinks with caffeine

From my experience, any source of caffeine, whether it's tea, coffee, guarana, animal rage, a carbonated energy drink, or just a plain caffeine tablet seem to impart the same, predictable tricking performance enhancing experience. But, for some reason which I'm still in some disbelief about: coffee seems to improve my mood more than any other source of caffeine? Maybe it's placebo? But given that scalding, black coffee is pretty nice during a sultry summer afternoon...?



I... I meant a bleak winter morning. hmmm... Placebo effect be damned: caffeine through coffee seems to put me in a better mood comparatively to other forms of caffeine! And it stains my teeth too!

Non ingestible supplements

Here are some other non-ingestible supplementary actions tricksters can take to beat depression.

6. Hibernation

Who doesn't feel the urge to hibernate during the winter? I sure do. The past couple of years, during the last two weeks of December and the first week of January, I've slept for three weeks uninterrupted. Every time I finish my hibernation, I feel confused and muddy for a couple of days, but after those first few days, I feel incredible! I mean, I feel like a new man! It also helps lose weight, because not eating while you sleep for three weeks straight burns fat (but also burns muscle unfortunately).



If you cannot set aside 3 weeks for hibernation, at least try getting 1 hour extra sleep each night during the winter season. Getting extra sleep is one of the best tactics for beating winter depression. Besides, winter is dark, so there's also a natural inclination to sleep more working in your favor.

7. Trick in a gym

Do you think Vellu bothers to bundle up in a million jackets to throw a b-twist in the snow? Maybe for novelty, but Vellu is a resourceful man: he tricks in bomb shelter caves during the winter. Seriously: and for serious tricksters: maintaining a grip on your top tier tricks during the winter by finding a gym you can trick in each and every week is essential for maintaining your sanity. Sure, trick outside as much as the weather allows, but during some stretches of winter, the weather gods will conspire against you (and that will depress you).

8. Another training outlet

Winter is also the most appropriate time to stop stressing over tricking gains, try taking an off season to focus on other physical training qualities. Strength. Lift weights. Get your max lifts up. Flexibility. Etc. This will improve your mood because you'll still be working towards an athletic goal and working hard, without having your tricks compromised by damp and cold winter terrains or being constantly reminded that tricking always sucks more during the winter.

9. Avoidance of power ballads and melancholic music

From my own experience, during my most depressing winters, I noticed a tendency to listen to more heavy metal power ballads, melodic death metal, doom metal (music for depressed, extra-sentimental, decadent, defeated, sappy, or weary people. Or weirdos).





Any sort of album or track or playlist with a hypnotic, haunting, melancholy, ... vibe... Be skeptical that listening to this music to suit your mood (usually an exhausted and/or pessimistic state) is necessarily a good idea. In fact, it's probably not an idea you have, you probably don't think about it when you do it, you just find yourself listening to this music when you're "In the mood for it." Fast, up-beat, and maniacal music seems to irritate the crap out of you or evade your senses when you're in one of these dark moods *snicker*

Two things to try: #1 Don't listen to any music. Or #2 Only listen to a couple tracks. And then assess whether it's reinforcing a depressed mood, or whether you've got a grip.

10. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Some of the philosophical texts and ideologies I've courted have tricked me (Lucius Annaeus Seneca!!! *shakes fist*), but Emerson's have only uplifted me. Emerson is a bad ass. His is a philosophy that will make you want to take action: which is the greatest remedy for depression. I highly recommend his Essays. Look how awesome he looks! He's cool looking haha!

11. Funny

Funny is kind of the opposite of Sad. When you're sad, you feel below the world, you feel it weighing heavily on you. When you seek out funny things and funny in things, and work to cultivate and harness the funny in you, you feel above the world, like you're dancing on it, and you take things lightly.

Humor and laughter are habits actually, and it's helpful to see them as such. To see them as habits means to see them as something that you are responsible for, and can, and must train. You must force funny into your life. You must enter a banana state of mind.