Cam Cam Cam: Any little thought appeared I'd kill it as quickly as I could. (...)
Slowing the mind down doesn't seem to be the right thing for people with depression - in fact some will say it's absolutely contraindicated. But I guess it depends on the type and severity. Bruno says it cured his depression, which I believe.
CCC, I did not end my depression by
slowing the mind down, I ended it through doing insight practice all the way to stream-entry. During insight retreats the mind, quite far from slowing down, becomes very very powerful and intense. As is explained in the book I recommended earlier in the thread, there are two ways to bring the mind to silence. One way is to cause "mental tension" that doesn't let the thoughts "pass through." We can all do this, it is very easy and fast. If done for a prolonged period of time, it will cause tremendous amounts of stress and fatigue, as you have been able to verify.
From my understanding of the literature, silencing the mind is not done by suppressing thoughts, is done by purifying the mind in the places where thoughts are created, until they no longer occur. This is done by being aware of thoughts as they occur until they can be seen arising very close to the place where thought arise from. This awareness should eventually work to clear the impurity. A silenced mind is not a slow mind, in fact we could argue that it works faster than a noisy mind, at least it certainly works better. While it might subjectively be described by saying, among other things, that
the torrent of thoughts slowed down, that doesn't mean that the cognitive faculties themselves slowed down.
Since stream-entry my mental chatter has diminished, but far from completely. My depression did go away.
That vibrating chair trick sounds cool, I'll try it out when I get the chance :-)
Also kasina meditation might be an interesting thing to try.