I welcome anyone else who has something to add here - seeing as many of us have these issues from time to time and although we may all know that 'the difficulties are the path'.. Sometimes the way in which we live is causing us some unneeded trouble.

Things that I do myself and that have been shown to be helpful for many other people (non-meditators):

1. Take Niacin - the flush kind, not the slo kind, either with each meal or right as you fall asleep. I find it helps keep me from getting into excessive levels of anxiety and seems to somehow make sleep much more refreshing as well. It can make you a bit loopy during the day so beware. Also try a small dose in the evening a few times before trying more so you can get used to the flush and itching. I kind of think its refreshing but sometimes people can't stand it. I take ~1000mg before I fall asleep. Your liver needs extra water to deal with this so plan on drinking a bit extra with this or having more in your glass by the bed for the middle of the night.

2. Take Magnesium (not the magnesium oxide which is poorly absorbed but citrate or something else) - I take this three times a day, probably a total of 600-1000mg. It can 'loosen you up' so start this slowly and see what a comfortable dosage is. This has been shown to drastically help people with severe depression and anxiety - the more you read about it the more you can become convinced that everyone is walking around deficient in this mineral as it has been fairly depleted from the soil and locked away by many of the herbicides used in farming today.

3. Exercise - find something you like to do that is 'exercise' and do it. Personally I find I feel the best when I work out pretty hard but everyone has their own feelings on this. 5-6 days a week is probably good unless you do something that requires lots of recovery - you will have to be the judge on this. I feel overall much better while training regularly, as do my friends. After a few weeks you may notice that your overall energy levels are better and your moods may even be up a notch on average.

4. Fish oil - probably everyone should be taking this by default anyway. Our food nowdays contains so little omega 3 compared to the environment we evolved in that this is very easy to get out of balance. Supposedly it helps with seratonin production which is good for mood. Has too many other benefits to leave off the list!

5. If some of the emotions seem to be connected to old events or thoughts that you cannot quite see that keep repeating like a broken record it *may* be something that can be helped with therapy. Sometimes the stuff we uncover in meditation can be dealt with best in other ways (and sometimes not). Currently I am doing Somatic Experiencing and it has actually allowed me to uncover and pull apart/release some difficult emotional 'stuff' that probably resulted from childhood events. Its a slow process but probably worth it if you seem to have stuff like that come up (although its hard to know what is what sometimes with the nanas cycling and whatnot). Somatic Experiencing is more like a meditative/energy technique, not at all about the thinking mind. Its amazing how easy it is to use meditation to keep ourselves from feeling something that needs to be felt without even knowing we are doing it at all...

Hope someone finds some of this useful. If we get a few more things in here maybe this will be worth sticky status

See this book: Anxiety Orthomolecular Diagnosis and Treatment

I will add to this that if someone wants to do this they should read the writings/books of the late Canadian physician Dr. Abram Hoffer. Dr. Abram Hoffer M.D. P.h.D was the discoverer that Niacin lowers cholesterol and a founder of "Orthomolecular Medicine." He was a practicing psychiatrist and biochemist that successfully treated mental health conditions with a combination of pharmaceutical medications and vitamins/niacin. He treated over 5,000 schizophrenic patients (many with resounding success - particularly if they were acute cases rather than chronic) using Niacin and pharmaceuticals. He treated many mental health conditions but was particularly an excelled expert in schizophrenia and megavitamins, There is a lot of material on this on the website doctoryourself.com. There are some reports that the slo release or extended release kind has damaged some people's livers, but there is no such evidence for the immediate release kind at any dosage. Hoffer himself took 4.5-6 grams of niacin (regular/flush immediate release) daily for over 50 years until his death at age 92.

Also note that standard medicine has not yet accepted orthomolecular treatment (for any condition) and it was dismissed as a treatment for schizophrenia by the APA (American Psychiatric Association) in a 1973 report titled "(1973). Task Force Report on Megavitamin and Orthomolecular Therapy in Psychiatry. American Psychiatric Association." (This report can be found in many university libraries). Dr. Hoffer felt the report was deeply flawed/biased and he wrote a lengthy response detailing all the methodological problems which can be found here:http://www.iahf.com/orthomolecular/reply_to_apa_tfr_7.pdf

Hoffer focused/specialized in schizophrenia, but you can find his views on niacin and bipolar disorder and its relationship to schizophrenia in this article. His definition of schizoaffective in the article would be what is now called bipolar with psychotic features. Schizoaffective would now mean psychosis symptoms when the mood is normal, but the person has experienced or experiences mania or depression: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Bipolar+disorder+and+orthomolecular+treatment.-a0213722863

Also nicotinamide/niacinamide (not the same thing as niacin - nicotinic acid) can cause temporary symptoms of psychiatric depression (which goes away when the niacinamide is stopped) in a few select patients when it is taken in high doses.

See the below links

www.doctoryourself.com
Anxiety: Orthomolecular Diagnosis and Treatment
Healing Schizophrenia
Orthomolecular Treatment for Schizophrenia

Hoffer believed schizophrenia was caused by a byproduct of adrenaline called adrenochrome and its derivatives adrenolutin and noradrenochrome. Similarly, he believed a product of L-dopa called dopachrome was psychotomimetic. Hoffer's experiments with adrenochrome and its derivatives can be found in great detail in a book titled "The Hallucinogens" which can be found online for free in the below link. Standard medicine has dismissed adrenochrome citing it as not being psychoactive/psychotomimetic (often citing a faulty experiment) but numerous experiments detailed in the books "The Hallucinogens" and "Healing Schizophrenia" clearly shows otherwise.

http://www.erowid.org/library/books_online/hallucinogens_hoffer_osmond.pdf

Also, I have noticed that Richard (of the actual freedom trust) has written:

here http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listafcorrespondence/listaf78b.htm

This would actually confirm Dr. Hoffer's hypothesis. Richard's state of an "actual freedom" is a state where very little to no adrenaline is produced, thus if adrenaline is produced/injected, it is quickly oxidized into the hallucinogenic derivatives that Hoffer found. In a non-schizophrenic person Hoffer felt that adrenochrome would form primarily into a harmless compound called 5,6-Dihydroxy-N-methylindole which has some anti-anxiety effects. In people with schizophrenia the pathway becomes noradrenaline->adrenaline->adrenochrome->adrenolutin. Noradrenaline can also be formed from dopamine.

I recommend SAM-e as well. It tends to keep the lows from being very low. I have taken it for years. I get it at costco.