Do depression and anxiety always need medical treatment? I say NO! Part 1.

in #health7 years ago

As you all know by now, I’m a nutrition consultant and natural therapist, so I have great faith in the body’s ability to heal itself, if it’s given what it needs.

First, to be really clear, nothing I’m going to say in this post is to be taken as medical advice. There are some things you can safely try yourself, at minimal or no expense, which may help a great deal. But this doesn’t mean we never need medical treatment, or other professional help. So make sure to keep your options open and be responsible for your own wellbeing. And remember that this is an overview, just to give you some ideas of the potential approaches.

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In my opinion, there are two quite distinct reasons for depression and anxiety, which need different approaches:

• Physical reasons
• Situational ie. things that have happened to you that need resolving

PHYSICAL

Today I’m going to look at the physical side.

I’m going to break that down into biochemical / nutritional reasons, toxicity and structural.

Biochemical

You may be depressed because your body cannot make the neuro transmitters necessary for emotional wellbeing. This includes serotonin and endorphins.

Sometimes this can be helped with a change in diet. This is a situation where I would recommend against a vegan, vegetarian or low fat diet. That’s because it is difficult to get enough of the required nutrients from plant foods, especially low fat ones.

Amino acids such as tryptophan are needed to make neuro transmitters. Amino acids come from protein. Although we can get protein from plant foods, we need to combine foods from three different groups of plants to get all of the essential amino acids – any 3 out of nuts, seeds, legumes and grains. Animal foods are complete proteins in one food, and we need less of it to fulfil our needs.

Vitamin D is considered by some experts to be a hormone, as well a vitamin. The Psychology Today website says:

Regardless of cause, deficiency of vitamin D has significant medical and psychological consequences. Every tissue in the body has vitamin D receptors, including the brain, heart, muscles, and immune system, which means vitamin D is needed at every level for the body to function.

Vitamin D is also the only vitamin that is a hormone…

… vitamin D activates genes that regulate the immune system and release neurotransmitters (e.g., dopamine, serotonin) that affect brain function and development. Researchers have found vitamin D receptors (link is external) on a handful of cells located in regions in the brain - the same regions that are linked with depression.

Vitamin D3 is only available from two sources – animal foods such as butter, cod liver oil and organ meats and from the sun. To get Vit D from the sun, you need the sun to be directly above you in the sky, nothing between your skin and the sun (including creams) and your body needs access to cholesterol.

And cholesterol means saturated fats, from animal foods. These days, when so many people are scared of animal foods, and cover up when going out in the sun, is it any wonder there is increasing levels of Vit D deficiency?

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If this is the only problem, that may be all you need to do, so correcting your diet is always a good place to start:

 Eat 2-3 serves a day of animal protein
 Don’t worry about it being low fat – the fat is good for your mental state!
 Make sure you have a source of Vit D in your diet
 And as I always recommend, avoid toxic foods and eat real ones like fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, olive oil

Further reading: The Mood Cure by Julia Ross, or see her website here

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Sometimes supplements are needed as well. They could include 5HTP, DLPA, herbs or supplemental vitamins. I recommend seeing an experienced practitioner such as a naturopath or wholistic physician to find out what you need.

Another type of practitioner that could be helpful is a homeopath. We have several great homeopaths on Steemit. Go to the homeopathy tag to check them out.

Since this post is about what you can do yourself, I’m not going to go into too much detail in the next two sections. It’s mostly to alert you to some of the possibilities you could explore with a practitioner.

Toxic overload

This is also a biochemical issue, but one that isn’t as easy to address. We live in a toxic world. Our livers do a wonderful job of dealing with harmful substances, but they have their limits.

The next step after making sure you’re eating the right nutrients, would be to investigate:

• Food or environmental allergies
• Disrupted gut biome
• Not enough digestive enzymes

Put these three together, and you have the potential for all sorts of damage, including undigested food (especially gluten and casein from dairy) getting into your bloodstream, crossing your blood/brain barrier and getting picked up by the morphine receptors in the brain.

Further reading: “Gut and Psychology Syndrome” (the GAPS book) by Natasha Campbell-McBride or see her website here.

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Also see my post about allergies here, and my posts about GAPS: About the Gut & Psychology syndrome (GAPS) diet Part 1 ~ GAPS diet Part 2: Foods we can’t have ~ GAPS diet Part 3: Foods we CAN have ~ GAPS diet Part 4: What if I can’t eat some animal foods

If you still have no relief, you might need to look at some of these:

• Mercury toxicity from amalgams or vaccinations
• Other heavy metal overload
• Chemical overload
• EMF damage from cell phones, cell towers, or appliances

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Structural

I’m using the term quite widely here.

This could include alignment issues with your muscles and bones. For example, if you have alignment issues with your neck, that can cause food allergies. Or if might stop blood flow to the brain. Practitioners who could help with this type of issue could include a chiropractor or cranial sacral therapist.

It could also include a leaky gut lining, which goes hand in hand with having the wrong balance of bacteria in your digestive system. So GAPS would be a good starting point for that too.

There are other possibilities but that’s probably enough to be going on with!

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SITUATIONAL

These conditions need a quite different approach and will be covered in my next post.

Thanks for reading and don’t hesitate to ask questions

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Thanks For Sharing!!! I Agree. Making lots of money helps because you can buy the best foods. FOLLOWING YOU!

Absolutely. It's hard for people with low incomes to afford the foods needed for good health. Thanks for pointing that out.

Yes, money is actually the answer to almost anything I find. And I don't feel guilty or weird for saying that anymore. It just is!

Certainly it's easier to do what you want in life with some financial backing!

It depends!

While a good diet is an important tool in fighting mental health illnesses there are many other factors to take into account. The pressure of our modern life with many wondering how they can afford to get through the next week is a major factor in the rise of mental illness.
People should use every avenue they can control such as diet, exercise and medicine but when in the grip of mental illness the first two options can be difficult for you to do.

I quite agree. I'm not saying don't take your meds. Just that sometimes there are other options to try. Although I'll cover some ways to deal with past situations and stress in the next post, if simply being unable to afford to live is the underlying problem, then we (as a whole) need to be looking for long term societal solutions.

I've always looked at depression with only the mental part. but yes, it makes a lot of sense that it's also physical. good to know.

The physical and biochemical have way more influence on us than most people realise. Just knowing that is hopefully empowering.

Great great comment. Sometimes I wonder if mental is not just another part of physical. Following YOU!!

I think the physical and mental are very closely related.

I Agree. They say your gut and your brain is connected. But what if the mind is separate from the brain. Following you.

Happy to the topic analysed, although I find the physical conditions as more interesting read for my wife for example.

Would expect more details on the situational conditions .. definitely something I would enjoy reading and have personal experience for sharing.

Thank you @kiwideb!

Yes, some people will relate more to the physical components and some to the emotional ones. Though in truth, most of us probably have a bit of both going on.

Never knew depression can be acquired by food habits too. Thats for sharing. A vegan has all the disadvantages from nutrition point of view. A vegan has to be more watchful of what they eat. Proteins in particular is always missing in vegans and causes a lot of health issues.

I understand the ethics of being vegan, though it's not as clear cut as they think. But I worry for their long term health. While we all have different dietary needs, there are not many people suited to that extreme a diet, if any.

I Agree it doesn't make sense to me, although people get healthy in the short term. Really healthy!!! LOL. And lose tons of weight I think.

I think vegan diets are good for a temporary cleanse, and get people off rubbish but in the long term, the deficiencies set in.

Great article Deb. Even taking the first step of actually caring for what one puts into one's body can make a depressed person feel that they are capable of doing something for themselves. 🦋

Yes, true. You get the benefit of the better nutrition but also a better sense of empowerment.


Nutritional supplements for the treatment of depression
Fish: Almost every research done on omega-3 fatty acids in recent years has had implications that these essential fatty acids have helped to treat depression.You do not have to consume fish just to be able to get omega-3 fatty acids, flaxseed oil, pumpkin seeds, walnuts are very rich in fatty acids Fruits and Vegetables: Fruits and vegetables rich in vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and dietary fiber can be used to relieve symptoms of depression.

Strawberries, citrus fruits, bananas, melons, tomatoes, green leafy vegetables, broccoli, asparagus, Brussels cabbage are some of the fruits and vegetables you can consume for your physical and mental health.especially B6 and folic acid, contributed to the emotional state imbalance and alleviated the symptoms of depression.You can take vitamin B6 from cereals, potatoes, bananas, chickpeas, chicken, steak, trout, sunflower seeds, peanut butter and spinach

Yes, I agree that a wide range of foods can be helpful. I think essential fatty acids can be helpful, IF that is what is missing, BUT it still needs to be in the presence of saturated fats. Traditional tribes got over 90% of their fat calories from saturated fats. The EFAs were important, but only in small amounts. Thanks for adding to the info on the post.

Very good advice, and you have brought up a couple of things I haven't even thought of, such as skeletal structure. I can see this issue possibly affecting my daughter. I also had my youngest son at the doctor today, he has been struggling with increasingly bad stomach aches. She mentioned various possibilities, one of them being gluten intolerance. Depression and anxiety run in the family and you have given me additional avenues to research.

Dr Natasha (GAPS diet) says that about 1/3 of people get better with a gluten free and/or casein free diet, 1/3 have some improvement but not completely, and 1/3 have no change. I think it's a good first step to just cut out gluten, and see what happens, and take it from there. Don't hesitate to bounce ideas off me.

Thank you for the offer, I will most likely take you up on it. My son's stomach pain seems to have intensified, so I am going to have to have a hard look at his diet.

First of all, that's the same caveat I tell my patients. I hate it when people dismiss other forms of cure while preaching theirs as superior. There are some cures that are no doubt questionable, but there are a lot of viable cures out there that are dismissied because of misinformation. The body can cure itself, it's so wonderful like that, but there are things that could help support it.

Depression is such a touchy subject, isn't it? Quite too often, people are ridiculed for having it because it's almost always misunderstood. People who use "depressed" as a substitute for sadness doesn't help it one bit. Maybe because it's unseen, that's why it's hard to nail down. The best thing people could do is to listen and understand. There are many who are suffering out there that refuse to speak up out of fear. I do hope that one day there will be a magic bullet that cures it, but for now the thing we can do is to just help each other out. These are really helpful tips, Deb. Thanks for sharing them!

I think there are so many different causes, and so many potential "cures" that there will never be a magic bullet. But the more we can talk about different things to try, the more people who might be able to help themselves. The key thing is keeping an open mind about what the best remedy might be.

Yes! I couldn't have said it better myself!

How I started healing from my anger issues was mostly through... doing new shit.

And yes, that included therapy and meds.

It was just something I wanted to try, and it worked.

Bottom line? Do something different, if you want different results.

And that is probably the most important thing - do something different, anything at all. And see what happens. If that doesn't help, try something else different. Be curious about what you might be able to change. Thanks for adding that thought.

No worries.

Quite frankly, I am not a fan of mere thought shifting or reading up of knowledge to cure mental illness.

They only give a little knowledge.

Then you need to apply.

I been through all of that, so much so I even wasted money on worthless courses online where people told me what to do only.

I can honestly say changed happened for me when I went for therapy, got a dog, started doing housework and cooking.

Some of these changes were forced on me.

But ultimately, they helped because I was doing something different.

Otherwise, I was only always on the internet expecting change.