Depressed?

[libertybrewcity]

Natural and Herbal Remedies for Depression
Just a few:

1) St. John's Wort

The herb St. John's wort (Hypericum perforatum) has long been used in folk medicine for sadness, worry, nervousness, and poor sleep.

Today, the results of over 20 clinical trials suggest that St. John's wort works better than a placebo and is as effective as antidepressants for mild to moderate depression, with fewer side effects.

Studies suggest that St. John's wort is not effective for major depression.

It's available at health food stores, drug stores, and online in the form of capsules, tablets, liquid extracts, or tea.

St. John's wort may take 4 to 6 weeks to notice the full effects. Side effects may include dizziness, dry mouth, indigestion, and fatigue. St. John's wort increases photosensitivity, so extra caution should be taken to protect skin and eyes from sunlight.

Although St. John's wort appears to be reasonably safe when taken alone, it can interfere with the effectiveness of prescription and over-the-counter drugs, such as antidepressants, drugs to treat HIV infections and AIDs, drugs to prevent organ rejection for transplant patients, and oral contraceptives.

St. John's wort is not recommended for pregnant or nursing women, children, or people with bipolar disorder, liver or kidney disease. For more information about St. John's wort, go to the St. John's wort article index.

6) Diet

Reduce your intake of sweets
Sweets temporarily make you feel good as blood sugar levels soar, but may worsen mood later on when they plummet.

Avoid caffeine and alcohol
Caffeine and alcohol both dampen mood. Alcohol temporarily relaxes us and caffeine boosts energy, but the effects of both are short-lived. Both can worsen mood swings, anxiety, depression, and insomnia.

Vitamin B6
Vitamin B6 is needed to produce the mood-enhancing neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine. Although deficiency of vitamin B6 is rare, a borderline deficiency may occur in people taking oral contraceptives, hormone replacement therapy, and drugs for tuberculosis.

Magnesium
Most people do not get enough magnesium in their diets. Good sources of magnesium are legumes, nuts, whole grains and green vegetables. Like vitamin B6, magnesium is needed for serotonin production. Stress depletes magnesium.

http://altmedicine.about.com/od/healthconditionsatod/a/Depression1.htm

 

[moostraks]

Interesting you would bring this up as I have been researching some information on an issue I am having currently and have found that for women it can be a sign of estrogen dominance and the list of what needs to be done to combat it is overwhelming! It includes some of the same responses as yours. It appears that stress can cause a horrible cycle which just grows in magnitude the longer one has been enduring the situation.

 

[Acala]

meditation

Chronic stress leads to sleep dysfunction leads to depression like night follows day.

Meditation breaks the cycle by eliminating stress at the root.

 

[moostraks]

Chronic stress leads to sleep dysfunction leads to depression like night follows day.

Meditation breaks the cycle by eliminating stress at the root.

Quite a number of sites I have be reading on suggest yoga as a means to lower stress as well.

 

[Acala]

yoga

Quite a number of sites I have be reading on suggest yoga as a means to lower stress as well.

Yoga is great. I highly recommend it. I don't think it cuts to the root of chronic stress as directly as seated meditation, but it is very good. And it increases your strength, flexibility and cardiovascular fitness (depending on the style) which seated meditation does not do.

 

[Zippyjuan]

Exercise, getting sun, and avoiding sugary/ fatty foods are a big help. If stress is a cause of the depression, you have to find a way to deal with the cause of that stress. That stress can cause you to adopt habits which re-enforce the depression such as sleeping too much or eating a poor diet to "medicate" yourself with comfort food.

My brother had severe depression related to marital problems and when the divorce was final and she was out of his life, he was able to get rid of all the medicines he was on (he had tried many during the crisis which dragged on for a couple years). I had a less severe bout related to pressures at work. One day (shortly after starting to have panic attacks at night) I decided that if my company really wanted everything done they would have to schedule somebody to help so I stopped trying to do everything. It took just a couple of weeks before I felt a lot better. I tossed off the source of stress. They gave me Prozac for the panic attacks but I never took any of them.

 

[noxagol]

Best way to deal with stress is to deal with whatever is causing the stress IMO. Too often people only treat symptoms instead of treating the cause of symptoms.

 

[Acala]

depends

Best way to deal with stress is to deal with whatever is causing the stress IMO. Too often people only treat symptoms instead of treating the cause of symptoms.

Depends on what you mean.

External conditions - the stressful situations life throws at you - can, to some small extent, be controlled. And if there is a constant source of stress in your life that you CAN change, you should. But much of life is beyond your control.

What IS in your control (with effort and training) is the way you process your own experience of life. Chronic stress can be thought of as an internal struggle against the free flow of experience. Typically and habitually, we struggle against unpleasant experience and grasp at and chase after pleasant experience. This creates physical and mental stress, and a cascade of neurological and endocrine processes that looks to our bodies as if we were constantly under attack by predators. This burns us out.

Instead of accepting and living in the moment, which is generally problem-free, we torture ourselves with a constant stream of negative memories, judgments, and fantasies. THIS is the root cause of chronic stress - the constant, habitual struggle against accepting and living in the present.

If you want to pull chronic stress out by the roots, change the way you process experience. Meditation is scientifically proven to help in this.

 

[cybloo]

Also, if you have depression as well as stomach-related problems (nausea, the runs, cramping, etc... maybe you were diagnosed with IBS), take a good look at your diet to see if any items you eat have a higher fructose to glucose ratio (a medium apple, for example, contains roughly 10g of fructose to 4g of glucose), if the food breaks down into fructose (pit-fruits like peaches contain sorbitol), or if the food contains inulin/fructans such as garlic or onions, plus pretty much all processed food and products containing high amounts of wheat (darn you fructan chains, darn you!)

I have always had major problems with depression, culminating with a nice little stint in the crazy section of a hospital for a few days and then a few weeks of partial-hospitalization... so, I'm pretty familiar with the rollercoaster of medications being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and having my whole system out of whack. People unable to absorb fructose or people who eat large amounts of fructose (not all fructose is absorbed) form what is called a Fructose/L-tryptophan complex which renders the L-tryptophan pretty much useless. This loss of L-tryptophan results in the decreased production of serotonin, and thus, a bad case of the sads. (Source: http://www.fructose.at/pdf/works/9620891.pdf)

Since I've been on a fructose-free, processed-free diet, I've gone through a COMPLETE turn-around with my mental health. I have dealt with depression for over half of my life (I'm twenty-three). I no longer take medication, I feel fine and the only time I ever get feelings of depression is when I think about my student debt... but that's totally situational.

Seriously, a good diet and exercise do wonders to help with mental health problems. Also, if you have the monetary resources and know a trustworthy therapist (ask around!), talking to someone about your mental health struggles can also be very beneficial. Being forced to articulate exactly how you feel and all that hubbaloo that comes out in therapy will help you assess how much of your depression is related to situational problems (like debt) or if it has something to do with an imbalance of brain chemicals (like the decreased production of serotonin).

 

[sratiug]

Exercise, getting sun, and avoiding sugary/ fatty foods are a big help. If stress is a cause of the depression, you have to find a way to deal with the cause of that stress. That stress can cause you to adopt habits which re-enforce the depression such as sleeping too much or eating a poor diet to "medicate" yourself with comfort food.

My brother had severe depression related to marital problems and when the divorce was final and she was out of his life, he was able to get rid of all the medicines he was on (he had tried many during the crisis which dragged on for a couple years). I had a less severe bout related to pressures at work. One day (shortly after starting to have panic attacks at night) I decided that if my company really wanted everything done they would have to schedule somebody to help so I stopped trying to do everything. It took just a couple of weeks before I felt a lot better. I tossed off the source of stress. They gave me Prozac for the panic attacks but I never took any of them.

You need fat. Your brain is 85% water and the other part is I think 90% cholesterol. Almost everyone is dehydrated. Stress causes dehydration and magnesium deficiency. Low magnesium will cause panic attacks and suicide. Magnesium and selenium are essential for seratonin production.

 

[jsu718]

I got your cure for depression right here.
YouTube - Bob Newhart-Stop It!!

 

[idirtify]

Originally Posted by noxagol
Best way to deal with stress is to deal with whatever is causing the stress IMO. Too often people only treat symptoms instead of treating the cause of symptoms.

Depends on what you mean.

External conditions - the stressful situations life throws at you - can, to some small extent, be controlled. And if there is a constant source of stress in your life that you CAN change, you should. But much of life is beyond your control.

What IS in your control (with effort and training) is the way you process your own experience of life. Chronic stress can be thought of as an internal struggle against the free flow of experience. Typically and habitually, we struggle against unpleasant experience and grasp at and chase after pleasant experience. This creates physical and mental stress, and a cascade of neurological and endocrine processes that looks to our bodies as if we were constantly under attack by predators. This burns us out.

Instead of accepting and living in the moment, which is generally problem-free, we torture ourselves with a constant stream of negative memories, judgments, and fantasies. THIS is the root cause of chronic stress - the constant, habitual struggle against accepting and living in the present.

If you want to pull chronic stress out by the roots, change the way you process experience. Meditation is scientifically proven to help in this.

…said one slave to another.

Really. Come on! We are slaves telling each other why we shouldn’t be depressed and how not to be depressed, and the object of the game is to talk about it without mentioning the MAIN source of our suffering; our masters.

First, don’t underestimate the influential capacity of external elements and the effectiveness of physically dealing with them (at least trying to get rid of them). Second, mediation is not only a great way to adapt to adverse conditions, but a great way to improve adverse conditions; too many people only emphasize the former. Third, our role-model custodians (parents, adult guardians, etc) have a huge influence on our stress level; and the bigger the role-model, the bigger the influence – and nothing is bigger than big government. So don’t exclude big government when listing the main stressors in life.

IOW if you acknowledge that a dysfunctional family is a huge source of misery, then you MUST acknowledge that a dysfunctional government is a bigger source.

Oh BTW, mediation is not only great for dealing with stress, but also for identifying previously unknown sources of it (seeing out of the foresty).

 

[brandon]

Woke up feeling pretty damn depressed today. Likely related to some of the dreams I had last night....thinking about past friends, girlfriends, and the general passage of time.

Feeling a little better now.


/blog post

 

[MelissaWV]

You need fat. Your brain is 85% water and the other part is I think 90% cholesterol. Almost everyone is dehydrated. Stress causes dehydration and magnesium deficiency. Low magnesium will cause panic attacks and suicide. Magnesium and selenium are essential for seratonin production.

"Fatty foods" aren't necessary to get the daily requirement of "fat." You glean quite a lot of the oils you need from other things in a healthy diet. There are also some high cholesterol foods that are fantastic in moderation. It's about balancing things out, and cutting out the processed stuff will most likely cut out most of the "fatty foods" in your diet, unless you are into rich sauces and meats.

Dehydration is a biggie too, though. Cutting out the caffeinated beverages and lowering your sodium intake (which will, again, happen if you're ditching most of the processed stuff and HFCS products) helps with this. If you happen to take in a lot of sodium, combat it with Potassium.

Frankly, freaking out about all of this stuff is likely to stress you out worse, in which case you're going to wind up depressed or dead

 

[MelissaWV]

Woke up feeling pretty damn depressed today. Likely related to some of the dreams I had last night....thinking about past friends, girlfriends, and the general passage of time.

Feeling a little better now.


/blog post

Happens to me in some form or another most nights. I am a little nightmare factory. The hazy afterimages tend to leave by mid-morning, though, as I busy myself with the present

 

[GunnyFreedom]

I'd like to reiterate the importance of getting sun -- it's not just a psychological thing, there is a very real chemical interaction between your skin's melatonin and sunlight to create a vitamin D balance that helps to stabilize your serotonin and dopamine cycles. I am bad for lack of sunlight, but I do know that the sunlight thing is actually a chemical process that helps ward off depression, and not just a psychological thing about being out in the sun.

 

[Acala]

Yup

Frankly, freaking out about all of this stuff is likely to stress you out worse, in which case you're going to wind up depressed or dead

Yup. Self-induced chronic stress is responsible for more illness and suffering than all the unhealthy food, uhealthy lifestyle, and environmental contamination combined.

 

[Acala]

Ummm . . .

Really. Come on! We are slaves telling each other why we shouldn’t be depressed and how not to be depressed, and the object of the game is to talk about it without mentioning the MAIN source of our suffering; our masters.

The main source of non-optimal living conditions is government. The main source of unhappiness is the mind.

If the "cure" for depression is throwing off the shackles of government, everyone had better get used to being depressed because that unhealthy artifact of human imperfection is not going away anytime soon.

 

[rancher89]

YMMV

Not everything will work for everyone, the basic thing is you have to take control, figure out what the source is and then determine the best course to take.

Depression has been with me since I was in grade school, some years/days were worse than others, but I got through it. Sometimes with meds, sometimes not.

Now, no meds, a goodly amount of exercise in the sun everyday and fewer processed foods, greatly lowered intake of caffeine (I just can't kick it completely) and a much better living condition than ever before equals less depression issues for me. That's with us both being unemployed--and that's a stressful situation, but it's OK....

 

[idirtify]

The main source of unhappiness is the mind.

HA! Yeah right. And the main source of pain is the nervous system.