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

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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!

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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