We all know of someone who has suffered or is suffering with depression and anxiety.
It can take quite a toll on both the one that’s suffering and the carer. Some of us personally know what it’s like to live with people who are also struggling with being bipolar.
These conditions can be quite trying and soul destroying to the person suffering and the carer.
This article isn’t about how to live and cope with it, but rather learning how to overcome it with good nutrition. Few people are aware of the nutritional connection.
While many easily understand the connection between nutritional deficiencies and a physical illness, depression is more typically thought of as strictly biochemical-based or emotionally-rooted.
So with this in mind, why would anyone believe nutritional deficiency can play a role in this illness?
Research clearly shows nutrition can actually play a key role in the onset as well as the severity and duration of depression and anxiety.
Depression & Anxiety Pathways
Many of the easily noticeable food patterns that precede depression and anxiety are the same as those that occur during depression.
These may include poor appetite, skipping meals, and a dominant desire for sweet foods and alcohol.
Current research in psycho-neuroimmunology and brain biochemistry indicates the possibility of communication pathways that can provide a clearer understanding of the association between nutritional intake, central nervous system and immune function.
This then influences an individual’s psychological health status and how they feel and behave.
These findings may lead to greater acceptance of the therapeutic value of dietary intervention among health practitioners and health care providers addressing depression, anxiety, and many other psychological disorders.
How Cutting Out Certain Foods Can Help
Certain foods can also make people prone to lethargy, and on rare occasions extreme tiredness or exhaustion. If foods can have that effect on the body, then surely it can affect on our brain chemistry.
Cutting out refined sugar that can be found in cakes, biscuits, pop such as coke and lemonade etc, has been found to relieve tiredness, depression and anxiety.
In essence…
Depression is a disorder associated with major symptoms such as increased sadness and anxiety, loss of appetite, depressed mood, and a loss of interest in pleasurable activities.
The truth is…
We now live in a wheat, grain, sugar and dairy dominant world. We are actually encouraged to eat tons of them…just go to the supermarket and you’ll see they’re in pretty much in everything.
Yet, most research seems to agree that too much modern wheat, grains, sugar and dairy can be toxic to our system. Why isn’t enough done to encourage people to eat healthier?
Dietary Patterns & Mental Disorders
The most common mental disorders that are currently prevalent in numerous countries are depression and anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
The dietary intake pattern of the general population in many western countries reflects that they are often deficient in many nutrients, especially essential vitamins, minerals, and omega-3 fatty acids.
A notable feature of the diets of patients suffering from mental disorders is the severity of deficiency in these nutrients.
Studies have indicated that daily supplements of vital nutrients are often effective in reducing patients’ symptoms.
On the basis of accumulating scientific evidence, an effective therapeutic intervention is emerging through nutritional supplementation.
This may be appropriate for controlling and to some extent, preventing depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, eating disorders and anxiety disorders, attention deficit disorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD), autism, and addiction.
Most prescription drugs, including the common antidepressants lead to side effects, and they’re horrible. Take olanzapine for example, you can rapidly gain weight within weeks, and it can be difficult to stop taking it.
Prescription side effects usually cause patients to skip taking their medications. Such noncompliance is a common occurrence encountered by psychiatrists.
Overcoming Depression & Anxiety
When we take a close look at the diet of depressed people, an interesting observation is that their nutrition is far from adequate.
They make poor food choices and select foods that might actually contribute to depression.
It’s common to see people with depression and anxiety feeding it with toxins, rather than trying to change it with good nutritional choices.
Researchers attribute the decline in the consumption of omega-3 fatty acids from fish and other sources in most populations to an increasing trend in the incidence of major depression and anxiety.
The two omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) which the body converts into docosahexanoic acid (DHA), found in fish oil, have been found to elicit antidepressant effects in humans.
Randomised, controlled trials that involve folate and vitamin B12 suggest that people will exhibit decreased depression symptoms.
Using A High-Quality Mineral Supplement
To top up your short fall of life giving foods, using a high-quality mineral supplement such as Modere Mineral Solutions is a good choice. This supplement gives a real boost to depleted bodies.
In essence, minerals are the building blocks of life, and are vital to both good physical and mental health as research increasingly points to nutritional deficiency impacting on brain chemistry and subsequently mental health.
Very few people have won two Nobel prizes. Professor Linus Pauling shares such an honour with Marie Curie for his research into Mineral deficiency in humans.
He stated that “Every disease every ailment known to man can be traced back to a mineral deficiency”.
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