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Top Santa Clarita chiropractor and nutrition advisor offers effective options for natural drug-free depression relief without potentially dangerous side effects from medications.
If you are depressed or know someone who suffers from depression, and you don’t like anti-depressant drugs because of the side effects, there are options for natural, drug-free depression relief that can help you feel better both mentally and physically.
Depression and disorders associated with medications to treat depression account for 23 percent of the total global disease burden. That’s even higher than AIDS, tuberculosis and diabetes.
But depression and related anxiety really hit home when they affect someone you love and you feel helpless as they become more and more hopeless.
Not Everyone Can ‘Snap Out of It’ When Suffering Depression
Most of us face moments of depression, sometimes even to the extent we might consider death an easier option than overcoming the challenge that faces us.
Most of us find a way to “snap out of it” and a reason to keep going, get through it, find joy in the accomplishment, and share it.
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But for people who suffer more severe depression, there is no joy, and no joy to share. And as well- intentioned conventional psychiatric-medical approaches may be to help treat depression, the statistics are not great.
An upset in body chemistry – an imbalance of serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the nervous system and the brain chemical that anti-depressants manage – is a symptom of depression, not the cause.
Just treating symptoms with drugs and endless office visits is unnecessarily expensive and often ineffective.
The reason depression is so difficult to manage with a prescription or a supplement designed to affect serotonin is because depression, like most diseases, has many contributing factors. Stress is another trigger for depression and anxiety and alters body chemistry.
Without addressing these factors, treating symptoms is temporary at best, and even more harmful at worst.
Anti-Depressant Drugs Can Have Dangerous Side Effects
Studies show how anti-depressant drugs that affect the levels of serotonin in the body have only a slightly better outcome than placebo.
Psychiatric drugs are responsible for 42,000 deaths each year and 700,000 reported adverse reactions including:
- Suicide
- Murder
- Diabetes
- Brittle bones
- Heart attack
- Stoke
- Impotence
There has to be a better way to beat depression, without the risk of even more depressing side effects.
Natural Alternatives to Drugs for Depression
Many natural alternatives can help restore the brain chemistry imbalance that might contribute to depression – even better, without the potentially dangerous side effects.
Examples of natural supplements include:
- *5-HTP – from 50mg up to 300mg three times daily. This may increase serotonin levels.
- *St. John’s Wort – from 300mg up to 600mg three times daily. This has the same effect on the brain chemicals serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine as anti-depressant drugs, without the aforementioned side effects.
*Note: These are not recommended if you are currently taking anti-depression medication.
Empathy Exercise for Understanding Depression
If you have had no personal encounter with depression and don’t quite understand it, and you want to have empathy for a loved one or friend who is depressed, just as an exercise, try projecting yourself into a truly depressing situation.
Read the news (plenty to work with there). Recall one soul-crusher you’ve experienced yourself. Or get creative, and make one up.
Now, seriously focus your attention on the painful emotions. Experience the mood swings, the heart-pounding terror and fear. Run through all the scenarios in your head, and conclude there is no hope of changing your circumstances.
You also need to withdraw from social and physical activity, feel what it’s like to be alone and lost. Eat bad foods that make you feel worse and give up on your personal hygiene.
It also helps to hang your head down, slouch when you walk, and breathe short breaths to starve your brain of oxygen.
You’re alone. Nobody knows you exist, much less cares. You have nothing to look forward to. You don’t care about anything anymore, except stopping the pain.
Don’t try this as part of the exercise, but imagine being in so much pain, you feel your only relief is by self-medicating with alcohol or drugs. Imagine becoming a drug addict or alcoholic or both, deepening the feeling of hopelessness, isolation and pain, and not caring if you live or die?
Imagine feeling this badly for a few days. Then day after day, for weeks. Then months, years…
Makes you feel empty, doesn’t it? What a horrible way to live. It’s depressing.
How to Help Yourself ‘Snap Out of It’ When Depressed
Fortunately for you and everyone around you who cares about you, you can usually snap out of depression using some natural techniques.
- Stand up!
- Shake your arms and legs out like a boxer or a swimmer warming up for a race.
- Hold your held high and continue to breathe deeply. Take 10 minutes and mediate. Clear your head.
- Then remember your proudest moment, when the people most important to you acknowledged your accomplishments.
- Remember how you felt when you comforted a friend who was down, or shared a bit of your good fortune with a homeless person.
- Now remember your most intense laugh-out-loud experience – you know, when you were a kid and laughed so hard you spewed your milk through your nose.
- Remember your most intense experience of unconditional love.
How do you feel now?
If you feel better, good news: Now you know how to get back to this feeling anytime you feel a twinge of depression.
All you need to do is:
- Change your posture;
- Change your breathing;
- Change the focus of your attention and feelings;
- Hydrate and refuel your body appropriately; and
- Get moving!
Daily practice of this confidence-building exercise makes becoming depressed nearly impossible.
Find out how these people also found drug-free relief from depression.
Do you have a news tip? Call us at (661) 298-1220, or drop us a line at community@hometownstation.com.
Staying Healthy a Key to Avoiding Depression
As with most diseases, staying healthy in the first place is the most cost-effective health care plan.
Wouldn’t you like to know, with certainty, what foods and supplements work best for you?
What if you could spend just 30 minutes a day exercising at home, with no special equipment, and be in the best shape of your life, no matter your age?
If you could measurably improve strength, balance, coordination, flexibility and pain free movement with a simple 10-minute checkup twice a month, couldn’t you find the time?
If you’re frustrated with the “take another pill” approach toward health care, you may be a good candidate for one of our drug-free, happier-for-life programs.
Take the online survey at http://www.drpolucki.com/consultation/ and you may be eligible for a free 15-minute no-obligation phone consultation.
About Santa Clarita Chiropractor Dr. Thomas Polucki
Dr. Thomas Polucki is a Board Certified Doctor of Chiropractic, Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner, Certified Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner, Certified Metabolic Typing Advisor and Certified Upper Cervical Chiropractor. Dr. Polucki provides Functional Medicine services in most cities via remote labs and Internet consultations. He sees patients by appointment at 25050 Peachland Ave., Suite 105, Newhall, Calif., 91321. Visit http://www.drpolucki.com for more information or call 661-753-9340 to schedule an appointment.
Dr. Polucki also hosts the “Dr. Polucki Family Health Hour” on AM 1220 KHTS radio in Santa Clarita Mondays from 11 a.m. to noon. Click here to listen to the podcasts.
The information in this article is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease.
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