Help On Changing Your Diet to Combat Depression and Anxiety

 

I have found that some people feel a bit confused and overwhelmed the night we talk about nutrition in the Nedley program.  Nutrition certainly is a vast subject, and food can be tied to many deep emotions.  First I'll list some resources that have helped me in my move towards a healthier diet. Please know that this change has taken me several months (even years)--and I am writing this to help you see the possibility of making these changes, not to send you on a guilt trip. At the end of this post I'll write about a personal experience I had recently that validated what I am doing.

Movie: King Corn:  You can bring this up on Youtube.  This movie will help you understand the reason we have an Omega 3/6 imbalance in America.  (Corn is an Omega 6 food. Search my blog for "omega 3/6" information to learn more about the whole concept. The short of it is that Omega 6s have inflammatory properties, and Omega 3s have anti-inflammatory properties. So due to the over-consumption of Omega 6s, we can have chronic internal inflammation in our brain, our bowels, etc., causing us all kinds of problems!)

Movie: Forks Over Knives:  I recommend you watch the ENTIRE movie--not just a trailer or an abbreviated form of the movie.  In watching the full movie you will better understand the whole picture of how diet affects the body in various ways.

Nedley CME Video: Nutrition and the Brain:  You can go onto the Nedley Health Solutions website and watch the conference videos from their Texas conference.  One of the videos is titled, "Nutrition and the Brain."  For a $15 fee you can watch it right in your own home without ever setting foot on an airplane!  

Books to help clarify what to eat: The UltraMind Solution (Mark Hyman, MD) (I agree with almost everything he says),  Eat to Live (Joel Fuhrman, MD) (I've heard this is excellent especially for those who need some weight loss, but I haven't read it yet.)  The Veganist (Kathy Freestone) (This book is designed to help people make the transition to a plant-based (aka "Vegan" diet.)

Books that help you understand why this diet change works for depression or anxiety:  Proof Positive (Nedley), Depression--The Way Out (Nedley), Gabriel Cousens, MD books, Neal Barnard, MD books, Mark Hyman, MD books.

Websites to help you get recipes:  Well Vegan.com- I subscribe to this website.  They send out a weekly e-file with a meal plan, recipes, shopping list, etc.  It also has a blog.  This website has really helped me make the final transition. The $9.99 a month has been well worth it!

Other helpful websites with recipes:  Happy Cow, PETA.org., Miso Vegan, NutritionMD.org., Vegetarian Times.

Okay, I know you're waiting with baited breath to learn what happened to me. So, I was having some kind of chest pains recently.  They were strong enough I thought I'd better go get checked out.  I told the doctor what was going on, then told him I am eating pretty much a vegan (plant-based) diet, I exercise at least 5 times a week, and I teach these Depression/Anxiety recovery programs.  He said I'm in a very low risk category, but we decided to go ahead to run all the tests just to be on the safe side.

Without giving the gory details, I had near-perfect tests.  The doctor was very impressed with my bad (LDL) cholesterol count because it was only 61.  He said that studies show when it's that low, plaque build-up dissolves.  (Great validation to the Forks Over Knives video.)  He told me to keep doing whatever I was doing!  So, it turns out that all this fuss about food is worth the effort!  And since my family has a history of anxiety, cancer, diabetes, depression and heart disease, I'm beating the odds.  The chest pains?  He figured they are probably muscle spasms.

I rarely talk about this, but since you're still reading, I will say there are very compelling reasons to eat wisely and do what you can to use a comprehensive approach to heal depression and anxiety.  Recent studies have linked long term antidepressant use with increased risk for stroke and heart attack.  Studies have also linked antidepressant use in pregnancy with a significant increase in having a child with autism.  It's too complicated to explain why that is, but the bottom line is that antidepressants mask symptoms and don't get to the underlying causes.  Now, please do not go off antidepressants unless you are  feeling really great and you are under the supervision of a physician!  The End.  (See below for the references on the studies I mention.)

Buchman, N. S. (2002). Side effects of long-term treatment with fluoxetine. Clinical

Neuropharmacology , 55-57.

Chen, Y. G. (2008). Risk of cerebrovascular events associated with antidepressant use in patients

 with depression: a population-based, nested case-control study. The Annals of

Pharmacotherapy , 177-184.

Cohen, H. G. (2000). Excess risk of myocardial infarction in patients treated with antidepressant

medications: association with use of tricyclic agents. American Journal of Medicine , 2-8.

Hamer, M. B. (2010, August 19). European Heart Journal. Retrieved May 23, 2011, from

Oxford Journals:

http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2010/11/28/eurheartj.ehq438.abstract

Wu, C. W. (2011). Association of cerebrovascular events with antidepressant use: a case-

crossover study. The American Journal of Psychiatry , 511-521.
 http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/745890

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/07/04/antidepressant.pregnancy.autism.risk/index.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Autism/antidepressant-linked-autism-study/story?id=13989498