Taking care of your mental health is an act of self-love.
Mood is a continuum from elation to despair, and the odds are that we will experience both ends of the extreme at various points in our lives as we react to the good and bad experiences that come with being alive.
The challenge for many though is when they can’t find the feeling of joy even when there are no “bad things” happening in their lives to help rationalize it. Depression is distinct from grief, in which we react to loss. Depression is not disappointment because our team lost the game. Depression comes in a variety of flavours so even if we have a personal experience of it, that may not be adequate to fully understand how a fellow human is feeling while in a depression.
I ask all of my patients about depression and anxiety, past or present, and some immediately say that they’ve had anxiety since childhood while others say “What is anxiety exactly?” They don’t resonate with it at all! Others are crippled by it and have to adjust their lives 180 to function with it. We are all so wonderfully unique!
If depression (sadness, gloom, despair), or anxiety (worry, stress, “monkey-brain”) are negatively affecting your day-to-day life then it’s time to try whatever you haven’t yet tried to smooth out those intense feelings.
Supporting digestion can be incredibly helpful. Balancing hormones (thyroid, adrenal, estrogen, testosterone, and others) and neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine, norepinenphrine) can make a world of difference. There are so many lifestyle, diet, herbal, and nutraceutical options to support mental health and wellbeing that I have yet to find a patient who has tried them all and exhausted all options.
