Saturday, January 17, 2009

Depression Help Naturally - Make One Simple Change

By John Stephan Laney

Many forms of depression are biochemical. This means that people get depressed because their biochemistry is out of whack. Doctors often prescribe anti depressant drugs to help correct the biochemistry and give help for depression, and people start to feel better.

Since our internal biochemistry is affecting our well being, then we can all easily see that what we eat affects depression and how we feel. For example, we've probably all eaten a lot of junk food at some point and started feeling bad. Food directly affects our biochemistry.

So if you are having feelings of depression or alarming black moods, it could very well be due to one simple thing in your diet. Refined white sugar. Sugar can sometimes be the sole cause of some forms of depression. It can affect your moods. It can affect your attitude, whether you feel cheerful or irritable. So if you are looking for some depression help, sugar could be the key.

Take sugar out of your diet for just a few days and see if you notice any difference. Notice if having no refined sugar provided help with depression. I did, and the difference was startling. I had more energy, more positive feelings, and no dark mood swings after the second day. Blood sugar levels affect more than just physical energy. Read the classic book Sugar Blues to better understand all the ways that sugar can negatively affect your health and well being.

And, you dont have to give up sweets, just refined sugar. Your local health food store has several alternatives that will sweeten your food without causing sugar blues. Substitutes like agave nectar, stevia and fructose are handled differently by the body and will not generally affect your energy levels and moods in the same way.

Even if you aren't depressed or experiencing dark mood swings, you may want to give up sugar for a week just to test how it affects your energy level and mood. If you can't possibly imagine giving up sugar for a whole week, then you can try a different kind of test that will provide some proof in just half a day.

For breakfast or a midmorning snack, eat a couple doughnuts and nothing else. Dont eat any protein with them, dont have coffee or soda or any form of caffeine with them. Notice how your body feels in about half an hour to an hour. If you dont pump yourself up with caffeine, you should notice you feel good and happy and energized for about half an hour to 45 minutes, then you should start to feel tired and irritable and groggy for the next two hours after that as your blood sugar swings up then down.

We each have different biochemistries, so the way you handle sugar may be different than your peers. But the blood sugar swings caused by sugar are well documented and are not intellectual or theoretical. If you want to try some natural depression help, this is a great place to start. The proof lies as close as the nearest Krispy Creme. There is no guarantee that your or a loved ones feelings of depression are caused by sugar, but common table sugar is a major culprit in depression for many people. - 16004

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