Читать книгу The Mood Cure: Take Charge of Your Emotions in 24 Hours Using Food and Supplements - Julia Ross - Страница 38

All of the drugs, like Prozac, that stimulate serotonin activity are called “antidepressants,” so you may have wondered why I haven’t mentioned the word depression much so far. I haven’t because I’ve found the word depression to be much too vague to be very useful. If you think of yourself as depressed, what do you mean, exactly? Do you have the low energy slumps, or are you overly anxious and negative? Or do both descriptions fit you? Do you sleep too much or not enough? Only these kinds of specifics can tell you exactly what kind of depressive state you’re dealing with, and they’re the only clues that will lead you to real solutions.

I’m alerted to dark cloud depression by a distinctively gloomy yet agitated mental outlook. It’s not just bored and flat (that’s the province of what I call the blahs and discuss in the next chapter). Rather, it’s worried and obsessive. The negative feelings and thoughts can just keep on coming, unfazed by real-life circumstances no matter how pleasant they might actually be. When real-life circumstances are not pleasant, this kind of depression can be a heavy emotional load to carry. Typically, though, you’re experiencing more inner negativity than your real life warrants, one that says, “No, my life will never be happy or fulfilled,” or, “What if my daughter gets really sick and can’t finish college?” or, “I know my evaluation is going to be bad.” Both the present and the future can look quite hopeless when serotonin is low and the “what ifs” take over.

Dark-cloud types may see life as looking so hopeless that they may think seriously of suicide or even take suicidal action. This is obviously the blackest kind of depression possible. We have had a few clients who have been suicidal when they came to us and many others who had been suicidal during one or more previous periods in their lives. Most were relieved of their deep depressions by serotonin-building nutrients along with psychotherapy and an improved diet, but not all. If you have suicidal thoughts, it’s very important that you seek professional help immediately. There may well be more than a brain chemistry imbalance involved, or you may have an imbalance that the nutritional methods suggested here will not correct. Do not attempt to treat this problem by yourself!

The majority of the low-serotonin clients we see usually start to look on the bright side very quickly. It happened in ten minutes for one of our depressed clients who tried one of the pro-serotonin amino acids in our office and suddenly started noticing the flower arrangements on the desk and her nutritionist’s pretty red hair. More significant, clients typically report within forty-eight hours that they’ve stopped dreading their days and started looking forward to them instead.