YES! Omega-3s beat depression like a drum!

Today's Post:  Thursday, 4-23-2013

Most people get depressed sometimes.  Even extremely resilient and proactive people get slammed hard enough by life to feel a bit off sometimes.

But when depression is bad enough to make you fell miserable or lasts long enough or gets worse or prevents you from working or having a decent life you would like the depression to stop.

How soon do you want depression relief then?  Right away if you can manage it!

And, when do you want depression to return?   Never if you can manage it!

a) Because the drugs now available to doctors to do this are ineffective and harmful and even addictive, they are an extremely bad choice.  (We cover that in more detail a bit later in this post.)

b) The good news is that there ARE now things that cause depression to stop totally right away.

c) There are things that do stop depression but take a while to work.  (These actually work relatively quickly but take a while to get them in place and get them working well.)

d) And, there are things that literally repair the physical damage that causes some kinds of depression that take a bit longer to work.  (These too can get some faster relief but because there is damage to repair, they work best when used until the repairs are completed.)

But the things that work really fast are not yet ready for prime time.  And, even after they become available to help you make the effort to do the things that take longer, doing those things that take longer too is essential to keep the depression from coming back.

But wouldn’t it be great if there was something that tended to make you feel better right away AND that also helped multiply your other efforts AND helped boost the repairs when you have physical damage.

YES! omega-3s beat depression like a drum!

Taking omega 3 oils helps stop depression quickly.

Thanks to an email from Dr Al Sears, I recently found out that of the things now available and doable, the best first thing to do to stop depression is to is to take a good overall omega 3 supplement AND a DHA supplement.  

(DHA is the omega 3 oil most essential for good brain and nerve function.)

(Of course he makes a good but expensive supplement that has both.  But the omega 3 supplement from Nordic Naturals is good quality and available in most health food stores.  And the Jarrow DHA supplement, MaxDHA, is also.)

Dr Sears may have found the two most important things to do first!  He makes a VERY strong case for it:

He says that research found that DHA, in particular, directly acts on the sections of your brain that influence your mood!

(This suggests that DHA may be the omega 3 that produces fastest depression relief!)

Taking omega 3 oils and DHA also helps people to be less irritable and grouchy. That has the extra benefit of making your bad moods stop causing the people around you to treat you badly.

a) Because the drugs now available to doctors to do this are ineffective and harmful and even addictive, they are an extremely bad choice. 

In Al Sears recent email he found that:

If some depressed people feel stressed as they report their mood to their doctor, their doctor may often prescribe benzodiazepines. 

These are somewhat effective at relieving anxiety and feeling overstressed but tend to blunt your ability to make extra efforts when needed and your mental quickness and make depression a bit worse.  That’s a mixed review but they aren’t effective for depression.

But recent research found that:  taking benzodiazepines is a potent cause of Alzheimer’s disease.

This is particularly so for long term use which people in bad situations or with persistent heavy stress are likely to need!

To Dr Sears and to me, this is not acceptable.  So we think no one should do this.  For me it may be OK but with only very rare exceptions for short term use in some situations.

Or their doctor may prescribe and SSRI.  BADD idea!  

Vitamin D3 boosts brain levels of serotonin.  So if you haven’t already been taking vitamin D3 with a real optimal intake of between 3,000 and 10,000 it may also be helpful to begin taking 10,000 iu day of vitamin D3. 

(Note that vitamin D2 while even cheaper is not very effective and can be harmful at the levels where vitamin D3 is optimum and quite safe.)

Not only do SSRI's not raise brain levels of serotonin at all well or at all, they cost money and have side effects and are addictive enough the side effects of stopping an SSRI that isn't helping your depression is almost a disease like event.

Worse, even if you happen to be taking the one out of three that may make you feel a bit better it may take 6 to 8 weeks before you know if it will do that.

To me this flunks out totally.  

If depressed people are at a point they will ask for drug help or accept it if offered, they want relief SOON, later today if possible -- and no later than a few days, two or three perhaps, after they start taking it!

And the LAST thing they need is side effects on top of feeling lousy!

They also need reliable help.  Eighty percent is worth betting on and trying but what they want and need is 100%!

In my view they don't need a single drug.  They need a protocol that delivers both FAST and reliable relief and relief that they can depend on lasting.

THERE IS ONE:

We list the other things that are fast acting and those that ensure lasting relief later in this post.  Dr Sears makes a case for omega 3 oils as acting quickly and repairing an underlying cause of depression.  They ALSO make the actions reversing two of the causes of lasting relief work better!

In the email that Dr Sears sent me on Monday, 4-20, he leaves out many of the things that can add faster relief and a lot of things that can ensure the relief lasts.

But Dr Sears may have found the two most important things to do first!  He makes a VERY strong case for it in his email.

He says that research found that DHA, in particular, directly acts on the sections of your brain that influence your mood!

(This suggests that DHA may be the omega 3 that produces fastest depression relief!)

This is also suggested by the effects of taking DHA on your heart disease risks.  In his other work with DHA, Dr Sears also found that to protect your heart you want to lower your triglycerides and increase your HDL (an indicator you have sharply decreased the level of the small particle LDL that causes heart disease) and he found this happens in a few days NOT weeks!

(Of course ALSO stopping high fructose corn syrup and refined grain wheat foods that increase triglycerides and totally stopping hydrogenated oils that directly increase the amount of small particle LDL will increase the effect of taking the DHA on heart protection.  And, there is some evidence it will increase the anti-depressant effects too.

b) The good news is that there ARE now things that cause depression to stop totally right away.

Besides taking DHA and omega 3 oils and eating wild caught fish and stopping the things that have the reverse effect, there are 3 things that are coming that STOP even severe depression very fast.

Here are two that you may have access to at some point.

*First the drug Ketamine that causes some anesthetic and other undesirable effects does slam even severe depression to a total stop but the effect only lasts 24 hours. 

If it could do this but leave the person taking it functional, that would enable them to start taking the omega 3 oils and DHA and several other things that help turn off depression but take at least a few days to work.

Recent research found just exactly that!  It seems there is a metabolite of Ketamine that DOES have the immediate effect on stopping depression but does NOT cause anesthesia or other side effects that leave the person taking it unable to function.

But this takes hours to work and it’s not yet clear that it’s safe or effective to do it every day for a week or two.

*The best one is the one that uses specially designed quick pulses of electromagnetic stimulation in the brain.  It’s that effective AND it only takes ONE hour to work.

It also looks like it may be safe to use it once a day for a week or two while you get enough other things started that take longer to lift the depression to work!

Besides taking the DHA and omega 3 oils and eating wild caught fish high in omega 3 oils AND stopping eating the things that have the reverse effect, are there other things that are fast that you can use now?

There are two that seem to help and recent research found a third one that may help.

*Doing a brief session of vigorous exercise allows you to feel competent while you are doing it and energizes you by increasing your circulation and breathing; but most of all, it takes enough mental focus while you are doing it to take your mind away from feeling depressed.

*If you are feeling frazzled and depressed at the very high level of stress you are under, there is an herb that has a delightful double effect. 

You feel much calmer; but you also think better and are more alert.  That way you feel considerably better and more mentally energized and can see solutions or potential solutions to the things stressing you.  And every bit of that has anti-depressant effects!

It’s called lemon balm.

Another way to get stuck in depression is to keep thinking about the things that are stressing you over and over again instead of doing something useful or enjoyable. 

One way to stop that of course is to write down ideas of things that might stop the stresses. Then make definite plans to try the more promising ones; then set the list aside and then do something else that will focus your mind.  A brief bit of vigorous exercise will do it.

And recent research found another way to reduce this kind of thinking.  Astonishingly, it’s taking a probiotic supplement.

Why not do all three? Take the DHA etc; get and take the lemon balm; and take the probiotics.  By doing that for a week to a month, it should help. 

And if you haven’t been taking 10,000 iu of vitamin D3 yet, boosting your brain levels of serotonin by doing so may also help.

c) There are things that do stop depression but take a while to work.  (These actually work relatively quickly but take a while to get them in place and get them working well.)

*Talk therapy where you practice stopping repetitive negative thoughts thinking STOP forcefully when you catch yourself at it has been proven effective in as little as 4 to 8 weeks.

A skilled therapist also helps you to be very analytical about the causes of bad events and helps you find ways to be optimistic you can make things better.

Something bad happened which had specific causes this time but may not happen again if those causes stop or you find a way to stop them. 

When people talk to themselves as if those bad things always happen or will keep happening no matter what, small wonder they feel depressed!  Talk therapy helps you stop that and think more productive and far less depressing thoughts.

Learning to do this exact and more positive analysis of bad events and finding ways to be more confident you can do things that will help and can make an extra effort over and over again if necessary helps stop depression quite effectively. And the skilled coaching and guided practice have been proven to help!

*Other things like getting regular vigorous exercise and stopping watching depressing TV news and making your room darker and cooler and scheduling more sleep time give you a MUCH better mood and more feeling of energy and well being.

It can take a few weeks to do and get used to; but it IS effective.

*Taking the DHA and omega 3 oils and eating wild caught fish and stopping the foods that do the reverse also work better the longer you do them.

BUT, they do even more!

d) And, there are things that literally repair the physical damage that causes some kinds of depression that take a bit longer to work.  (These too can get some faster relief but because there is damage to repair, they work best when used until the repairs are completed.)

Once you do vigorous exercise most days of every week, every time you do it, your body releases a special nerve and brain cell growth hormone, BDNF.

AND if you also take the DHA and omega 3 oils and eating wild caught fish, guess what?

Your body releases even more BDNF!

That means that if part of your depression is caused by minimal brain damage of some kind, DHA plus exercise will turn that part off and keep depression from returning.

In fact, brain scan studies of US veterans with PTSD found that talk therapy that works finds  increases in the amount of physical repair that varies together.  Better talk therapy causes more repair and better repair causes more effective talk therapy.

Similar studies of US veterans with PTSD who began regular exercise and did it for only 12 weeks found the veterans were far less depressed AND showed more brain repair!

*Besides exercise and DHA combined it’s been found that adding food or supplement sources of choline increases the repairs!  These include taking the supplement lecithin that contains choline, taking choline supplements directly, and eating yolks or whole eggs from chickens fed only on pasture.  This has even partly reversed early stage mental decline with the brain cell repairs it causes. (NOW supplements makes a NON GMO lecithin and Whole Foods carries that AND the one I shop at carries two kinds of eggs from pasture fed chickens!)

And there is an extra benefit to choline.  Like vigorous exercise and DHA getting extra choline increases your HDL and is also for that reason heart protective!