So the fact is antidepressants have an efficacy of about 30%. That means 2/3 of prescribed antidepresants don’t do anything to help a low mood, low state of mind. If your GP is reluctant to prescribe them for you, think about that. Then think about these things:
But first a note on coming off antidepressants safely. Some antidepressants are quite dangerous to come off. You can go from feeling a bit ho-hum and ordinary and normal, to being – suddenly and unconsciously – in the middle of a suicide attempt with no prior history or thoughts of suicide, just from coming off these things the wrong way. Some of them will create a banging in your head that doesn’t go away for months. I can’t stress how important it is for you to come off them under the watchful eye of a professional trained in psychiatry (and the only options here are a Psychiatrist or a ‘Credentialed Mental Health Nurse’). At the very least, do it with your regular GP and don’t rely on counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists nor clinical psychologists – none of whom are trained in medications) – even if you don’t agree. I hate, hate, hate, hate it when this goes wrong so do it right. Please!
When antidepressants work they’re brilliant – if your doctor tells you that you need them try them, they’re great when they’re done right so do them the way your doctor tells you to!
Those who can advise you on how to do them are your GP, your Psychiatrist, your Credentialed Mental Health Nurse. Nobody else in the mental health field has medication knowledge and is not therefore allowed to provide advise on medications, remembering that registered healthcare professionals must adhere to the rules around their scope of practice.
OK, so onto lifestyle antidepressants which you do whilst taking antidepressant medications if you’re already on them. These help enormously when you’re coming off the meds so get into these as a starter. If they don’t help, consult a highly regarded mental health professional with at least 12,000hrs clinical experience (the usual 10,000hrs does not give mastery in mental health care, sorry, so ask your mental health practitioner how many clinical hours they have under their belt already).
Depression is a low mood, low state of mind, accompanied by loss of hope, inspiration and depleted sense of self. That’s a broad and technically incorrect definition, but think about it this way – depression as a clinical presentation is not the same as what’s described in the diagnostics manuals or textbooks much of the time. The reason for that is there are many types of depression, most of which are not responsive to medication. The definitions are broad and speak to psychiatric evaluations, not psychological assessment which is commonly mistaken by many, including some mental health professionals even.
If you’re fed up and tired, not sleeping well, teary, your efforts are being thwarted, your sense of achievement and purpose is diminished, you’re disappointed in stuff/people/life events, have been cranky and generally out of sorts, you could be forgiven for thinking you’re depressed. Makes sense right? Well…. not quite.
Such a state of mind + mood can be caused various things – like being used up, emotional exhaustion, burnout, betrayed and now stuck, respect problems…. the list is long. It’s obvious that if life is difficult you’ll feel awful. It’s obvious that when people are awful to you you’ll feel bad about yourself, even life itself.
Lifestyle antidepressants are far more helpful for your overall mental state than you can probably imagine. Consider a time when you felt fantastic about life – or when you witnessed someone feeling fantastic about life – what was happening? It was more than just one thing – great relationship? maybe. Great health? maybe. Great career? maybe. Great sense of self? probably, yes. Great outlook and attitude? maybe, probably. Great opportunities? probably, maybe. Felt good? yup, probably.
A fit mood is the result of a variety of things, never just 1 thing. A single cause of good mood is wonderful, but doesn’t speak to a fit mood, it speaks to good times. We all want good times, we all want to feel good. That’s why sex, drugs and money make us feel good even when life sux. These are addictive feel goods but don’t create mental fitness.
If you’re feeling slow and ordinary in the mornings, grab something to eat or drink, even just a glass of water, and go outdoors to consume it – and I mean outside, not standing in a window, although it works to stand in an open doorway so long as there’s sky above that doorway, not some type of roof or awning. What you’re effectively doing is ‘ingesting’ daylight. By doing this you switch off your sleeping hormone, melatonin, and switch on your wakeful hormone, serotonin. And that cuts the sluggish morning feeling. It’s an endocrine system management technique.
If your mood depletes as the day progresses – regardless of why – review your activity and nutrition. You need lots of good food in the mornings. Mood and food go hand in hand – better food, better mood. Eat breakfast – 1st secret of high achievers; eat morning tea – 2nd secret of high achievers; eat lunch with good things on your mind – 3rd secret of high achievers. Eat! If you’re trying to loose weight, eat in the mornings to keep your mood strong and reduce afternoon snacking to nuts and fruit.
So a word on sugar. Sugar is a little gem and so hated by almost everyone these days. But sugars are not all equal. Your brain uses 20% of your days energy requirements and it requires the kind of glucose (a simple sugar) it can convert quickly to the form of energy it needs, as it needs it hence the requirement of quickly converted sugars. And that means if you do a lot of thinking, you need sugars readily available for your brain’s mechanisms to draw on. Best sugars for this are wholly natural – what you find in fruits (not dehydrated, although that’s better than lollies), whole milk (yeah – really), and honey. If you have to resort to artificial glucose like that found in lollies you need about 2 jelly babies for the day -not much, huh?
Your brain needs complex carbs as well, but importantly, your muscles do too. Get smart about complex carbs and don’t fall for the idea they only add fat. They are important sources of energy your whole body needs, and in particular your immune system and your neuro system. Yes, dropping carbs altogether will drop your weight and fat, along with your mood and overall functioning when you get it wrong because you won’t have as much reserve emotional energy, the primary energy that keeps us buoyant in tough times.
How inspired are you? How inspiring are you? Do you laugh? Who do you laugh with, and is your laughter never at the expense of someone? These are self assessments – they speak to how you elevate your mood. Unless you can answer yes to them all you might like to review thoroughly here and remember all these are within your own control – find what inspires you and live from that stuff, get laughter happening at the small silliness of everyday living if nothing else – genuine smiles count enormously here.
And lastly, a word on relationships. Relationships might be the hardest thing we do. Getting it wrong is inevitable. Self forgiveness and forgiving the other person often necessary, but not at the expense of your own excellence. Too often we start seeing life and even ourselves through the lens of others in order to ‘have’ the relationship others envy. A relationship is a beast unto itself, borne of the coming together of you and them – both the you bit and the them bit is additional to the actual relationship.
You are affected by the beast within the relationship and they are too, plus you’re affected by each other. It’s a multidimensional space that’s convoluted and confronting and wonderful and amazing and so not properly understandable. It’s helpful to sit back from all your relationships – and I’m not just talking about romantic / sexual relationships, but all relationships – and ask yourself, ‘does this help me do life better?’ The answer might come from thinking about how life has progressed since spending time with this person, or when you spend lots of time with this person. Relationships can be draining, or boosting – which ones are which in your life?
Antidepressants won’t address any of this stuff. They’ll take the edge off the pain (often anyway) and they’ll help (often anyway). However. Lifestyle stuff is all important even when the medications do work – antidepressants were never meant to be lifelong therapy. This is your life – do what it takes to create a great one. When you’re great, those around you can be too. That doesn’t mean you have to be great all the time, it means being fully alive to all the experiences of your life, not just the good ones. Those around you also need to know that so role modelling via your jiggly bits is fine.
Mentally fit moods aren’t the result of being positive or good within yourself all the time – mentally fit moods are those that delve deeply into life, the goods and the bads, and continue to the next life experience, and the next and the next. It’s about emotional suppleness, relatability, exploration and discovery, not control or the judgement that says we have to be happy all the time.
A mentally fit mood enables us, allows us to grow through the bad times, the tough times. Fit moods are like fit bodies – they get tired and depleted, broken and sick even, then they get better, strong again, and fully functioning. Sometimes it’s like breaking muscle fibres to grow your muscles, sometimes it’s like recovering from an illness. Growing? Recovering? Either is good. Both speak to mood fitness.
