Health Notes, April 13th 2008, by Sarah Stacey

Dealing with depression

Although one in four of us will suffer a mental health problem at some point, depression is one of those enduring taboo subjects that most of us still can’t admit to.  So I was glad when a neighbour walked into my kitchen and admitted she was fine that day - and looked it – but had ongoing bouts of depression.  She didn’t want to take pharmaceutical drugs in the light of recent revelations about the ineffectiveness of Prozac and other antidepressants but asked about natural remedies.  I have a particular interest as depression runs in my family and I ‘ve been through several episodes.  As a former alcoholic and drug addict, I avoid medication but have found many other effective soothers and uppers.   They demand some action, which helps too – remember the mantra: ‘if nothing changes, nothing changes…’.

Get up: on black dog days, even rolling out of bed onto the floor is just fine!  Making yourself look pretty is always cheering – for you and others – so brush your hair, put on your favourite clothes and some lippie, then make plans for your day.

Eat well:  there’s stacks of evidence that omega-3 fatty acids, which are abundant in oily fish, flax seeds, walnuts, spinach and algae (sea greens), can help your brain.  Also consider a supplement (Essential Oil Formula, £15.95 for 90 capsules).  Do get your five-a- day fruit and veggies, and try avoiding white sugar and flour, also wheat and gluten (one of my worst lows was linked to wheat intolerance). 

Take exercise:  researchers agree physical activity lifts your mood better than virtually anything else.  Choose something you enjoy (and is easy) from walking to riding: music helps your brain too, so dance round the kitchen to your fave tunes, and/or join a Scottish dancing class.

Try a herbal antidepressant: after a bad accident, post traumatic stress and prescribed morphine (plus my father dying) plunged me into the blackest hole.   Herbalist Andrew Chevallier suggested St Johns wort, which helped enormously; I take it daily still, to avoid the nano-second blips of darkness which occur if I don’t.   (Kira St Johns Wort One a Day, £14.95 for 30 tablets). 

Sleep well:  panic attacks woke me at in the early hours and insomnia makes any anxiety vastly worse.  I take Dynomins Magnesium  aka Nature’s tranquilliser (£12.89 for 90 tablets) at night (hot milky drinks are good too);  also one valerian tablet - a quarter of the dose - before bed plus an Asphalia tablet, which contains plant melatonin (£11.95 for 30 capsules).  I put Sleep Well flower remedy () in my water glass.  If I wake around four or five, I take one valerian and one asphalia, which sends me back to sleep with no hangover when I wake.

Take one day at a time: living in the present - putting one foot in front of another – can make life possible.  Take pleasure in small things.  One day when I felt terrible, I called a friend, we went out for a meal, visited a garden, and saw a film. I felt better.

Try  ‘talking therapy’:  psychotherapy or counselling with a good therapist can help you unravel issues and discern patterns, sometimes familial, which help you deal with what’s going on in your mind.  Ask your GP for a referral.  And do talk to people who care about you. 

Read helpful books:  I recommend Healing Without Freud or Prozac: natural approaches to curing stress, anxiety and depression by Dr David Servan-Schreiber (published by Rodale), which gives you a menu of effective treatments to help your brain heal.  To order a copy for £7.99 post free from the YOU bookshop, tel: 0845 606 4237, mailbookshop.co.uk     I also found that reading ripping yarns and watching ‘soaps’ diverted my brain from worrying.

Stop advertising junk food to children

I’m 100 per cent behind the Which? campaign to restrict advertising of junk food to children, across the media.  The consumer watchdog is supporting the Food Products (Marketing to Children) Bill, introduced by Nigel Griffiths MP, which demands a 9pm watershed for TV advertising of junk food, and protection for children from other methods of marketing unhealthy food.

Running buddy

A colleague of mine who has caught the running bug swears by her Nike+ Sport Kit (£19) for motivation. This nifty little gadget consists of a small, flat, bean-shaped chip for inside your socks (or Nike have specially designed trainers, from £65) and a square-shaped chip for the bottom of your iPod. She says: ‘It's the perfect running buddy, telling you how far you've run and how many calories you've burned. You can programme in your own targets and it even offers motivational messages over your music to help in that impossible last stretch’. For information, www.nikeplus.com.

Book of the week: Love Your Gusset by Professor Grace Dorey

Subtitled ‘making friends with your pelvic floor’, this engaging little illustrated book covers an important topic for women as half of us will suffer ‘leakage’ at some point in our lives.  The bonus is that tightening your pelvic floor muscles also enhances your sex life.  So win, win.