Depression and Mental Illness – 7 Foods That Heal Depression and Mental Illness
It is basically boils down to what you put in your body. Depression and Mental Illness is, among other things, a disorder of chemicals inside the brain. If you not nourishing that body of yours it will be sick. it will not cope any more. It will be depressed. Think about it this way – if you do not water a plant and give it some compost it will not function properly and not yield fruits.
During the big depression (not the one that might be coming on us now, the one in the 30s) a lot of people in southern United States ate a lot of corn which is very low in tryptophan. Tryptophan is converted in the body to niacin. Niacin has been proven many times to treat people with serious cases of depression and mental illnesses. Most of those people suffered pallegra which is lack of vitamin B3. Among other things they suffered dementia, schizophrenia and psychosis. They all had been seriously affected by it and it was discovered at some stage that vitamin B3 niacin is the answer. Once a little niacin was added to their diet – 90% of them were cured. This is just one example of what the right nutrition can do to chronic illnesses. Here are 7 more:
- Eat raw! Here is an exercise. Take a whole month and eat fresh raw food in that month. That is not to say you should make it a vegetarian month, by all means take your protein from meat but do not cook your vegetables. Eat lots of fresh salad that is made of fresh uncooked tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, lettuces, capsicums,brown button mushrooms, avocadoes, sprouts, red onion, garlic, salt, pepper, lemon juice and tons of extra virgin olive oil. And in the end of the month see if you feel better.
- Consume lots of fruit. And organic is better.
- Swallow niacin. If you are depressed and consume 250-500mg of niacin you will probably feel better within 15 minutes. Niacin has been proven time and again to treat depression. You will have a flush, but that is OK, do not worry about it. And if you do not feel better after 15 minutes – then take more niacin.
- Immerse your body with lots of vitamin C. Vitamin C will help create some chemicals, i.e. brain chemicals (see beginning of article) that will improve your mood.
- Eat food with tryptophan. Cashew, chicken and turkey and generally nuts are all high in tryptophen. A couple of handful of cashew nuts will treat the body for depression, naturally, the same as a prescription dose of prozac. Cashew nuts are fattening, I know, but cashew nuts are a meal by themselves, you will not be hungry after eating two handfuls of cashews. And besides, who cares about getting fat if you can get rid of depression. And that leads me to nutrition number 6:
- Exercise. Exercise and exercise. Do not abuse the body, 3-4 hours of exercise per week will do wonders to your body and workout all those cashew nuts.
- Combine all the above. There is a way to heal depression, and you have to work for it, nothing is instant and there is no magic pill. In fact all those pills you are taking for depression will magically kill you. Depression is a serious illness and it has to be treated naturally to have high chance of success.