Depression is a whole body illness.  It involves the whole body, it JUST ISNT IN YOUR HEAD!  Did you know that the majority of serotonin is produced in your “gut”?

There are many faces to depression and there numerous ways to treat it.  One of the most common types of depression is called dysthymia.  Dysthymia is a low-grade depressive state.  This condition involves long term and or recurring depressive symptoms that are not necessarily disabling but keeps a person from functioning normally and interferes with social interactions and the enjoyment of life.  Research has found this type of depression is results from unconscious negative thinking habits.

How common is this in our society today? How many times have we thought, or heard, “I’m not rich enough?, skinny enough?, pretty enough? powerful enough? happy enough? in love enough? whatever enough? or countless other negative thoughts recurring in our heads daily?  The average person has over 60,000 thoughts a day and 57,000 thoughts are the same thoughts we had the day before.  So if we have negative thoughts, you can see how quickly we can reinforce them; on a daily basis!

Chinese medicine and in particular herbs can be a very wonderful modality in treating depression.  I feel its even more perfect for this type of “repetitive negative, low grade, chronic, come and go depression”  First and foremost we must have movement!  Exercise is probably one of the cheapest, easiest, and amazing anti depressants around!  You can produce as much as you want of it!  When you exercise the brain produces many many mood elevating chemicals!  Eat lots fruits of vegetables, avoid alcohol, caffeine, and processed foods.    There are many other simple mood elevating things we can do, but i want to also discuss Chinese medicine and the properties of the herbs.

First and foremost, in Chinese medicine we view “depression” as a whole body disease.  We look at all the interactions of your depression.  There may be 10 people all with depression, but the causes may all be different, thus all their treatments would be different. Not all depression is the same, nor are the people that have it. 

There are over 14,000 Chinese herbs in our pharmacopoeia.  There are numerous herbs that we use for “depression”.  Many of the Chinese herbs have a calming effect but it doesn’t mean they make one sleepy, rather they calm wasteful nervous energy that can sap ones vitality and leave one feeling depressed.  One of the most popular herbs in our pharmacopoeia is an herb called He huan Pi (albizzia).  The term “huan” means ”jolly, cheerful, merry, pleased”.  Another great thing about Chinese herbs is there are typically MINIMAL side effects.   The side effects (that typically accompany the use of western anti depressants) of low libido, lethargy, appetite changes, etc are non existent, if they are prescribed correctly by a Chinese herbal doctor.  This is largely in part to the fact that in Chinese medicine we are treating the whole body so we take to account the rest of the interactions.

Doing a few simple lifestyle modifications and taking herbs can be a very positive step in reducing and or eliminating your “depressive” state.  There are many choices out there for treating “depression”: these choices don’t all involve expensive and side effect ridden pharmaceuticals.

Be well

If you have questions or comments please post a comment and we can continue this dialog in greater detail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tags: Depression, herbs, medicine

This entry was posted on Monday, May 26th, 2008 at 10:16 pm and is filed under Acupuncture/Herbs, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.