Change Your Brain Every Day - Natural, Easy and Safe Ways to Treat Depression

Episode Date: July 18, 2017

Treating depression is often the same as treating any other physical disease that manifests in the body, and therefore there should be no shame in recognizing the symptoms and getting the help you need. Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss a “stepladder” approach to treating depression, which consists of trying the easiest, safest, and most accessible methods first, then working up to the more involved methods if those don’t work. 

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. So let's start with another testimonial. I like this. So this is from our podcast and it says, after having a craniotomy to remove a brain tumor, I noticed deficits. My brain was not as good as it was before the surgery. There was no real interest in those issues when I would bring them up to my doctor. As long as the tumor had not returned, I was supposedly fine. I'm thrilled to have access now to a resource that is focused on the health of my brain and that gives me the tools to improve

my brain. And I love that because that's what we try to tell people. You're not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better. So maybe you've been through something awful, some sort of brain trauma, as this person has with a craniotomy, but you can clearly be doing things to make it better on a consistent basis or things to make it worse. Well, and just in the news, Maria Menounos, the person who used to be on Extra, and she was just diagnosed with a meningioma and needs to take time off after the surgery. And besides a car accident or a skiing accident or concussion playing football, there are many ways to damage the brain. And the way to get it back is to put it in a healing environment. And what we're going to

talk about today is something super simple, which is there is a new study out on magnesium as a treatment for depression. It's like, well, how simple is that? It was 250 milligrams a day. We like magnesium glycinate as a good form of it. But over six weeks, compared to placebo, patients' moods were significantly better. So I take about 700 milligrams of magnesium a day. I take several hundred during the day. And then every night I take 400 milligrams. So magnesium is pretty life-changing. It's actually responsible for several hundred functions in your body, right? So it helps with depression, anxiety.

Just be low in it and you'll find out really quickly how much it's responsible. Isn't it 70 to 80% of the population is low? 80% when they studied people. In magnesium. 80% of people are low in magnesium. And when magnesium is low, you can be sad. Heart arrhythmias. You can have heart arrhythmias.

Right. You can have muscle jerks. Right. So you getthmias. You can have heart arrhythmias. Right. You can have muscle jerks. Right. So you get cramping, you get twitches. So we would, so I worked in the hospital in the ICU

and we would regularly get these elderly, you know, people in and they would come in with these heart arrhythmias. Every time they would come in, we'd hang a bag of mag, right?

Hang a bag of mag, hang a bag of mag. I mean, that's what we would do. No one ever explained to them, oh, by the way, maybe you should be taking some magnesium because it would immediately like even like settle down their heart arrhythmia. They would go home, but they're still low in mag on a consistent regular basis. No one has them taking magnesium. That's how important it is. So really important this study is. Hang a bag of mag. So let's talk about other natural ways to treat depression.

So exercise, head to head against antidepressants equally effective. Magnesium, like we just talked about. Learning how to not believe every stupid thought you have. Omega-3 fatty acids, again, in multiple studies have shown, significantly helps mood. Vitamin D. Vitamin D is critical.

I mean, it's like, how simple is all of this? Saffron, the spice saffron, head-to-head, I think there's about 15 studies now showing it has equal efficacy to antidepressants. So also SAMe, I like a lot. If you're a worrier and you can't let go of negative thoughts or negative behaviors, if you tend to be rigid and hold grudges and if things don't go your way you get upset 5-htp combined with saffron we use here at amen clinics a lot and find it's very powerful meditation for sure especially loving kindness meditation You actually taught that to people in our special Brain Fit 50 Ways to Grow Your Brain.

We have it in our book, The Brain Warrior's Way. So if you're feeling sad, the simple thing to do is go to the doctor and have them give you Lexapro. It may not be the best thing to do. And, you know, Tana and I have always said we're not opposed to medication. Yeah, you don't need to.

But one of the things I've learned, and this is very controversial, so just know it, it's very controversial. The meds are insidious. Yeah. And that over time, they require your brain to need them. Right. And if I'm going to require my brain to need something, I don't want it to have a lot of side effects. Right.

And so if I'm going to require my brain to need something for depression, well, you've been doing it your whole life. It's exercise. Oh my gosh. I don't feel right without exercise. Because there's so many other benefits. I mean, we're actually going to do a podcast on exercise may protect you from Alzheimer's disease.

Right. I mean, so there are no negative side effects unless you over exercise. Right. Unless you get an injury because you're not paying attention to the limitations of your body. Yeah, no question. But the antidepressants, especially the serotonin antidepressants, as a psychiatrist, I've been prescribing them since they first came out in 1988 when Prozac came onto the market. And they can decrease motivation.

I had one guy, he owned like 60 radio stations and he came in the next week after I put him on Prozac and he said, you know, I'm not as anxious and I'm not as depressed and I just don't care. You know, I'm not getting my paperwork done. And I mean, so it was like, and then I've had hundreds of other people go, I feel better, but I have no libido. And my husband's very unhappy about the fact that I can't have an orgasm. So let me ask you a question on that note, because there are a lot of people who have tried the natural way, and I know because they write to me, who have tried the natural way and it hasn't worked. Maybe they've got complex medical issues or whatever the reason is.

And the natural thing hasn't worked and it's affected their relationship. So they chose medication and it works. Now they're hearing this and they're like, ah, I shouldn't be taking medication. So I always want to be very sensitive to this because as someone who has, I have people write to me all the time saying, I don't want to take thyroid medication even though I've got various different you know we have no good alternative okay to thyroid medication and I'm not saying don't take antidepressants I'm just saying my bias is, my thought is, let's try the natural things first. And if they don't work, we'll ramp it up. But what I see, you know, 85% of psychiatric medications in this country are prescribed by non-psychiatric physicians.

In a 15-minute visit. In a 7-minute visit. In a seven-minute visit. Oh, okay, well. I'm anxious, I'm depressed, and I can't sleep. Okay, here's Ambien, here's Xanax, and here's Lexapro. Right. And they've never given people the alternative. And there's so many things, and this study highlights it,

that potentially are simple sure and they don't have the bad side effects that you know i think of it sort of as a stair case right and that you know well let's do the bottom rung and see if we can get it. So least toxic, most effective. I've often heard you say that. Least toxic, most effective. And if that doesn't work, well, let's try something else. Right. If that doesn't work, let's try something else.

While at the same time, we get your important numbers. We've got you exercising. Checked. Are you low in thyroid? Checked. Are you anemic? Do you have the right habits? Yeah, because if your thyroid's off, you're going to be depressed.

Now, we said it in the last podcast, the brain hates change. And so getting someone to exercise, that's hard, right? I mean, it's easy to take a pill. Right. Yeah, no, I just want to make sure that I'm thoughtful on this

because as somebody who has, I was actually on both sides of this spectrum. So I was that person who was over prescribed a laundry list of medication that I didn't need to be on. In fact, a lot of them were for side effects of other medications. And that was extremely frustrating. So I figured out how to reduce that list dramatically to the ones I actually just needed. But we also live in a society that is there's still a lot society that is, there's still a lot of stigma and there's still a lot of finger pointing and this is right or that's wrong.

And there's a lot of judgment over these things. And once you do figure it out, okay, let's just say there is someone who's on medication. It's working. Okay. They've tried the other way. The medication works. You've got patients like that, I'm assuming. Okay. I just want to make sure people don't hear something and say, well, I'm going to go off my medication without talking to a doctor, number one. Or number two, feel that they need to be judged or feel bad about something if you're on some kind of medication, whether it's thyroid or whatever that medication is, don't feel bad about it if it is something you actually need. And what you determine works for you with your doctor is between you and your doctor. And it's not up to a bunch of other people. And if you want off of it, that's between you

and your doctor. Don't do it in a responsible way. And at the same time, I want them to know there are options. Absolutely. I just don't want it to be a judgment call as opposed to something you're doing to optimize your life. So to summarize this, never feel bad about having depression and getting treated for it. That's absolutely essential. Your brain can have problems like your heart can have problems. We don't make people feel

ashamed because they have diabetes or heart disease or cancer. Never feel ashamed about having something like depression or anxiety or bipolar disorder, schizophrenia. They're brain problems just like other people can have problems with other organs. There are natural things to do and if your doctor, because most doctors are not trained

in how to offer you natural options, exercise, magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids, SAMe, vitamin D, learning how to not believe every stupid thought you have, cognitive therapy, we call it ANT therapy, are alternatives for you that are options. And I just want all of my patients to have all of their options. Love that.

So they can choose to make the best decision for themselves. Stay with us. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. We have a special gift for you. It's an opportunity to win an evaluation at the Amen Clinics. All you have to do is subscribe to this podcast, leave a review and rate us on iTunes. To learn more about Amen Clinics and the work we do, go to amenclinics.com. You can also learn about our nutraceutical products at brainmdhealth.com. Thanks for listening.