The Truth About Depression: Part 1
Depression affects close to 15 million Americans, and that number doesn't even include the many who are suffering in silence and have not been diagnosed! Neither does it factor in the children who are depressed and struggling to cope in school and at home. Do you really want to know the truth about depression? The truth is that depression is largely caused by an imbalance in three areas:
Unresolved emotional conflict
An imbalance in the body's hormones and neurotransmitters (brain chemicals)
Gut dysbiosis, or imbalance of the intestinal environment
Unresolved emotional conflict can be the result of last week's argument or the split between your parents when you were five years old. Life's occurrences get imprinted into our psyche, shaping the person we are constantly becoming. Facing the feelings that are most uncomfortable to face is essential for your personal growth and physical health - including your mental state.
Hormones and neurotransmitters run your body, literally. They control the body's functions and must stay in a delicate balance in order for your body and brain to function properly. So what happens when they are out of balance? Irritability, fatigue, pain, weight gain, illness, disturbed sleep, and depression can easily set in.
Gut dysbiosis is less complicated than it sounds, but impossible to correct if you never know it exists. When the intestinal environment is riddled with inflammatory bacteria, viruses, yeast, and parasites, a dysbiotic or imbalanced environment contributes to a host of conditions that extend beyond the obvious, like Irritable Bowel Syndrome, reflux and Colitis, just to name a few. We're talking autoimmune disorders, allergies, asthma, leaky gut, and even diabetes - all chronic conditions stem from a less than ideal gut. And guess what? About 90% of the body's serotonin, a brain neurotransmitter known as "the feel good hormone" is made in the gut! So when the gut is out of balance, quite frankly, so is your brain. Think about that for a moment - the very condition of your intestinal environment has a direct effect on the health of your brain.
Identifying where you stand in these three areas and addressing them can dramatically improve mental health issues, including depression. In the next post I'll discuss an inexpensive remedy that has helped every one of my clients so far who have suffered from some sort of depression.
