Why Prozac is One of America's Leading Prescriptions

Binge eating, not eating, heavily sleeping - we do what we can when we are trying to feed challenging emotions. If you are feeling excessive fatigue, hopelessness, or have lost interest or pleasure in your life, you may be experiencing depression. You’re not alone. According to the CDC, 1 in 10 Americans are depressed.

Anti-depressants have become so common that one in eight Americans has used Prozac or its generic counterpart for at least one episode of depression. Yet a recent re-analysis of past research on antidepressants concluded that three-fourths of the improvements credited to them could be attributed to an active placebo effect, changes in lifestyle, or simply the passage of time.

While it is sometimes vital to use an antidepressant, there are other treatment options to consider. We have become so addicted to an instant coffee approach to healing that we’ve forgotten that circumstances other than clinical depression can bring on unhappiness. My goal today is to show you ways to monitor and treat depression, without automatically resorting to medication. 

How many times have you thought if you could just eat enough chocolate you'd feel better? It's natural to look to food as remedy for one's emotional turbulence. In fact, your instinct is correct. But sometimes we crave the wrong food for our body's balance. Our diet is the first thing to look at in any health challenge. High quality protein, whole grains, and vegetables will feed our system what it needs to feel good. You want to redirect the impulse for comfort food towards food that will actually help you feel better. Just a few days of making sure that you have protein at every meal, not skiping meals, and eating breakfast will make a huge difference in how you feel.

Recent research shows that Vitamin D deficiency is linked to depression in a similar way that omega fatty acid deficiency is, so you should make sure you have enough Vitamin D and Omega Fatty Acids.

Acupuncture has been reported to successfully cure depression in more than 75 percent of patients treated. It works by balancing your energy to flow more smoothly in your body. When your energy is balanced everything works better including your mood.

Where is your depression coming from? Hormonal shifts such as menopause, "man"opause, adrenal insufficiency, and thyroid disorder, also contribute to depression. Many women and men I've seen get depressed during hormonal life shifts. Symptoms improve when menopausal hormones have been balanced. Each hormone can be supported with natural treatments if you know what your imbalance is.

We can now measure chemicals produced in your brain using a simple urine test. Serotonin, dopamine, GABA, and epinephrine are a just a few of the neurotransmitters that affect our energy levels, mood, and behavior. Each of these chemicals can be raised naturally with either amino acid supplements such as 5HTP or L.phenylalanine, or herbs such as rodiola, mucuna puriens, and holy basil. 

When all else isn’t working, sometimes you really do need to take a medication. I always look at medication in the same way I look at other modalities, its just part of the continuum of finding balance. I recommend that you seek a good psychiatrist who is familiar with nutritional support as well as medication and begin with a low dose of whatever medication is being recommended. Stay in touch with your psychiatrist, or your integrative doctor, report how you feel, what side effects if any, and listen to your body. You will know if it’s helping within a month of taking it.

Don’t overlook the healing qualities of touch and fun: massage, vacations, romps in the park, helping someone in need, and daily hugs. Recent research shows that a minimum of four hugs a day are needed for emotional balance. 

Allergies

What aren’t we allergic to these days? According to a report by ABC news, people can be allergic to water, cell phones, allergy medications, the heat or the cold, chocolate, exercise (Yes, I did say that. The condition is called exercise-induced anaphylaxis), and the laundry list continues. According to the American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology, “More than half (54.6%) of all U.S. citizens test positive to one or more allergens.”

 Western medicine says that allergies result from an imbalance in the immune system due to an overreaction to the stimuli of pollens, dust, fungi, and other airborne irritants. In the system of Chinese medicine, allergies result from a combination of imbalances in the body. Each person may require different treatment. A surprising area of imbalance with allergies for some may be connected to hormones. If you’ve had a lot of stress in your life, your hormones may not be in balance. When they are out of balance, you may begin reacting negatively to any number of stimuli in your environment. This is also why allegies might get worse with menopause.

 Researchers from the European Centre for Environment & Human Health, along with several Australian institutions found that children living in areas with lower levels of sunlight are twice as likely to develop food allergies, compared to those in areas with higher UV. Clearly there is more than an immune system overreaction at play.

 Natural treatments can alleviate the severity of allergies and even prevent them from coming on. Using acupuncture and Chinese herbs several months or even a few weeks before allergy season arrives will prevent symptoms and possibly cure your allergies. Conventional allergy medications might help symptoms as well, but they tend to have more side effects and  don't solve the problem. 

 Western herbs, homeopathy and some basic nutritional supplements also can alleviate symptoms of allergies. Many natural products actually work the better than some antihistamines work, by stabilizing your immune system so it doesn't react. 

 According to Chinese medicine each season is associated with a major organ that is more sensitive to imbalance during that time of year. Springtime is the season of the liver. Amongst other functions, the liver rules the smooth flow of energy in the body, deals with stress, and regulates the menstrual cycles. It is sensitive to wind and rules the emotion of anger.

 Over the years of working with Allergies and Chinese medicine, I’ve observed that people tend to be somewhat irritable in springtime, especially on windy days. Sneezing is called rebellious qi, where the energy of the lungs is going in the wrong direction. This is usually provoked when wind stirs up the liver energy. In my experience I have many clients who find it hard to live in our high paced, modern lives. We’ve forgotten that we were once much more connected to our earth and our environment. Perhaps allergies are a way of rebelling.

Dealing with Grief

Mary’s son died in Afghanistan a few years ago. Not much later she developed a painful ovarian cyst. She did not want to have surgery. When she came into my office, she was skeptical about the possibility of her son’s death and her cyst being related. 

 Grief like most painful emotions is one that we don’t deal with well in our modern culture. Everything is moving so fast that we barely give ourselves time to process before we have to be back at work or dealing with daily life. Because we don’t acknowledge how we feel, our feelings become unconscious and leak out in unexpected ways. They can cause serious consequences such as losing your job, sleep disorders, weight gain or loss, or more serious physical illnesses.

 Not all grief is due to the death of a loved one. Candy came to me a few years ago with chronic sinus infections. She had been on antibiotics almost every two months for two years. Tired of taking them, she wanted a new solution. Somehow she felt that her answers were not in having sinus surgery. In the initial interview, I learned that her husband had left her two and a half years ago for another woman. She was devastated by the loss and had not felt well since. She hadn’t made the link between her sinus problems and the grief of her loss.

 We often assume that we need to get over grief quickly so we repress our pain. Sometimes we can be grieving and not even know it. If you’ve ever tried to go on in your normal life while ignoring your pain, you may notice that your carpeted emotions began to sabotage your life.

 I like the Jewish tradition, of “sitting Shiva”. When a relative dies, the ritual requires a week long mourning period of sitting quietly after the funeral. Sitting Shiva allows you to take time out of your life to really be with your emotions and your family. By acknowledging your emotions, you don’t have to let them come out in unconscious ways.

 After a trauma, allow your emotions time to be, without judgment. Create your own sitting Shivas to deal with pain. I recommend spending as little 30- 60 minutes each day allowing yourself to grieve or feel whatever emotion you’re processing. It’s not about indulging but about paying attention to what is really going on. If you create the time for your emotions, it will give you a chance to function normally at other times of your day.

 Elizabeth Kubler-Ross famously wrote about the five stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance are emotions that arise as we deal with the loss of our loved one or another equally big trauma. Eventually we all have to arrive at acceptance but we can’t do that if we don’t know that we have grief.

 After a series of acupuncture treatments for PTSD, Mary’s ovarian cyst went away. A few months after treatment she came back to my office and told me that she was able to begin going in new directions in her life including a new diet/exercise program and a new career.

 We all have our hard times in life, no matter how they came about. Ultimately our goal is healing and acceptance.

Annual Spring Cleanse 2012

Happy New Year! Again! March 21 marks the first day of Spring and also the first day of “Norouz,” Persian New Year. My Persian friends tell me that in Iranian tradition, the house is cleaned top to bottom, new clothes are bought, and it is a time of fresh and wonderful beginnings.

I feel like spring-time is a time for cleaning inside and out.

I invite you to join me on a ten day long spring cleanse, starting March 15^th to tidy up our insides as much as our homes. Stay tuned for my updates and feel free to post yours as well.

 There are 5 main components to this cleanse: 1) Green drinks, 2) fiber and intestinal cleansing, 3) Lots of vegetables - 50% of your food, 4) Yoga or qi gong moves every morning, and 5) the Forgiveness meditation. While doing this cleanse, I would recommend that you stop dairy, sugar, gluten containing foods, and alcohol. If you have caffeine, I would suggest tea rather than coffee, with no milk or sugar in it.

 1) Green Drink Recipe: Make a green drink every morning, using a blender, vitamixer, or other superblender. Take a small apple, 1/2 banana, some blueberries, strawberries, or raspberries and add 3-4 leaves of chard, spinach (a handfull in this case) or kale, and dandelion leaves, a piece of ginger (depending on your taste), a tablespoon of chia seeds or ground flax seeds, a tablespoon of sunflower seeds or 3 walnuts, and 1/2 a lemon. Pour water over the top, and some ice if you like, blend until everything is liquefied. Pour into mason jar. Drink a glass for breakfast and then sip it all day. Another option for a green drink is using Organic Raw Protein Powder from Garden of life, greens powder from Garden of life, water, blueberries, a handful of spinach or chard, and a date.

 2) Options for fiber and intestinal cleansing: The easiest is to buy Yerba Prima all fiber capsules, beginning on the first day of the cleanse. Take 2 capsules twice a day, then increase to 3 the next day. 4 the day after that. On the 5th day of the cleanse, begin taking bentonite clay - 1 tablespoon twice a day, with lots of water. You will only do this for 3 days. Drink plenty of water with all this fiber. If you want to use liver cleansing herbs, Amazon herbs makes a product I like, Fiberzon, which has herbs for cleansing in it. You can just use 2 doses of that per day instead of the fiber and bentonite clay. The point of this cleanse is to make it easy for you to do, which will make it more likely that you'll do it.

 3) Diet: 50% vegetables, meaning that all day, everything you eat, half of it should be vegetables. You can steam, bake, boil, stir fry, whatever works for you. You can eat any protein you like, meat, fish, chicken, beans, whatever feels good. Toasted walnuts are another good source of protein/fat that you could have with your breakfast. You can also eat grains. Fruits are okay but I would only have them in the green drink for this diet.

The Dieting Don’t List: Don't eat any white foods at all - ie bread, sugar, milk, dairy, cheese, even bananas aren't great. Do not skip meals. Have at least 3 meals a day. You can have the green drink for a snack or you can have some veggies and protein for a snack.

 4) Yoga or qi gong moves in the AM: Practice moving your body in a gentle way. You can take a class or find a dvd that has some poses. Or, if you know some yoga, practice what you know and make it your routine. You should do some form of slower movement for 20 minutes a day. If you decide to do some cardio, try to go outside and take walks. Be more reflective in your exercising this week. If you know the sun salutation, you can do it 12 times a day for the week.

 5) The Forgiveness meditation: The liver is the organ that is most active in spring time. It has to do with the emotions of anger and frustration. The best way to heal anger is to find that place of forgiveness inside of ourselves. In the 5 elements system, the liver leads to the heart, which represents the emotion of joy. To find joy, you need to find forgiveness. For our cleanse, since we are focusing on the liver, I would like to have everyone do 5 minutes a day of forgiveness meditation.

         Propel your mind, body, and spirit forward with this great experiment. Even if you can’t do every component, or last for a full week….

Update on Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 5:02PM by Shiroko Sokitch, MD

Its Day 5 of our cleanse! How are you all doing? I've been enjoying my green drinks and following the diet but I have to say that I haven't done as much exercise as I thought I'd do. 

I stil think the yoga or qi gong moves are useful, I just decided to be lazy this weekend. 

I'd love to see comments from people who are following the cleanse. See how you all are doing. Next year, we'll have a whole group of people who sign up so that it will be easier to support each other.

I Don't Have Time to Get Healthy!

Have you ever felt like you just don’t have enough time? Do you stress about getting where you need to go in the day and keep feeling like you are never going to get done? Its not uncommon for us to feel that way, especially in these times where things seem to be moving faster and faster.

 When we feel rushed for time, we often think we can’t do the things that will help us take care of ourselves. Of course time stress is one of the things that throws us off and increases our overall sensation of stress. Making it harder for us to feel well. It becomes a vicious circle. So many people I see tell me that they don’t have time to eat well or exercise regularly because they’re just too busy.

 In the world of financial advisors, you are often advised to “pay yourself first”. It means to give money to yourself before you give it to others. The standard advice is to take 10% of your income off the top in order to create a savings account. In my experience, time management works much like money management; you have to give yourself time first.

 In that light, today I’m suggesting some time management tips so that you will be able to take care of your health, which will in turn help you feel less stressed. As with money management, you need to set aside time in each day to take care of yourself. As you review your plans for any given day, or better yet, the week. Look at your schedule and find time for exercise and healthy eating. Put those times down in your calendar, in ink. Don’t let anything else interrupt that part of your schedule.

 If you have to get up a half hour earlier to do half an hour of exercise, do that and get the exercise out of the way for the day. I usually have to get up earlier to get my writing in or I won’t do it.

 Other suggestions for time management include:

Evaluate how you’re spending your time – keep a diary for three days of everything you do, including time for shower, brushing your teeth, getting ready for bed, cooking your meals, and sitting in front of the TV. At the end of those three days, see how you’re spending you time and evaluate to see if you’re getting what you want out of your days. Perhaps a half hour less TV might give you the time you need to do everything.

Keep a daily schedule – this should include your workout and eating times, and other things that have to be done

Prioritize your tasks – make sure you have time for the most important things you need to do by setting them in order of priority.

Delegate what you can – if you have things you can delegate to someone else, do that.

Take the time you need to do a good job – when you have an important job, make sure that you give it enough time to make sure you do it well.

Break large tasks into smaller chunks of time – if you have a big job, schedule it into your days in smaller amounts of time.

Take a break when you need it – if you know that you need breaks, schedule them into your day. Schedule some breaks where you step away from your tasks and take deep breaths, look outside, or even stretch so that you can continue your work in a better way.

 When you allow yourself the time to relax, your day will flow more smoothly and you will actually feel like you’re getting more done. My mom used to joke about expanding time when we were driving somewhere and we were late. She’d say “lets expand time now so that we’ll get there.” Oddly enough, it always worked; we’d end up being on time for our appointments without her having to drive faster! Of course that didn't stop her from speeding anyway.