How to Get "Unstuck" from Depression

Hi, this is Dr. Mark Hyman. How many of you are stuck? Do you feel stuck in depression, sadness, anxiety? Are you just maybe a little confused, overburdened, or unhappy? Or maybe you're one of the 25% of Americans who a major depression in their lifetime. Or maybe you're taking one of the 189 million prescriptions written for depression at a cost of $12 billion a year to our society and wondering if there's another way. Or maybe like most who take antidepressants you find they don't work, lose their effectiveness over time, or give you only slight relief from symptoms. Or maybe like 60% of the people who take them, You quit after a few months because the side effects such as weight gain, loss of sex drive or worse are showing up. Or maybe you're looking for a way to reconnect to your life's meaning and purpose and emerge from a life that feels half lived. If you're one of those people, I guarantee you you're not suffering from a Prozac deficiency. In fact, I want to challenge you to think that depression as we think of it does not really exist. Depression is not a disease. That's how a remarkable new book begins. It's called Unstuck: you: Guide to the Seven Stage Journey Out of Depression. It was written by James Gordon, who was recently given an award by the Brave World Collaborative as one of the most pioneering medical thinkers of our time. You know, ideas that can change a culture come only a few times in a generation. Unstuck is such an idea, and it provides an answer to the leading cause of disability, that's depression, that until now has had very poor solutions. So why does Dr. Gordon say that depression is not a disease? It is a sign of imbalance, he says, that needs to be addressed if we are to be whole and happy. He has been working in this field for nearly 40 years and I've come to know Dr. Gordon well when I first met him, when I testified before the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine. He was appointed the head of the commission by Clinton. and his vision for a new medicine has been strong and clear. And his work treating patients, teaching healthcare professionals mind-body medicine and nutrition and helping so many heal the wounds of war and trauma by working in amazing places like conflict-ridden places like Gaza, Bosnia, New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, which he's done through his Center for Mind-Body Medicine, it's given him a remarkable insight into the causes and the nature of our suffering. and depression. So Unstuck is really a guide for healing your body, your mind and your soul. In his book he not only helps us understand why we may be out of balance, guiding us to the origins of our depression, but he also helps us discover whether it's trauma or chronic stress or lack of meaning or the stories we tell ourselves about our life that make us depressed and he helps you uncover hormonal imbalances food allergies, heavy metals, yeast infections, or nutritional deficiencies that can also lead to depression. That's why Dr. Gordon says that depression is not a disease. Even though the symptoms may be the same or similar in people diagnosed with depression, the causes for each person may be very different. This is a core principle of functional medicine and ultra wellness. He then provides practical tools to help us address each of these issues, whether it is for your body, your mind, or your soul. He gives you, for example, simple, effective meditations that can enhance the biology of your brain and your body, making it easier to deal with and transform your beliefs or fears that inhibit you or overwhelm you. He gives you clinically tested practices using words and images, drawing, movement, yoga, or dance to help you move out of and through depression. He gives you a detailed and practical food plan and plan for supplements as well as the plan for using the ancient and powerful methods of Chinese medicine to balance your physical and mental functioning. And he also gives you ways to make the world's spiritual wisdom and spiritual practices an ongoing part of your healing journey. And most importantly, he gives you specific ways to tailor each of these approaches to help restore balance to your unique individual life. He has many stories in his book of the journey people take to get unstuck and become whole and happy again. They remind me of a recent patient that I had who had a diagnosis of depression but the last thing he needed was antidepressants. In his particular case, he didn't have trauma or stress, it was his biology that made him depressed. JP, I'll call him, was an 18 year old young man who showed up in my office with fatigue, depression, anxiety, he gained 27 pounds and had really bad acne over the four years before he saw me. He also couldn't tolerate cold, he was more tired in the morning, he had canker sores cracking at the corners of his mouth, Acne on his face and his chest and his back and his shoulders and he had seasonal allergies and he also had trouble falling asleep, anxiety, depression, which got worse every winter. He had been treated with an antidepressant called Paxil for four years. It made him crave sweets and starchy foods and he gained 27 pounds. He also took antibiotics every day for two years for his acne, which led to a low-grade yeast infection. And of course he ate the typical junk food and processed teenage food diet, top off with lots of sodas. So when we examine what was really going on, what was it the cause of his depression? We found so many nutritional deficiencies that have actually been proven to cause depression. These included vitamin D deficiency, omega-3 fat deficiency, B6 and B12 deficiency. He also had hormonal imbalances, right? With low levels of thyroid autoimmune disease, he had very high levels of insulin from all the sugar he consumed, which both have been actually linked to depression. He also had many food allergies including gluten and dairy, again, linked in many cases to depression. So I did what I always do, right, which is the basis of my treatment of all diseases, quote, diseases. I take away the bad stuff and I put in the good stuff. We got rid of the gluten and the dairy from his diet. We got him to stop the antibiotics which caused yeast overgrowth in his gut. We got him off his junk food and sugar diet, encouraged him to eat whole foods. And I helped him balance his thyroid with a low dose of thyroid hormone. which helped his mood and fatigue and cold intolerance. And then I gave him nutritional supplements of vitamin D and B6, as well as a multivitamin and fish oil. And after two months, his energy, depression and cold intolerance all got better. His acne, canker sores, cracks at the corner of his mouth all went away, and he lost 15 pounds and his carbohydrate cravings were gone. So clearly, just as Dr. Gordon shows in his book, Unstuck, This young man didn't have the disease depression, but simply a number of imbalances that once corrected took care of all his physical symptoms and his emotional symptoms. If you're suffering from depression or just feel stuck, unhappy, or that you're not living a whole life, then give yourself the gift of Dr. Gordon's book, Unstuck. And if you feel wonderful, which I hope you do, then give it to someone who you think will thank you for the gift of life.