Your 40M brain cells need you to get this.
(read time: 2 min)
Whether or not you experience full depressive episodes, symptoms, or just down days, it’s important to recognize that serotonin might be playing a role. Serotonin deficiency is known to wreak havoc on you. It can show up as insomnia, digestive issues, low mood, anxiety and so much more.
This is why so many GPs prescribe SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) to patients presenting with clinical depression. In effect, these types of meds keep more serotonin around to use, fighting off the symptoms of serotonin deficiency. But meds are not the end all, there are also natural ways to boost serotonin.
YOUR BOOST
Up your serotonin in two easy ways (although there are many more):
Eat a tryptophan-enriched diet
Make time to take in the sun everyday
Bonus ones: exercise, nature time, and physical touch or massage.
THE SCIENCE
First, tryptophan is an essential amino acid, a protein building block that your body cannot function without, but can’t make it, so you need to consume foods that have it in them. Some common tryptophan-rich foods include lean meat, tofu, fish, edamame, dairy, pumpkin seeds, oats, and eggs. By consuming these foods regularly, you are providing your body with the building blocks in order to make more serotonin.
Second, Part of the reason we feel so much better in summer months is the ability to easily be exposed to sunlight and for longer periods of time through the day. The sun not only increases the amount of serotonin your body makes, it also is associated with how well that serotonin binds, like a key, to the locks (called receptors) on your brain cells.
TAKE HOME
You can be your own serotonin champion. Use the tips above to keep your levels balanced and see for yourself how it can positively affect your mood and the quality of your days.
No shame, no guilt, just more good days,
Nicole
On a personal note:
Depression is often compounded by other things, including co-diagnosis. In April of this year, I was re-diagnosed. It isn’t that I don’t have major depressive disorder,, it's that I have deep depressive episodes AND hypomania, in other words I have Type 2 Bipolar. So in order to find my baseline (SSRIs aren’t very good at balancing out the highs and lows equally), it was time to to come off them. With the oversight of my psychiatrist, I have been very slowly weaning my body off of citalopram.
It wasn’t a decision I made lightly. We chose to begin in summer (hello sunshine!) and to go super slow. I have been decreasing my dose by 10mg every month: from my starting dose (40mg) to 30 mg in May, 20mg in June, 10mg in July, and now I am fully operating on my own brain chemicals and getting a feel for this baseline of health as I begin to work on my balancing not just my lows, but also my highs in order to even it all out and find more peace in my days.