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Depression Protocol
🕑 Added 2021-11-15 04:01:44 +0000 UTCI already have written up an extensive review on this subject, but I'd like to break it down a bit more and include more notes I've collected from my past experience, research, and with clients.
If you've been following my advice thus far, it is likely you have already resolved your depression. Of course, there is a purpose, socialization, and trauma factor involved, though these factors can be more easily addressed with the underlying biochemistry managed for. Purpose in life is crucial for any human being, though it can be tough to find. My purpose is to help others along their paths and my family, focusing on these factors throughout my own health journey has helped to keep me on the right path in doing everything that I know I need to be doing. Take your time to truly reflect on this if you need to, but most people can relate to the family aspect.
I have another thread on social isolation, but to summarize here, socialization is also crucial to any human being. We are inherently social animals and isolation is an indication for sickness. Regardless of whether you "feel like it", make time for family and friends even once a week if not on a more regular basis. It has more of an impact on your mental health than you can imagine, via GABA/glutamate balance, oxytocin, and reduced dynorphin expression. With these factors said, trauma can also be more easily addressed with proper GABA/glutamate balance and dynorphin/endorphin balance, as the trauma itself causes a massive downregulation of the GABA receptor system, allowing calcium-glutamate to run rampant and produce excessive inflammation and oxidative stress.
It ALL ties together in what I'm about to layout for you all.
Many of these factors can be addressed simultaneously by simply getting sun at key times daily, eliminating the crap in your diet in place of nutrient-dense whole foods, focusing on primarily protein intake then filling up with complex carbs or healthy fats, socializing regularly, breathwork/meditation or mindfulness, gratitude lists, exercising regularly (lifting, running, biking, swimming, sports, etc. The more, the better), supplementing any gaps in the diet, magnesium, l-theanine, inositol, black seed oil, and various herbal medicines can easily replace the pharmacology of leading antidepressant medications. It really does take out the bulk of the work, then if all of these factors are addressed, you can target other factors you suspect are involved.
I have included links to articles and tweets discussing some of these subjects and how to go about resolving them. To summarize in simple terms, depression and all of its variations are rooted in:
- inflammation,
- oxidative stress,
- circadian biology (rising with sunrise and sleeping with sunset or shortly thereafter),
- blue light toxicity/lack of sun,
- mitochondrial dysfunction/dysfunctional energy metabolism,
- GABA/glutamate imbalance,
- dynorphin/endorphin imbalance (too much social isolation, drug abuse, and stress/trauma, too little sunlight exposure for Proopiomelanocortin production/beta-endorphin, stress management/therapy, and spending time with family/friends)
- Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio balance (eat more seafood preferably daily, eliminate industrialized vegetable/seed oils for a period),
- zinc and copper-iron metabolism dysregulation,
- gut health and microbiome (aside from sunlight, much of our dopamine, serotonin, and GABA is produced in the gut by our microbiome bacteria),
- poor redox state (detox capacity, the modern environment overloads the human body with toxic crap nowadays and it can easily overwhelm and contribute to all of these factors I've outlined),
- your diet (see: Zero Tolerance Dietary Framework, all of those dietary factors outlined contribute to all of the above, namely inflammation and oxidative stress),
- malnutrition across the board (any number of micronutrient deficiencies can contribute to depression altogether, but also each of these factors depending on the nutrient. Get a Spectracell Micronutrient Panel to identify what needs to be addressed),
- impaired tryptophan metabolism (the kynurenine pathway becomes dysregulated and it's metabolites contribute to excess calcium-glutamate and oxidative stress. Excess or deficient serotonin on the serotonin pathway can also contribute. This ties into lack of sunlight, gut health, malnutrition, and methylation status),
- hormonal dysfunction including thyroid function,
- impaired methylation status (contribute to dopamine, serotonin, and glutathione production/detox capacity)
- low cholesterol (necessary for hormone and vitamin D production),
- impaired neuroplasticity (low BDNF/NGF/GDNF, etc., all of the above contributes to this)
Blood work to get a head start here and to identify exactly what needs to be addressed:
- Full hormone panel including testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, prolactin, DHEA, GH, SHBG, salivary cortisol/melatonin
- Full thyroid panel including TSH, T4, T3, rT3
- Full lipid panel
- Spectracell Micronutrient Panel
- Gene analysis, then downloading raw data and uploading to a third-party service such as MTHFRSupport, Promethease, Selfdecode, Genegenie, etc.
"There is no magical pill, cure, or other person coming to save you, you must take accountability for your self, your lifestyle, and your actions or you WILL continue to suffer. There is no way around it. This is not to discourage you, but to EMPOWER you."
Many common medications prescribed can actually be counterproductive to full recovery as there will be withdrawal syndrome, but if you are a harm to yourself or others, please consider short-term medication...
"Do not be ashamed if you must resort to medications, just please for the love of God, do NOT stay on them for extended periods. Use the motivation and relief from depression to implement new changes in your life. I swear on my own life, do not do this to yourself. If you stay on these medications long-term, you are sealing your fate for the rest of your life with global receptor system downregulation, mitochondrial dysregulation, and the malnutrition that comes when ingesting any potent chemicals without being paired with nutrients."
"YOU have the power to make serious changes in your mental state NOW."
The Zero Tolerance Dietary Framework (mentioned in the link above) is where I initially began when resolving my own depression. Its purpose is to eliminate key inflammatory dietary triggers and to restore inflammation and oxidative stress levels to a baseline. Try to ensure quality foods if you can afford to (organic, grass-fed, pasture-raised, local, wild-caught, etc.). It doesn't matter how "hard it is", you have to start here regardless. It is the most simple means of managing many of these factors. It doesn't have to be a super strict ketogenic or carnivore diet, just eliminate the CRAP. This list is the commonalities between ALL diets that provide their initial benefits. Even moreso if your diet has been crappy or nutrient deficient most of your life. This includes zero tolerance for recreational drugs as well, excluding psychedelics and dissociatives for at the very least 3-6 month timeline, then they can be utilized in a more efficient way and actually show efficacy more reliably. Psychedelics and dissociatives should only be utilized in lower dosages if you can afford to NOT ABUSE THEM. They are TOOLS and can be abused and worsen your situation as such. Alcohol, cannabis, tobacco, caffeine, refined sucrose, stimulants, opiates/opioids, benzodiazepines, MDMA, gabapentenoids, research chemicals... They all contribute to further oxidative stress, inflammation, GABA/glutamate imbalance, and dynorphin/endorphin imbalance. There is no way around this.
Suicidal ideation is a result of inositol and niacin deficiency. See a therapist or psychiatrist obviously if trauma is involved or if you are a harm to yourself or others, but these two nutritional supplements are incredibly safe. (Liver panel is suggested if consumed long-term for niacin). Inositol for direct suicidal ideation and rumination, and niacin for the delusional/depressive thinking that leads up to it. Myoinositol and flush niacin (nicotinic acid) was most effective in my case, but you may need to experiment a bit in case niacinamide is more effective for your personal context.
That is Myoinositol, also found in milk/kefir (raw is best), various fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, etc. Niacin can be found in organs, eggs, dairy, meats, and poultry primarily, but also beans, peas, lentils, legumes, seeds, and nuts again. The latter may be inflammatory and counterproductive. Most foods fortified with niacin are with nicotinic acid, so less of a concern than folic acid but still better to avoid fortified foods altogether in favor of whole food sources. If symptoms are severe, a supplement may be necessary. The dosage can be increased significantly without incidence or risk of harm. Up to 6 tbsp daily for myoinositol if needed, best dissolved under the tongue or in water for the best effect, and up to 1-3g for nicotinic acid, 500mg-1g for niacinamide. Again, niacin requires a liver panel with long-term consumption so do try to increase your dietary intake first and foremost unless you require rapid relief. As always, start slow and low to gauge your response, but especially with the flush niacin (25-50mg). The pharmacology of both of these nutrient supplements coincidentally mimics leading antidepressants commonly prescribed for depression without the side effects or physical/mental dependency.
Dynorphin/endorphin imbalance is next up, which is most important if you also experience dissociation, anhedonia, amotivation, etc. GABA/glutamate imbalance also ties into these symptoms, which we will discuss below. My link on how to manage this is above, but I would like to include how crucial zero drug abuse, socialization, and sunlight are in resolving this imbalance. Dynorphin is significantly elevated in each of these contexts, which lowers dopamine, endorphin, and GABA as a result. So while you may feel drug abuse helps in the short term, you are digging yourself into a MUCH deeper hole. If you want to feel better, you must quit. I quit everything for the first year of my health recovery, aside from cannabis which I drastically reduced my intake of and switched to oral consumption to eliminate inflammatory smoke, and psychedelics/ketamine for about 6 months because I was abusing each of them previously. I will admit, if you can avoid abuse, ketamine and psilocybin/ayahuasca are extremely anti-inflammatory and help to process any trauma you may have experienced, in my own experience. I would consume 25-50mg ketamine once or twice a week for severe anhedonia, I couldn't experience pleasure in anything but this provided the motivation to continue on with what I knew to be the longer-term path. Psilocybin and ayahuasca in low doses as well. I repeat, NOT abusing them is the only way you should be utilizing these tools as it will set you back if you do. If you are not mentally prepared for either tool, avoid these two substances.
GABA/glutamate imbalance is next up and this requires daily sunlight exposure at sunrise, midday, and sunset (take breaks if you're at work periodically, even just 5 minutes, try to shift your schedule so you are capable of seeing the sunrise every morning which is most important), sunlight inhibits the calcium ion channels (triggers glutamate). High concentration multiform magnesium is crucial to inhibit excess calcium and glutamate, this is the primary tool as you may all know because I never shut up about it. Lmao. Magnesium is found in seafood (salmon and cod), bivalves/shellfish/mollusks, roe (fish eggs), animal hearts, snails, hemp seeds, and cacao, but supplementation may be necessary for the amounts anyone may require. Magnesium glycinate and l-theanine accounts for every glutamate receptor and even inhibit its production directly. Sublingual administration directs more GABA to the brain, but oral works just fine. Myoinositol is crucial here for GABA production to counter excess calcium-glutamate. 1:1 serum zinc/copper ratio in blood work is crucial to GABA production, as excess copper inhibits it. Thiamine, riboflavin, and B6 deficiencies also reduce its production. Leaky gut or SIBO inhibits its production in the gut microbiome, make sure to consume kefir and other fermented foods on a regular basis and to avoid refined sucrose and improperly prepared grains, seeds/nuts, legumes, and vegetables, and excessive blue light. Sunlight exposure to the stomach area is crucial to a healthy gut microbiome. Inflammation itself also contributes to excess glutamate, while glutamate triggers inflammation in an endless feedback loop cycle. Black seed oil helps to break this cycle as well as everything else I've addressed. Infections can also contribute to excess glutamate.
Additional herbal allies for GABA support (most effective in combined formulations, check for interactions if consuming drugs/medications):
- Astragalus
- Bacopa
- Black seed oil
- Blue lotus
- Chinese cat’s claw
- Codonopsis
- Gotu kola
- Jujube
- Ku shen
- Magnolia bark
- Oat straw
- Polygala tenuifolia
- Skullcap
- Wood betony
In my own experience, the most effective herb and supplement stack, along with the dietary and lifestyles changes was high concentration multiform magnesium saturation (chloride and glycinate), l-theanine about 3g daily as necessary with the highest dose before sleep, about 3-6 tbsp myoinositol, intranasal agmatine (outlined how to make your own in the SSRI Recovery Protocol), 3 tbsp black seed oil, then Bacopa, Blue lotus, Lion's mane extract, Mucuna pruriens (can only be used in two-week cycles to avoid downregulation), and Polygala tenuifolia in tea. This helped to resolve the anhedonia and fatigue/malaise enough to be functional for day-to-day tasks. This combination helps to address each factor that I've gone over. I was not nearly as functional as I am now, so I would like to mention, just do what you can do on that day, even if it's only one task. Baby steps, my friend. It will snowball into more and more ability and functionality.
The same goes for exercise. Newton's first law comes into play here. It takes energy to have energy. I'll say that once more to really drive this point home. It TAKES energy to HAVE energy. This means get up off your ass and get moving. Even if it's just a walk around the block or just 10 push-ups, GET THAT BLOOD and BREATH PUMPING. You just have to start somewhere and again, it will snowball into greater functionality and ability.
You'll notice your energy levels and motivation will gradually improve as the underlying biochemical changes of exercise/movement take effect. This is when your biochemistry begins to shift into a more positive light, you will notice it if you are aware of it. Anyone can overcome depression, no matter how severe. I promise you this.
This addresses each factor and anything missed is included in the links on the list above.
As always, if you have any questions or just even need emotional support, don't hesitate to reach out to me via message. I try to reply to all messages as I am able to do so.\
I am leaving for NY on the 21st, but I will be working on a sleep and acne protocol next and doing a Q&A before I leave, then addressing the other protocols I've written on Twitter like anxiety, OCD, psychosis, and ADHD/ADD more in-depth.
I hope this helps and I wish you all an excellent night. Sleep deeply!
