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"Your health ... and your peace of mind"by Erica Pine Weinman Practitioners of holistic psychology use nutrition, exercise and dietary supplements to encourage serenity and mental health. Rather than focusing on an illness, attention is focused on finding wellness. A mental health instability does not lead a holistic healer directly to a contemplation of a disease or pathological illness model. In America, 2.5 million people (1 out of 100) are labeled as suffering from bipolar disorder. This chemical imbalance, when diagnosed, is invariably treated with psychopharmacology. Antipsychotic drugs such as Respiradol and Zyprexa are often prescribed in tandem with mood stabilizers such as lithium or Depakote . This form of treatment only focuses on limiting symptoms of bipolar disorder, previously known as "manic depression." Clients are told they must continue a drug regimen for the rest of their lives, and there are no claims from drug companies or regular psychiatrists that the illness can be cured. The mood-controlling neurotransmitters of the brain include serotonin, dopamine and norepinphrine. These substances help one think and react to stimuli quickly, and control the speed of messages to nerve synapses. Medication is designed to properly balance these substances, but these drugs can cause many unpleasant and serious side effects such as weight gain, lack of sexual desire, phototropism (sun allergy), dry mouth and hair loss. Drug companies have not put effort into solving these adverse effects. Any of these reactions would make a person with "normal" brain chemistry suffer anxiety, and many people also feel their creativity and ambitions are dulled along with their visible emotional affect. Even more disturbing, the results of a government-sponsored study of more than 1,000 Mississippi Medicaid mental health consumers found that those taking older, cheaper psychotropics such as Loxapine suffered fatal heart attacks at a rate 600% higher than the general population. Recently, there has been a lot of interest in the positive effect of nutritional adjustments on mood disorder conditions. The actress Margot Kidder is a strong believer that her regimen is helping her deal with a bipolar illness naturally. Her dietary plan includes: (1) fish-salmon, trout, halibut, sardines and tuna; (2) walnuts; (3) green, leafy vegetables; (4) canola or soybean oil; (5) flax seed; (6) functional (omega-3 rich) eggs; (7) supplemental free-form amino acids (2 daily on an empty stomach). In a double-blind Harvard Medical School study, fish oil supplements were found to have notable mood-stabilizing effects. Alcohol worsens stability, as it depletes B vitamins. Recommendations also include allergy tests and hair strand analysis to find vitamin deficiencies. Sleep disorders have been stabilized for some by ingesting melatonin supplements. Produced naturally in the body's pineal gland, melatonin can deliver deeper and greater amounts of sleep. Dr. James F. Balch and his wife, Dr. Phyllis A. Balch, also recommend also the removal of sugar, dairy products, alcohol, soda and caffeine from the diet to benefit mood stability. Orthomolecular ("right molecule") medicine, practiced by Dr. Linus Pauling among others, balances biochemistry through diet and mega-doses of vitamins and minerals. Bipolar symptoms can be triggered by food sensitivities, fatty acid (omega-3) deficiencies, sleep disorders, chronic stress, trauma, or adverse effects of antidepressants. Solaray makes a supplement called Melatonin with Valerimint , a product available at the Coop, which provides many of the elements thought to be helpful in maintaining mental stability. Taken at night, each tablet contains 0.3MG of melatonin, 45MG of valerian root, 0.5MG of vitamin B6, 140MG of ginger root, chamomile, skull cap, 100MG of peppermint, 30MG of hops, and 30MG of passion flower. Since this product is sold as a supplement, it has not been scrutinized by the Food and Drug Administration. It provides ingredients that have proven successful, such as B vitamins, which the National Institutes of Health found were lacking in people diagnosed with bipolar. Solaray's instructions stress that you should contact your physician, especially if you are pregnant, nursing or have a depressive disorder. Never set out to change your mental health regime or discontinue your psychiatric medications without first consulting your doctor. These varying treatments can be followed without disturbing your current medications, and have been found to be helpful by many searching for peace in their mind. Hopefully, by pressuring our psychiatrists to insist that drug companies address their product's deficiencies, new medications will be developed without such harmful side effects, while natural aides to stability will be researched and taught. References 1. Putting It All Together: The New Orthomolecular Nutrition , by Abram Hoffer, Morton Walker, and Linus Pauling. New York: McGraw Hill, 1996. 2. Minerals, Herbs & Food Supplements: Prescription for Nutritional Healing , 3rd ed., by Phyllis A. Balch CNC, and James F. Balch MD. New York: Avery Penguin Putnam, 2000. 3. Nutrition & Mental Illness , by Carl Curt Pfeiffer. New York: Inner Traditions International, 1988. |
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