Are You Singing the Blues?

According to an article in the Huffington Post in January of 2015, about 350 million people world-wide suffer from some form of depression, with about 16 million adults having at least one major depressive episode during 2012. This means that slightly less than 7% of the population reported feeling severely depressed that year. Eleven percent of adolescents have a diagnosable problem with depression by the time they are 18, and a whopping 30% of college students report feeling depressed enough that it disrupts their studies. 

Clearly, we have a lot of people in the world who are feeling tired, run down, defeated and discouraged. Unfortunately, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) prescribed by doctors take an average of four to six weeks to start taking effect and have numerous side effects. Potential problems with SSRIs include: increased risk of suicide (especially violent suicide), increased tendencies towards violent crimes and hostility towards family and friends, increased abuse of alcohol and other substances and an increased tendency to impulsive acts with no concern for punishment. And, oddly enough, one of the potential side effects of these drugs is insomnia and depression.

Surely there must be a better approach, and there is. You see, depression isn’t actually a disease. It’s really just a symptom, and it has numerous causes. These include: Intestinal problems like constipation and leaky gut, liver stagnation, low thyroid, imbalances in reproductive hormones, grief, chronic anxiety (stress), adrenal fatigue, nutritional deficiencies, and a lack of exposure to sunlight (seasonal affective disorder). So, it doesn’t make sense to try to “treat” depression directly. 

It makes more sense to assess what is causing the depression and fix it, and that’s what we’ll be discussing in this month’s Sunshine Sharing hour. We’ll teach you how to identify the causes of depression and what remedies you can use to fix those causes and lift a person out of their depression.

For over two decades, Steven Horne has been producing educational materials to help people in just one herbal company, Nature's Sunshine Products, to build successful businesses helping others with herbs,…