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Dr. Eric Berg DC — #1 Best Answer for Depression. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
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You know, when you're dealing with depression or treating depression, it's very, very hard sometimes to sort out and realize that depression is a symptom. It's not a disease. It's a symptom of something else. And unfortunately, too many doctors treat this symptom directly, and there's massive side effects. So I'm going to show you a couple things that I think are very powerful to take away your depression. But realize what's the best thing to do is to match a remedy or a solution that matches the underlying cause. I mean, depression come from many different things, loss of a loved one. Number two, stress, stress of life, like right now, everyone's going through a lot of stress. Okay. Number three, winter, people go to press seasonally because of the lack of not just vitamin D, but sunlight, okay, before pregnancy, postpartum depression. Not necessarily always a decrease in estrogen.
It could also come from a lack of iron, zinc, magnesium because here you are. You're carrying this, this baby inside you for a period of time. And so you're feeding this baby, all sorts of nutrition, not to mention if you're also breastfeeding, it's depleting you of a lot of micronutrients that need to be put back. That can make you very depressed. Number five, very, very important gut dysbiosis. You have some type of imbalance in your gut, whether you just took an antibiotic or some other reason, that can severely inhibit your ability to have a good mood. No sleep will definitely make you exhausted and depressed. I don't think I've ever met anyone who has a ton of energy, great sleep and depressed at the same time. There's definitely a connection. And number seven, blood sugars, whether the blood sugar is too low or too high, can put you in a state of a lowered mood, which could include depression or anxiety. Let's first talk about the most important thing you can do as a solution to improve the
majority of these things right here. And that would be get more sun, not to the point where you're burnt, but just exposure to light. There's some magical things that occur from sunlight. You have this full spectrum of visible light, but you also have invisible energy too. You have UV, you have infrared that's doing all sorts of wonderful things to your body, including helping you build up your melatonin reserve. Not to mention the sun giving you vitamin D, which vitamin D directly will decrease depression. It's a really good remedy. But you can't fix depression with low amounts of vitamin D. There's mixed studies in vitamin D. I looked at the studies, and most of the studies that say that it's ineffective, they're using like 400 eye use or 600 eye use or even 800 eye use of vitamin D3. That's not enough, especially with all the other factors that can block the absorption.
So you're going to need at least 4,000, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 eye use of vitamin D to create the change that you need. Now also from another angle, the sunlight can actually increase your serotonin, which does affect your mood. So sunlight through the retina, which is actually neurological tissue that's connected to brain tissue that actually has centers that make serotonin in your brain. And so with more sunlight, you can help produce more serotonin, you can help bind and absorb more serotonin and increase your serotonin reserve versus being out of the sun. Now if you can't be exposed to the sun because of winter, whatever, get bright light therapy, huge. My day kicks off with a refreshing sociocenergy drink, then straight to the gym. Pre-gift pick up, back home to meal prep, time for my fire session shift.
One more Celsius kind of keep the lights on. When the three alarm hits, I'm ready. Celsius, live, fit, go. Grab a cold refreshing socioceture local retailer or locate now at Celsius.com. Huge results with bright light therapy. You have to get a full spectrum light and about 10,000 locks. And that's the light you need to put by your computer. And in the morning, when you get up, if you're working in your computer or wherever, have this light shining into your face for about 30 minutes, you're going to get huge results just from that alone. Also realize that cortisol down regulates serotonin. So if you are going through stress, you're going to have to do something to reduce that because you're not going to see the benefits if you have this underlying, stressful situation going on. Number two, fasting, the second most potent thing to raise your mood. Quick story.
I interviewed this guy who decided to starve himself to death because he was so depressed and he wanted to end it all, okay? So he decided I'm going to stop eating, stop drinking, going into his room and locking the door. After the second or third day, he started feeling really good. He didn't know what was happening, but he started feeling really great. He no longer had depression. He no longer had suicide thoughts. Goes on his computer, discovers what he just did was fasting, finds my video, we do the interview, totally turns his life around because fasting repairs your brain, okay? And it can increase your cognitive function and definitely elevate your mood through various pathways, okay? So if you haven't done it, do it because you will get rid of your depression, especially the combination. Number three, a probiotic or consuming more foods that have good, friendly bacteria
as in fermented sauerkraut, kimchi, things like that, pickles, or even plain kefir. 90% of your serotonin is made by your gut bacteria, okay? So not to mention just serotonin, but also you have other neurotransmitters that these microbes help you make. And your brain uses a lot of these neurotransmitters. Your body uses a lot of these transmitters. They've done a lot of studies showing the relationship between people that are depressed and having gut issues, okay? It's like one for one, they have gut dysbiosis, which is an alteration in the type of microbes you have and the quantity of microbes. And it just so happens that one of the main side effects from antibiotics is depression, okay? Depression. And glyphosate, which is the chemical, the herbicide, in all these GMO foods that we're exposed to, and it's in our water supply, works by blocking tripdiffan, okay?
It blocks tripdiffan in microbes. Well, we need tripdiffan to make serotonin. That's the only source of serotonin. There is no other source. It needs tripdiffan. So glyphosate is going to block that. And then there's nothing there for the raw material for serotonin to be built and guess what symptom you're going to have, depression. So we have glyphosate, antibiotics, and also decreased sleep will also affect higher cortisol, which will down-regulate serotonin. Number four, going on keto. I mean, just that alone, the combination between keto and fasting, I'm so many reports, people go on low carb, all of a sudden, they're no longer depressed. They no longer have anxiety, why? Because ketones are a mood elevator. Also ketones decrease inflammation in your brain. Both of these actions will make you a heck of a lot depressed. The combination of these four should handle your depression.
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Significantly, there's other things you can do. Cold showers every morning, okay? Huge effect. I'll put the research down below. The cold showers are really good for chronic inflammation, for pain, for sleeping, to increase your energy, but also people are using it to pull them out of a depressed state. Of course, exercise will also help with depression, and then getting more sleep will also help. As far as nutrients go, vitamin D and high levels, zinc and magnesium are the three key nutrients that I would recommend if you had depression. If you had postpartum depression because you were pregnant, take iron with that zinc and magnesium. If you're under a lot of stress, make sure you also add the B1 from nutritional yeast because that can actually ease up, not just anxiety, but it can make you a lot less depressed.
If you're new to fasting, especially prolonged fasting, you really need to check out this video right here.
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