If you’re struggling with depression, try some of these diet and lifestyle approaches to healing your depression before you take the first pill. They’re a great place to start, and in my clinical practice, I’ve seen them make a significant enough difference that medication, and the side effects that often come with it, can be avoided. Disclaimer: I recommend that you be in treatment with a good mental health provider who can help you navigate these choices, balancing them with the need for other intervention. As much as modern life tries to move us away from our evolutionary roots, we can’t change the fact that the human body works best when we fall asleep approximately three hours after sunset and wake with the sunrise. Modern life has us wired, awake, and plugged into our screens much later than we should be, and I think we have epidemic rates of insomnia, anxiety, and depression to show for it. I won’t sugarcoat it: It doesn’t come cheap, and it requires an immense amount of effort. It means swimming upstream in the mainstream food culture of modern life, and it means relinquishing the euphoric hits you get from processed foods. But if you’re looking for the keys to the kingdom of feeling good, they’re right in front of you on your plate. So what does an antidepressant diet look like? It’s a nutrient-dense, anti-inflammatory, real food diet. Essentially, you eat a balance of vegetables; well-sourced meat, fish, and poultry (go to the farmers market or a good butcher and have a conversation about their practices); starchy tubers (translation: sweet potatoes, white potatoes, plantains); fermented foods; nuts and seeds; fruit; and plenty of healthy fats such as ghee, olive oil, avocado, coconut oil, and fatty cuts of meat and fish. What’s not there is what most Americans are eating on the reg—sugar, refined carbs (i.e., bread, crackers, pasta, cookies, even seemingly healthy vegan baked goods and gluten-free replacement foods), and inflammatory oils, such as canola oil. Switching up your diet is no small task. Ask for the help you need (enlist help from roommates, partners, family). Ask them to join you for a month of Whole30, or to commit to more home cooking, or just ask them to help hold you accountable in a kind and supportive way. If you can manage it, kick things off with a meal delivery service to gather some momentum eating real foods. Remember, you WILL go through processed food withdrawal, and it’ll be really hard to pass a pizzeria those first few weeks. Stay strong and remind yourself this is an act of radical self-love. You don’t have to expatriate to Costa Rica to do this right (though that would be a sound choice). You can make small, unsexy but profound changes in your work life in order to craft a daily life that feels manageable and satisfying. It might be as simple as working one fewer day per week, creating healthy boundaries with your email account, turning down a promotion, building in more time in nature, or downsizing your home to free up some cash flow. Ask yourself tough questions about how much space and stuff you really need, how much money you really need to make, and what quality of life that money really affords you (and at what cost). If you loathe the way people socialize, and you have no interest in the bar scene, then craft a social situation that you would enjoy (maybe bowling, hiking, book club, art gallery hopping, baking healthy muffins, or watching Dawson’s Creek?). Whatever floats your boat. The people who would show up to this will be people who enjoy doing similar things to you, and therein lies the beginning of your tribe. It’s also worth exploring other forms of reflective practices like journaling, painting, making music, dancing, or even coloring in mandalas. Yoga and meditation are such effective antidepressants that it would be a shame to rule them out based on a few subpar vinyasa classes or adherence to a meditation practice that isn’t your cup of tea. Keep seeking until you find a practice that resonates with you. If you’ve been feeling depressed and contemplating the need for medication, I hope you’re able to put some (or all) of these practices into place. In my experience, these can transform depression at the root and obviate the need for medication. I always recommend being in care with a good mental health provider to help you see your blind spots and give you support, but I’m hopeful that most people can heal their depression without medications and the side effects that often come with them. If you’re experiencing depression and need support, please call the National Depressive/Manic-Depressive Association Hotline at 1-800-826-3632 or the Crisis Call Center’s 24-hour hotline at 1-800-273-8255 (or text “ANSWER” to 839863). Not convinced that nature can save your health? This study showed that teens who live near nature are less depressed.
