And it’s approaching epidemic proportions in the Western world. Lifestyle factors are without a doubt at least partly to blame. Therapies such as EFT can be enormously helpful, and I firmly believe you must also consider the lifestyle factors. If your body is not properly nourished or rested, no amount of any therapy (or drug for that matter) is going to fix the problem.

Sleep

Irish psychologists Ivan Tyrrell and Joe Griffin say they can cure depression within hours, simply by sorting out sleeping patterns. Their theory (well researched by them) is that your brain needs at least 60 – 90 minutes’ delta-wave activity every day, to essential ‘defrag’ itself – sort out and finish processing all the experiences you’ve had during the day.

Your brain enters delta when you’ve been asleep for about 4 hours, and not until then. So if you’re experiencing broken sleep, there’s a stack of things you can do, and I recommend the whole lot to my clients:

• have a small drink of warm milk (with honey if you like it) half an hour before bed
• put a few drops of lavender oil in the corner of the shower, and have a warm shower.
• put a few drops of lavender oil on a tissue and tuck that into your pillow slip. Why lavender? Studies have shown that it helps your brain enter the alpha state, which is that relaxed, dozy, state, we enter as we’re going to sleep. It’s been used for centuries to help insomnia and ease stress.
• Tyrrell and Griffin also recommend meditation. I suggest my clients use some of the excellent programs from Brain Sync. I use them myself, on my ipod with good quality earbuds, as I go to sleep.

What You Eat

I also recommend d ietary changes to improve the symptoms of depression:

• gradually eliminate all sugar and other refined foods. There is much research into the negative emotional effects of sugar, one of the best (and easiest to read) is Kathlene Desmaisons’ Potatoes Not Prozac – buy it from Amazon or in Australia/NZ, from Fishpond (excellent online bookseller!) Note: do not start using artificial sweeteners! The only one that is likely to be free from side-effects is stevia, a herb that is up to 600 times sweeter than sugar. You can get it at your health food store in powder and liquid form.
• add a probiotic such as kefir (water, milk, or coconut) or a probiotic powder from your health food shop – they are expensive though, kefir is much cheaper and you make it easily yourself every couple of days.
• add fish oil to your diet every day. If you can’t stomach fish oil, use flax (again, more expensive). Your brain is nearly 60% fat, it needs fat to function properly.
• Eat regular meals. Yes that includes breakfast, and that means within half an hour of getting up!
• Eat 1/3 protein at each meal. So for breakfast you’d have for example, a slice of dense grain toast with butter and a scrambled egg or two, or stewed tomatoes and mushrooms, or baked beans.
• Kathlene Desmaisons recommends also, and this is really important, that you have a palm-sized potato half an hour before bed. During the night the carbs and other trace minerals of the potato make important changes to your brain chemistry that you will feel when you wake up.

Note that none of this is an overnight cure for the scourge of depression. But you didn’t get depressed overnight either. It will take sustained effort over a few weeks to really see an improvement. Of course EFT will make a big impression on this as well, as it will help you identify the thinking and feeling patterns that helped the spiral into depression, and help you clear them out. Psychologist David Feinstein has conducted extensive research into energy psychology method like EFT, and has found real, measureable differences in brain wave patterns over several months, and the changes lasted long-term.

I often work with people with depression, and we get really good results. If you would like to work with me, and are willing to make the lifestyle changes I recommend above at the same time, please contact me, I’d love to work with you since you’re clearly willing to put some effort into releasing this wretched condition!

NOTE: if you are currently taking prescribed medications for depression, I will not even suggest that you stop taking them, as I am not a medical doctor nor a psychiatrist. You must continue to maintain contact with the medical professionals who are currently assisting you, to adjust your medication as and when necessary.