How to Beat Depression in Healthy Way – Without Drugs

Up to 20% of the UK population will suffer from depression – twice as many as 30 years ago, says Steve Ilardi. Dr Steve Ilardi is slim and enthusiastic, with intense eyes. The clinical psychologist is 4,400 miles away, in Kansas, and we are chatting about his new book via Skype, the online videophone service. "I've spent a lot of time pondering Skype," he says. "On the one hand it provides a degree of social connectedness. On the other, you're still essentially by yourself." But, he concludes, "a large part of the human cortex is devoted to the processing of visual information, so I guess Skype is less alienating than voice calls."

Social connectedness is important to Ilardi. In The Depression Cure, he argues that the brain mistakenly interprets the pain of depression as an infection. Thinking that isolation is needed, it sends messages to the sufferer to "crawl into a hole and wait for it all to go away". This can be disastrous because what depressed people really need is the opposite: more human contact.

Which is why social connectedness forms one-sixth of his "lifestyle based" cure for depression. The other five elements are meaningful activity (to prevent "ruminating" on negative thoughts); regular exercise; a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids; daily exposure to sunlight; and good quality, restorative sleep.

The programme has one glaring omission: anti-depressant medication. Because according to Ilardi, the drugs simply don't work. "Meds have only around a 50% success rate," he says. "Moreover, of the people who do improve, half experience a relapse. This lowers the recovery rate to only 25%. To make matters worse, the side effects often include emotional numbing, sexual dysfunction and weight gain."
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Enjoy the sunshine, get plenty of sleep – and be sociable

▶ Take 1,500mg of omega-3 daily (in the form of fish oil capsules), with a multivitamin and 500mg vitamin C.

▶ Don't dwell on negative thoughts – instead of ruminating start an activity; even conversation counts.

▶ Exercise for 90 minutes a week.

▶ Get 15-30 minutes of sunlight each morning in the summer. In the winter, consider using a lightbox.

▶ Be sociable.

▶ Get eight hours of sleep

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/19/beat-depression-without-drugs

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