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Do you feel depressed or anxious, diagnosed or not? Who wants to go through a major episode, feel unproductive, a bother to others, hate themselves, and wonder, "why me?" If you're a living human, you've been depressed, or anxious, or both at the same time. Life happens that way, regardless of your best intentions. Perhaps, you use prescription medication. It doesn't matter. The following suggestions will be helpful to everyone in the "mild to moderate" category of experiencing these mental health challenges.

Lavender

If aromatherapy is the first thing that comes to mind, you're not alone. But that's not what I am talking about. I am talking about ingestible lavender.

A 2017 study investigating the efficacy of a German preparation called Silexan, essentially lavender oil in a gel cap made suitable for ingestion. It showed promising results. Unlike aromatherapy, which has short-lived effects, daily supplementation by ingesting the gel caps makes a lasting difference.

Please, don't think that you can just drop lavender oil in your mouth and call it done. That would be awful, as the liquid oil is very concentrated. You won't' be able to take the 80 – 160 mg per day you need to make a difference.

In Germany, Silexan sells with a prescription under the brand name Lasea, which in the United States you can buy on Amazon without a prescription.

80 mg of Silexan was shown to be 20.8% more effective than 20 mg of Paxil (paroxetine). Paxil is the FDA-approved drug for panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and social anxiety. Silexan was also just as effective as 0.5 mg of Ativan (lorazepam). How about that?

Obviously, these doses are effective for people in the mild to moderate category, as more severe symptoms require much higher doses.

Several other studies show lavender to be an effective treatment for depression and anxious depression as well. Again in the "mild to moderate" category!

I haven't seen any precautions about taking the lavender supplement together with the actual medication, but if you want to consider it, talk to your doctor about it. You may be able to lower the dose of your prescription medication. On the other hand, if you are not on any medication and want to improve your condition, go for it. Start with a smaller dose and increase if needed. Take it daily for at least two weeks to see the results… Or so they say.

The only warning I've seen is that it is not suitable for children under 18 and people with estrogen-dependent cancers because lavender increases estrogen in the body.

You will find lavender in gel capsules on Amazon, ranging up to 500 mg per serving. I don't know if that much more lavender will make your farts smell nicer or tranquilize you—experiment at your own risk. The closest thing to the German preparation is by Nature Made and is called CalmAid.

Magnesium

The body uses Magnesium to help regulate serotonin and other neurotransmitters. Multiple studies show that Magnesium helps treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, and clinical depression. It even appears to reduce dementia symptoms, as per this study from Stanford. Magnesium is involved in about 80% of your body's functions. It acts like a neurological breaking system preventing your nervous system from getting stuck in overdrive.

Nearly 45% of adults in the USA are Magnesium deficient to some degree, and some 60% "do not achieve the average daily intake, regularly. That's probably because we get most of our Magnesium from plants, but because of farming practices in the USA, scientists have seen over 80% decline of this mineral in plants.

Even if you consume enough Magnesium, stress and anxiety deplete it. In turn, low levels of Magnesium cause anxiety and stress…

More than 2500 mg of Magnesium per day could cause you problems. So, consult your doctor, and pay attention to the types of Magnesium preparations. Avoid Magnesium Oxate, Citrate, and Carbonate, as they are most likely to cause loose stool and diarrhea. Magnesium Sulfate, while helpful for muscle aches and pains, does nothing for the brain. Instead, you might consider Magnesium Glycinate, which also improves sleep, Magnesium Taurate, which also has calming and anti-inflammatory effects, Magnesium Malate, which may help fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, and Magnesium Threonate, which is very expensive.

Intermittent Fasting

Studies show that intermittent fasting helps increase serotonin in the brain, lowering depression. So apparently, when people feel hungry, they can't feel depressed. LOL. If you want to dive deeper into the chemistry of intermittent fasting for your brain and depression, check out this NIH study and also the Fasting Interventions for Stress, Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis also by the NIH, which states:

The potential effectiveness of intermittent fasting on mood has raised growing interest. Overweight/obesity is associated with increased depression and fasting may be effective in improving depressive symptoms by favoring weight loss

The study also concluded that intermittent fasting and calorie restriction helped anxiety as well.

Scientists have a lot more to learn about the effects of intermittent fasting on depression and anxiety. Still, even if the primary benefit is solving obesity and everything that comes with it, such as diabetes and heart disease, it's a step in the right direction. Plus, when you look better, you'll feel better, and when you function at your optimal weight, you'll have more energy to do more things you like. How about that for knocking down depression?

Hope you found these to be helpful and easy to implement suggestions 😊

Not everything needs a pharmaceutical intervention. We can solve challenges in more organic ways, feeling more empowered by the process. The more reliant we feel on doctors and Big Pharma, the more disempowered we feel. That's not to say that they have no place in our lives. The opposite is true. We need our medical support team and the science of pharmacology. They save lives daily!

We also need to know when we can do things for ourselves, advocate for ourselves, and reduce dependency whenever possible. So, talk to your doctor about these options and make a sustainable plan for yourself.

This is what I’ve been thinking about lately on the topic of racism. Here’s a quote from Glen Loury. He’s black, in case you don’t know.

The term “people of color” attempts to unite an extraordinarily diverse segment of Americans of many different racial and ethnic backgrounds, of different classes, and of different cultural predilections under a single umbrella. What is the justification for this? Some progressives will tell you that all “people of color” share a common experience, which is that they have suffered the oppression of white supremacy or systemic racism. Even granting the existence of such universal oppression (which I do not), would it justify describing the experiences of, say, a newly arrived South Korean delivery driver and the second-generation child of Harvard-educated Bahamian lawyers as, in any meaningful way, “the same”?

Of course not. To group two such people together, you would have to ignore everything about them except the fact that they are not white. You can’t even call this “racial essentialism,” since the only race it essentializes is the so-called white race. The “people of color” moniker doesn’t so much propose a coherent theory of non-white identity as it quietly legitimizes an even less respectable, more dangerous theory of whiteness. Advocates of “people of color”-type identity politics will tell you they oppose white identity. But I regret to inform them that they are, in fact, perpetuating and empowering white identity.

AND, this just happened to a friend of mine who lives in The Bay Area now. This is directly from her Instagram account. I won’t mention her name because I don’t want to violate her privacy. She is very white, though… and now nursing bruises and scrapes:

This morning I was jumped walking my dog 2 blocks from my house.
💔
My husband and I were on our normal morning walk, crossing the street in the cross walk. A car doing 40+ sped through the intersection, swerving around us narrowly missing us, I yelled and flung my coffee.
🛑
The car U turns, and drives up on us in the cross walk. A woman in the passenger seat, a man in the driver seat, and a baby in the back. Lady rolls up yelling, "You fucking bitch! I'll beat your ass, etc etc"
Y'all know me...
"We're in the cross walk mama, you speeding! I live here, you need to slow the fuck down this early, etc etc" She says, "I'll bust your ass don't make me get out of this car!"
🤨
I give some fuck you, pour out the rest of my coffee and turn to walk away. Little Mama jumps out of the car swinging. I don't think she expected this hood rat white bitch to fight back but the only beating I take is consensual, thank you. Baby in the back seat screaming, "Mommy!" (Husband) telling her to back off, dog barking, neighbors in the street yelling at her to back the fuck up and leave, then driver gets out of the car with a crow bar...
(Husband) tells him, slow down, put that away, why do you have that? What are y'all doing with your baby in the car? This man says, "I got a gun! I got a gun!" My husband, brave as ever, " What the hell do you need a gun for!? This ain't time for a gun!"
💔
Then the driver starts saying how "we white people think we own the streets" and that "white don't deserve to be here"...
💔
Brown brother, you almost hit 2 people with your car, pulled your car around with the baby in the back, jumped someone in a crosswalk with a crowbar and threatened to pull out a gun. Yes, racism. It is alive and poisoning our hearts and minds every day. Racism is a sickness that ruins us all, regardless of the color of our skin and if this is not proof of that, I don't know what is.
🙏
I pray for both these adults.
I pray for that baby.
I pray for peace and I pray for the evolution of humans to get past this ugly point of racist violence.
I believe we can but not like this.
#westoakland #oakland

Water ice on Mars was captured by the European Space Agency! Humans can do amazing things! If we just stick to doing amazing things, perhaps we’d have less to worry about??? Why can’t we?

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Yours truly,

V.