My Struggle With Depression. (Overcoming Depression & Anxiety)

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1:27Josh Axe:What if I told you that the most powerful antidepressants in the world aren't pills? It's your dinner plate and your purpose. Now, new research shows that changing what you eat on a regular basis tied with spiritual transformation is a more effective medication than traditional medications for depression and anxiety. And today I'll be walking you through the exact foods, the supplements, the daily habits, and the spiritual practices that have been proven to rewire your brain chemistry and transform your mood and mind naturally. Welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show.

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3:15Well, I'm incredibly excited about today's episode because we're going to be diving into how to truly cure and heal depression and anxiety and transform your mood. Listen, if you're a person who has struggled with depression, if you've struggled with anxiousness. If it's also impacted your health, what I've noticed in working with thousands of patients is that when you have depression, that affects your immune system. It can increase your risk of autoimmune disease, cancer, and a number of other health problems. I've seen anxiousness cause major digestive issues and other health issues as well.

3:49Josh Axe:It impacts sleep, causing issues like insomnia. So there's no doubt that our mood greatly impacts not only our mental health, but it also impacts our physical health. And so today's episode, it'll be a real blend of diet and physical remedies along with spiritual and mindset remedies that are so important for improving mood. I love this quote by Jim Carrey. He says, I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they've ever dreamed so they can see that it's not the answer. Now, depression and anxiety don't discriminate. Even those who have it all can lose joy and direction. In fact, one of the things you'll notice even reading the Bible is you have these amazing saints who are called by God to do things.

4:34And we see everybody from King David to Jonah to Hannah to other spiritual figures in the

4:41Josh Axe:Bible who also struggle with depression. We see today's celebrities, everyone from, I'm thinking about Justin Bieber and many other people who deal with depression as well. And here's the great news is that both today's modern science, ancient medical wisdom, and the Bible have the cure to depression. And today we'll explore what science, spirituality, and ancient wisdom all agree on. The path to joy, happiness, and mental wellness starts inside the soul, but even food impacts us in this way. Now, I want to share with you some personal examples of the times in my life. if there's two specifically, where I struggled with the greatest level of depression and anxiety.

5:24One was when I was 21 years old, another when I was 42 years old. And I also want to talk to you about how I've worked with thousands of patients with depression, anxiety, and how we were able to, in most cases, cure and remedy their depression and anxiety. Now, for me personally, it really started when I was 21 years old. This is the first time I really experienced what I would call a certain level of depression. I was in college and I went away to college. And for my first two years, I wasn't really involved in church for the first time in my life. I was really going out and just partying. I started drinking alcohol and I just started feeling this great sense of lack of meaning in my life.

6:04And I had this low grade depression and I realized it's because I didn't have God in my life and I was really lacking any sense of purpose. One of the things I realized at the time was I was surrounded by a very different group of people at the time. These people were not necessarily encouraging. They weren't iron sharpens iron. They weren't the sort of Christian people I'd surrounded myself with that were looking for my best interest and wanting me to grow. And so I prayed this prayer. I said, God, would you send a flood of just positive Christian influences and men into my life? And I decided to show up to a church event on a Wednesday night.

6:40This is a college campus event. And I ended up meeting other men my age who then I built actually lifelong friendships with some of them. And it literally completely changed my entire mindset and my entire demeanor. I went from being depressed and feeling like I had this emptiness and lack of meaning in life to filling myself with God and connecting with other people and feeling like, wow, I have eternal significance. and that radically changed my life. And so really the key for me at 21 years old was rediscovering God and finding a purpose in life. And that was to love others, love God, make earth a heavenly

7:24Josh Axe:place. And it changed my life. And so that was my experience. And then at 42 years old, this was years later when I had my spinal infection. And so this was just really two to three years ago. And I was diagnosed with a spinal infection and was told I would likely be permanently disabled. And that hit hard and I didn't walk for an entire year. So I was in bed, bedridden for an entire year with my diagnosis being that you will never be the same, that your spine is decayed and degenerated to the point we're going to have to probably do a spinal fusion and you're going to have chronic pain every day the rest of your life.

8:03This is what a doctor told me. And I'll tell you there, my depression the first time at 21 years old was due to a lack of purpose and a lack of God in my life. The second time I struggled with depression was a lack of hope. The way that I remedied that was I went to God again and I said, God, you are the great physician, not this physician. I pray for a healing miracle in my life. And And something I realized at the time was focusing on the negative, focusing on the wrong things, that's not going to help me heal. I needed to focus on my best possible outcome. And you know what? Living in what I decided to do as well as what is my, what can my best possible outcome be?

8:46It's a healing miracle. It's I am walking. In fact, I'm just as good or better than before. I'm running. I'm throwing my two-year-old daughter in the air in the pool. I'm, you know, imagining all those things I was going to do in my 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, being physically active and healthy. And I focused on that and I did it while living in a state of gratitude and praise every day, multiple times a day, I would sing praise and worship music. So I would say, thank you, God, for healing me. Thank you that you're working out a miracle in my body. And it was really just a perspective shift. I went from focusing on what the worst outcome could be to changing my focus on what a God size, miraculous, hopeful outcome, the best possible outcome could possibly be.

9:27And I just focused on that. and that helped heal my depression. And I'll say this as well. I believe also that's why I'm 100 % today and my back is fully healed and restored is partly due or number one, the greatest reason is due to faith, gratitude, and hope. And by the way, I've seen a very similar thing as I've worked with thousands of patients. I've found that diet, by the way, does make a tremendous difference, which I followed a really healthy diet in those times as well. You know, a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids, a lot of healthy fats, more proteins and amino acids, lower carbohydrate, more active in exercise, spending more time outdoors, and certain herbals, which I'll get into in a little bit, are very impactful according to clinical studies.

10:09So we'll get into all of the diet, the supplements, the herbs, vitamins, all of that here in a minute, and natural treatments. And that made a big difference with my patients with anxiety and depression. But in addition to that, we can't look over the greatest causes of depression, which tends to be lack of faith, lack of purpose, identity confusion, lack of hope. Those key pieces that impact our mental and spiritual health are the greatest contributors to depression. And then the secondary is diet and lifestyle, which we will get into here in just a moment. But I found working with patients, I always do both.

10:50Even today, when I work with patients, I really look at them and I say, okay, let's do all the dietary things. Let's do the blood work. Let's figure out the nutritional deficiencies. Let's correct that. And then in addition to that, let's look at childhood trauma. Let's look at your mindset. Let's look at where you're at spiritually. And let's grow in those areas as well in order to address depression. Now, here are the current statistics. In the United States, more than one in five adults will experience depression at some point in their life. And anxiety disorders affect nearly one in three.

11:25And by the way, one in five, this is clinical depression of serious depression. I would say closer to 80 to 100 percent have low grade depression or a level of depression at some point in their life.

11:37Josh Axe:Now, in Europe, the rates are even higher. Anxiety and depressive disorders affect around 20 to 30 % of all adults, making them among the leading contributors to global disease burden. And people with depression have a 40 % higher risk of developing cardiovascular and metabolic diseases like diabetes than the general population. So we see this. If you have depression, if you have anxiety, it causes other physical illnesses like heart disease, prediabetes, infertility, low testosterone, a number of health conditions. People with serious mental illnesses are nearly twice as likely to develop medical conditions.

12:19Josh Axe:And over 13 % of U.S. adults take antidepressant drugs, and that jumps to 25 % among women over the age of 60. In fact, we're seeing a lot of young girls in high school start to take antidepressant and anti-anxiety drugs. Are you interested in functional nutrition tips to burn fat, reduce inflammation, improve your brain and energy levels, and heal naturally? Then I want to encourage you to listen to my friend, Dr. Dave Jocker's podcast, The Functional Nutrition Podcast. This podcast is designed to help you with easy, actual steps to improve your nutrition and lifestyle, understand your lab work, and address the root cause factors that may be driving up inflammation in your body.

13:02Josh Axe:Now, I've been friends with Dr. David Jockers for 20 years, and he's truly a world expert in functional nutrition, cellular healing, and so much more. If you want to learn the best nutrition and natural healing tips, tune into the Dr. Jockers Functional Nutrition Podcast on Apple iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you can listen to podcasts worldwide. All right, let's switch gears here. And I'm going to touch on a little bit more of the spiritual and psychological aspect in those studies here at the end. But I want to dive into the ideal diet, foods, supplements, and herbs for improving depression according to modern-day functional medicine.

13:38Josh Axe:And there was a landmark study that showed that a Mediterranean diet greatly improved symptoms of depression. In fact, it showed that people with major depression who switched to a Mediterranean-style diet, and this diet is high in wild-caught fish, omega-3 fatty acids, extra virgin olive oil, that that type of diet had a 32 % remission rate versus only an 8 % remission rate in the control group. So you see 25 % of people had a complete cure rate of their depression when they changed their diet. I mean, that's really significant there with this Mediterranean diet. And as I talked about, the diet includes, as we talked about, a lot of fish, a lot of olive oil, fruit as well.

14:22And it's very similar to, as I've talked about as well, a Biblio diet or a diet based on the Bible. And this is where, again, you're doing a lot of fish. You're getting red meat. As I mentioned, that's great for building the blood. So it's grass-fed red meat. It's fruits like pomegranates and figs. It's extra virgin olive oil. These sort of foods are incredibly healing to the body. And these results prove that both a Mediterranean diet and very similarly a biblically-based diet improve brain health, reduce inflammation, restore digestive health, and reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety. And of all of those foods, the most clinically researched in back to fight depression are

15:04Josh Axe:fish like salmon and taking a fish oil supplement. Your brain is made up of approximately 60 % fat and DHA, a specific type of omega-3, is about 40 % of this. It makes up 15 to 20 % of your entire cerebral cortex of your brain. And a meta-analysis study found that high EPA fish oil supplements can reduce depressive symptoms, including when paired with antidepressants. But overall, this is why if you have depression or even ADHD or anxiety, any sort of issue tied to mood disorders, the single most important thing you can eat is wild caught fish like salmon, sardines, mackerel, black cod, sea bass, any sort of fatty fish is going to be incredibly helpful, along with taking a fish oil supplement.

15:58Now, in addition, after that, green leafy vegetables like spinach are also very beneficial.

16:06Josh Axe:Greens as well as legumes are rich in folate and magnesium. These are two nutrients you need for mental well-being. Folate deficiency is found in up to one third of patients with depression. Folate also helps in the production of neurotransmitters. It also helps repair of the myelin sheath and other brain activities. In fact, it's also important because both vitamin B2, B9, which is folate, which is what we're talking about, and B12 are also critical for something called your methylation pathway. So supplementing with B2, B9, and B12 can help enhance serotonin creation in your body. So there are multiple biological reasons, if it's more food-related, of why you have depression.

16:52I want to hit on a few of those. One is, listen, your brain is made of fat. And if you're not getting enough fat and fat-soluble vitamins, you're not going to be well. You're going to have depression and anxiety. So that's the first one. That's the most common. And that's going to include omega-3 fatty acids. That's going to include healthy saturated fats. That's also going to include things like vitamin D, a fat-soluble vitamin. So getting enough fat and fat-soluble vitamins, that is the most common reason why you have depression from a dietary standpoint. Maybe the second or third most common is your methylation pathways.

17:31If you are not methylating properly, your body can't create certain hormones and neurotransmitters, so that's another major causative factor. And this is where if you have the MTHFR gene variant, which you don't methylate as well, which means your detoxification pathways, don't work as well, and your body has trouble then also creating cellular energy and some other things there, that's tied again to a vitamin B2, which is riboflavin, folate, and vitamin B12 deficiency can impact that. Now, let's jump into another reason, which is your gut microbiome. If you have leaky gut or major gut issues, and you're having proteins leak through the gut, like gluten and casein, heavy metals, parasites, and those are recirculating, causing brain inflammation that will also cause depression, anxiety, and even things like brain fog.

18:25So that's the third most common biological. And then the fourth is what I mentioned earlier, a blood deficiency. That's where you're living with low-grade anemia, maybe low platelets, low ferritin levels, and lack of oxygen in your blood. So if you have poor oxygen, poor iron, and some of those things in your blood, if you stick out your tongue and it's a pale color, it's not like a bright pink or red, then that's a sign there. And that's the other cause of depression. But those tend to be the most common reasons why people have depression. Now, I want to continue to talk more about the foods that are important for this.

19:01Josh Axe:And berries and colorful antioxidant-rich fruits and herbs are also really, really great for mood, according to studies. Blueberries, blackberries, pomegranates are among the highest antioxidant foods on the planet. Several studies have found that just four weeks of daily blueberry intake improved positive mood and reduced depressive symptoms in children and young adults. Also fermented foods. Now this is tied more to the gut microbiome that we talked about. Yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, and kimchi increase microbial diversity. A 2019 study showed that people who ate more fermented foods had lower social anxiety symptoms, likely due to healthier gut-brain connection and less leaky gut.

19:49Did you know that around 90 % of your body's serotonin is created in your gut? That's why it's one of those top four reasons why people get depressed from a dietary standpoint is due to leaky gut and unhealthy gut lining because your body can't create the proper amounts of serotonin if your gut isn't healthy. So taking a probiotic supplement, getting more probiotic-rich foods, also more polyphenol-rich foods like berries that we talked about in pomegranate, extra virgin olive oil, that's also great for the gut there as well.

20:21Josh Axe:And then here's the other big thing, avoiding processed foods and sugar. Here's what happens. You increase your sugar intake, insulin gets high. Well, insulin is a hormone. When that hormone gets high, you know what it does? That can decrease your body's ability to get rid of excess estrogen. That for men can lower testosterone. What happens, men, if your testosterone is low? You're not as motivated. You don't feel like working out. It leads to depression. Okay, women, a very similar thing. Estrogen gets too high and progesterone gets too low. And then you know what that also does? That impacts your thyroid hormone.

20:57When thyroid hormone then gets off, you gain weight. Your hair gets thin. Your energy goes down. That then leads to depression. So processed foods and sugar will make all of these things worse. Of course, toxins will also decrease estrogen or impact estrogen and testosterone negatively. So diets high in processed foods, refined sugar, refined grains, and unhealthy fats lead to a higher rate of depression and anxiety. In fact, a 2023 study conducted on over 31 ,000 U.S.

21:31Josh Axe:women found that those with the highest intake of ultra-processed foods had a 49 % higher risk of depression compared to those with the lowest. So think about that. Nearly a 50 % higher risk of depression with an unhealthy diet. So we see there a very, very deep connection between your diet and your mood. And by the way, there was another study that was done in 2023. This was where they took 17 studies combined, and this was on 385 ,000 people. And they found that ultra processed foods were associated with a 53 % higher odds of common mental disorders, including depression and anxiety. So simply switching to less sugar, less refined grains, less processed foods and more whole foods, apples and pomegranates and berries and whole organic meats like a grass fed burger and wild caught salmon filet and rice and sweet potato and extra virgin olive oil, just eating real food, real whole food is one of the greatest cures for depression.

22:31Josh Axe:All right, let's now dive into the supplements. By the way, supplements in lifestyle have been recommended for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks used saffron for depression. Hippocrates prescribed sunlight and exercise and even fasting. These early healers knew how physical things impact mental and spiritual things. The first one here is saffron. Now, this is something I covered on a friend of mine's podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen, and we talked about saffron. It's his favorite herb. He's known as the brain doctor. It's his favorite herb for depression. But numerous studies have shown that around 30 to 90 milligrams of saffron is as effective as SSRI drugs for treating mild and moderate depression with far fewer side effects.

23:20Josh Axe:These results were found in one meta-analysis on 11 different trials with over 580 participants. So this isn't one study. This was 11 studies combined showing saffron is likely the most effective natural antidepressant on the planet. And beyond depression, it was also shown to improve anxiety scores by 33 % and have great benefits for reducing brain inflammation, supporting your neurons, reducing oxidative stress. So it also acts as an antioxidant. So saffron is at the very top of the list of herbs for depression. Next up is ashwagandha and other adaptogenic herbs. An eight-week study found that ashwagandha significantly reduced anxiety, morning cortisol, and inflammatory markers versus the placebo.

24:08So we see this as well, ashwagandha, what it does when it lowers cortisol, right? That improves insulin, that improves all your other hormones. And oftentimes, depression is linked to hormone imbalance very, very often, very often, obviously, because serotonin in a way is a neurotransmitter hormone in that way as well. Number one, saffron. Number two, ashwagandha. Number three, SAMe.

24:32Josh Axe:SAMe is involved in methylation and neurotransmitter synthesis. It improves mood by increasing the availability of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These are three key brain chemicals that regulate mood, motivation, and focus. So again, it's really key here for your adrenals, for your brain, for serotonin in the gut. So CME is really effective predominantly though, because it improves methylation, as we talked about earlier, and it was shown to be nearly as effective as SSRI drugs. And this is why, you know, what you can do in many cases, rather than taking the synthetic drug, that's going to have major, major side effects.