What Is Depression?

Depression is a deep sadness we experience in life that can occur in response to a difficult life event or it can occur seemingly out of nowhere. Along with a deep sadness, most people tend to experience other symptoms like having zero motivation, becoming agitated very easily, having a very poor sex drive, and just feeling “down in the dumps.”

According to data from Statistia.com, anywhere from 20% – 30% of adults in the US have experienced symptoms of depressive disorder over the past 2 years (2020-2022). While the 2020-2021 lock downs have ceased, millions of people suffered from depression before, and still millions now. This problem is not going away, and that’s partly because the most common treatments for depression are failing us.

While most treatments for depression consist of certain medications, none of them truly address the cause of depression. In order to reverse your depression and restore joy, motivation, and happiness, we have to address the causes. Let’s discuss the common causes of depression and then we’ll jump into how we can effectively address these causes.

SIDE NOTE: If anxiety is also a difficult thing for you, you’ll want to check out this article on reversing anxiety here.

Signs & Symptoms of Depression

• Feelings of sadness & hopelessness
• Low motivation
• Commonly having suicidal thoughts
• Irritability or anger outbursts
• Loss of interest in activities, such as sex, hobbies or sports
• Addiction issues
• Low libido
• Decreased appetite & weight loss
• Increased appetite & weight gain
• Sleep problems
• Abdominal migraines

Causes Of Depression

These 2 Hormones

When it comes to depression, there are 2 main brain hormones (neurotransmitters) that are essential: Serotonin & Dopamine. In fact, if you are deficient in one vs the other, you will actually experience a different type of depression.

For example, if you are deficient in serotonin, you will experience “down in the dumps” depression, loss of interest in activities, poor sleep, and even abdominal migraines.

Whereas if you’re instead fine with dopamine but deficient in dopamine, you’ll experience “agitated depression,” hopelessness, poor motivation, poor libido, addiction issues/tendencies, and easily losing your temper.

Most cases of depression however, involve deficiencies in BOTH powerful brain hormones.

Low Serotonin & Dopamine

These hormones can become low for a number of reasons! We’re going to discuss the most common and underlying reasons why someone may not be producing enough serotonin and dopamine. Very few people know about #1!!!

1. Gut Health

Gut health. That’s right – gut health. Our gut (mainly the small intestine and large intestine here) produces over 95% of our Serotonin and 50% of our dopamine. If these hormone-producing organs are unhealthy, you will automatically produce LESS serotonin and dopamine and become prone to depression!

Infections are the #1 cause for an unhealthy gut. We’re talking about bacterial overgrowths (SIBO), fungal overgrowths (SIFO), parasites, and viruses. These are way more common than people realize – even in America. These infections deplete us nutrients (causing deficiencies) and leave behind their toxic wastes which all leads to massive amounts of inflammation.

Sugars, artificial chemicals, natural flavors, sugar alcohols, bleached wheat, enriched flour, food colorings, vegetable oils (vegetable, canola, peanut, palm, etc), processed dairy, alcohol, hydrogenated oils, trans fats, artificial sweeteners (sucralose, aspartame, etc), and all processed foods in general cause massive amounts of inflammation in our gut.

For the full breakdown on everything you need to know about gut health, you’ll find that here. For our whole collection of gut health-related articles, go here.

2. Nutrient Deficiencies

Nutrient deficiencies can also cause a lot of problems when it comes to making serotonin and dopamine hormones. In fact, over 20 different nutrients are needed as cofactors to properly produce serotonin and dopamine. Nutrient deficiencies can come because of 1 of 3 main reasons: (1) not getting them in your food in the first place, (2) toxicities are depleting you of certain nutrients, or (3) infections are eating your nutrients.

Most people know and realize the food quality today is not near as good as it was 100 years ago. More and more chemicals are used on our foods and crops every year. This leads to foods being much less nutrient-dense. Additionally, of the healthy nutrient-dense foods out there, very few people know what to eat or where to get it.

Secondly, toxicities in the body such as heavy metal toxicities, ammonia toxicities, aldehyde toxicities, and mold cause an increased burden on the system and will lead to nutrient depletion as the body tries to desperately detox these things.

Thirdly, infection (as mentioned in the previous section) can deplete us of nutrients. Iron, Vitamin B2, and Vitamin B12 are nutrients that are commonly low in patients. If you simply supplement these nutrients, however, you’ll feed the underlying cause (infection) and thus make things worse.

We’ll discuss how to address these things in the next section.

3. Emotional & Lifestyle

Our emotional health can certainly cause a huge impact on our serotonin and dopamine levels. That is why you may have experienced a deep sadness after realizing a close loved one has passed away, or finding out about a friend that hurt you. All of these are powerful things that can make huge impacts on our gut health and ultimately our serotonin and dopamine levels. We will discuss simple ways to address this in the next section.

Secondly, our lifestyle plays a huge role in our neurotransmitter levels. What we do and don’t do, what we eat and don’t eat, and what we think and don’t think, all majorly impacts our serotonin and dopamine levels. We’ll discuss these more in depth below and simple ways we can address these things.

Overcoming Depression

Increase Serotonin & Dopamine Levels

1. Gut Health

Earlier we mentioned a few main culprits that cause destruction in our gut: (1) infections and (2) what we eat. With infections, whether it be bacterial, fungal, parasitic, or viral, it’s essential that you kill these invaders. I never recommend antibiotics for this because they are very harsh on all bacteria (the “good” and the “bad”), harmful towards other organ systems (thyroid, immune system, etc.), and they rarely even work. We use herbals in our office to kill infections. As mentioned in out gut health article, we check over 25-30 anti-bacterial and anti-fungal herbals, 8-10 anti-parasitic herbals, or 10-15 anti-viral herbals to find exactly what the body needs to support it in killing these infections. For finding exactly what infection is present and what herbal is needed, we use Systems Health Care.

What we eat is another very important factor for gut health. It’s crucial that we avoid artificial chemicals, natural flavors, sugars, sugar alcohols, bleached wheat, enriched flour, food colorings, vegetable oils (vegetable, canola, peanut, palm, etc), processed dairy, alcohol, hydrogenated oils, trans fats, artificial sweeteners (sucralose, aspartame, etc), and all processed foods in general. All of these things drive inflammation if not directly feed the present infections (sugars, sugar alcohols, etc.).

Avoid these things and stick to things that are natural: a variety of organic fruits and vegetables, grass-fed beef, organic free-range chickens, organic free-range eggs, wild-caught fish, organic grass-fed butter (OH YES), organic extra virgin olive oil (don’t cook with this though), and anything else God created for us to eat.

2. Nutrient Deficiencies

Nutrient deficiencies are often a 2-fold problem: (1) you need the right nutrients and (2) if the deficiency is due to an infection or other underlying dysfunction, you need to address that accordingly.

Things like heavy metals, ammonia toxicities, aldehyde toxicities, and mold can all easily be detoxed IF you have the right nutrient(s). We use Systems Health Care in our office to test and find exactly what nutrients are deficient and thus preventing you from making enough serotonin and dopamine. We also learn why that nutrient might be deficient and if there are any underlying causes that need to be addressed (infections, other toxicities, etc). It’s common that patients suffering with depression feel better when they leave the office and markedly improved within the next few days because they have the exact nutrients they’ve been lacking this whole time.

As mentioned previously, there are 15+ nutrients that aid as cofactors in production of serotonin and dopamine. Here are a few common ones: Magnesium, Zinc, P5P (activated B6), St. Johns Wort, and 5-MTHF (activated B9).

3. Heal Emotionally

Process, express, and effectively manage your emotional health through meditation, prayer, healthy relationships, healthy environments, journaling, a healthy gut, and when necessary, counseling or therapy. All of these things help one way or another with focusing your mind, expressing gratitude, enjoying life, connecting, and being able to overall properly manage your own emotional health. 

Just like a poor mood can largely cause negative effects on our gut health, a great mood can cause our gut to be healthier. Since there is such a powerful connection, use it to your advantage! Be filled with joy, gratitude, and speak life over yourself and those around you.

4. Supercharge Your Lifestyle

For some people depression may not be due to a traumatic emotional event in the past, but rather may sneak up quietly through an unhealthy lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle that changes how your body functions and never ceases to increase mood and happiness looks like this:

• Spend less time in from of a screen and more time outside
• Spend less and less time on social media, and instead with real friends in person.
• Play less video games and workout more.
• Sit around less and work more — get a job if you need to. Work is healthy for the mind and body.
• Eat less junk food, processed foods, or restaurant food, and instead eat more natural food.
• Get up and go to bed at the same time every morning and night.
• Change the way you speak and think to yourself: speak less negativity over yourself and more healthy and healing thoughts.
• Be kind to yourself, but don’t worship yourself by always thinking about yourself. Serve others and put others before you. Go out of your way to be more selfless.

Most of these things aren’t rocket science and you may have heard of them before. The only difference between where you are now and where you want to be, is ACTION.

Suffering From Depression?

At Freedom Health and Wellness, we address all of these things and more through a personalized and functional approach. We help people with chronic diseases and illnesses regain their health by getting to the source of their health concerns.