Natural ways to raise serotonin levels?
Before I say anything, you should know that I've shown symptoms of depression since before I went to kindergarten. I've been on medications for almost ten years for both depression and a yet unclassified mental disorder (social phobia/anxiety, bipolar syndrome, ADD and Asperger's were the most mentioned candidates). About a year and a half ago I got tired of all the side effects (eighty pounds of fat!) and decided to harshly quit taking everything. To my surprise, most of my symptoms went away.
I've been happier than ever since then, but for the past two months or so my mood has been gradually going down. I was on a strict diet and exercise regimen to lose all of the gained weight and right now I am right in the middle of the healthy weight range for my height. I never had a single setback on my diet in the past year and a half, yet in the past two months it's happened too often. I feel very low in energy and the only thing that seems to cure that is eating a lot of food. Anything works: sweet snacks, salty snacks, and cooked meals. About a couple hours after eating I feel very, VERY hyperactive, at the opposite end in the mood scale than before I ate.
I went to the doctor to get a blood exam. Everything passed with normal levels and he specifically mentioned that I'm not anemic, which was my first guess. So now I'm guessing that I need the psychiatric medication again for depression, but I developed a phobia for those things after living the side effects. I figured I'd eat lots of chocolate because that is proven to raise serotinin levels, but that would make me fat again. Is there another way? Maybe there is an isolated form of the serotonin stimulant that found in chocolate?
Please help me. I don't have a job or any sort of responsibility so I can spend all day every day playing around with my diet to find something that works without side effects and that's exactly what I plan to do. I'm just hoping someone knows of anything that may help me. Maybe it's not even serotonin. If not, what else could it be?
Thanks in advance!
Comments
The shift in time antidepressants work with, yeah, could be you need them. Or could be you need to stop medicating with food.
Antidepressants have some nasty side effects. I'm amazed you could even get off them. Were you on benzodiazepines? If so, I'm really amazed you could get off those.
You can take GABA. Nutrition store.
I believe there are serotonin releasers rather than reuptake inhibitors, but I haven't heard of those being prescribed much. Multivitamins, of course, and increase your exercise. That could burn you out, though.
Do you have anyone with whom you share your diet plans and all that? Someone to keep you on track? Rather than relying on actively thinking about your neurotransmitters, you could think less like a patient and more like a person.
I'm curious, though. I get a red flag any time I hear asperger's. Do you believe you have it?
Walk for 45 minutes a day. The reason we're suggesting 45 minutes instead of the typical 30 is that a Duke University study found that while 30 minutes of daily walking is enough to prevent weight gain in most relatively sedentary people, exercise beyond 30 minutes results in weight and fat loss. Burning an additional 300 calories a day with three miles of brisk walking (45 minutes should do it) could help you lose 30 pounds in a year without even changing how much you're eating.
After breakfast, make water your primary drink. At breakfast, go ahead and
drink orange juice. But throughout the rest of the day, focus on water instead of juice or soda. The average American consumes an extra 245 calories a day from soft drinks. That's nearly 90,000 calories a year -- or 25 pounds! And research shows that despite the calories, sugary drinks don't trigger a sense of fullness the way that food does.
Foods with high serotonin concentration: bananas, kiwi, pineapple, plums, tomatoes
Foods with moderate serotonin concentration: avocados, black olives, broccoli, cantaloupe, cauliflower, dates, eggplant, figs, grapefruit, honeydew melons, spinach
Other ways to stimulate your brain to make more serotonin:
exercise, timing your intake of good carbohydrates (fruits, nuts, veggies, whole grains) throughout the day, 20 minutes a day of sunlight, increasing the wattage of your light bulbs to between 5,000 - 10,000 lux.
Add the raw materials your body needs to make more serotonin by taking 2 grams of fish oil and one B complex 100 every day.
Gaba St. John"s Wort Kava Kava and several others