Natural Remedies For Depression

There are many ways to treat depressive disorders and natural remedies for depression seem to be quite popular these days. The great thing about natural cures for depression are that they are easy to implement, effective, and less costly. Some of the remedies include the following:

Change Your Mood with Food

Depressed feelings can be improved with a good, healthy diet. Here is a list of vitamins for depression that you want to look for when choosing a healthy diet.

Folate- in the vitamin B family, nutritionists recommend 400 micrograms per day. You can get this by eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, and lentils

Iron- get plenty of iron by eating iron rich foods such as meat, legumes, fortified cereals, and green leafy vegetables.

Selenium- also an antioxidant that protects against cancer, heart disease and arthritis. Easily found in beef but you can also get selenium via seafood, poultry, mushrooms, sea vegetaqbles and whole wheat. Avoid supplements because selenium can also be toxic and dangerous to your system if you get too much of it.

Omega-3's- Omega 3 depression is a term used when your brain is deficient of omega fatty acids, which your brain needs to work effectively. Its important to get both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. You can find omega-6 in corn and soybean based foods. Where as omega-3's can be obtained by eating things like salmon, mackerel, canola oil, flaxseed, walnutes, and green leafy vegetables. (Note: there is a link to a great article about this at the bottom of this page!)

Chocolate - Believe it or not, chocolate may indeed improve reduce the depressed feelings. This is obviously a temporary fix and is not for severe cases of depressive disorders. However, it is believed that the chemicals found in chocolate, such as phenylethylamine, theobromine and caffeine may release endorphins that increase the feelings of pleasure.

Avoid Sugar

Avoid Alcohol - Alcohol is a known depressant and is loaded with sugar. So, its important to stay away from it when you are trying to beat the illness.

Drink Plenty of Water - If you are dehydrated it can directly affect serotonin production and decrease energy in the brain. Staying hydrated is important because there is a direct correlation to depression and dehydration

Exercise

Put it simply, exercise does a body good! Exercise and depression can be great together because one - the exercise - helps to combat the other. Moving your body, getting that blood pumping and lungs expanding can make you feel so much better! Exercise increases your energy levels and possibly release endorphins that will help with depression. In addition, it improves your metabolism, your ability to sleep and your self-esteem. So exercise is highly recommended.

There are so many forms of exercise that you can do including the following: