What's Worked for Me

Hi there. I'm writing to share with you some information about what strategies have worked for me and allowed me to finally disrupt a binge drinking pattern that had persisted stubbornly for over five years.

I've been working toward achieving better mental, emotional, and physical health for the past two or three years, and in the process I have tried a lot of different things. I have struggled with depression and anxiety off and on (more often "on" than not) for a decade. During my darkest phases, I would think of suicide twenty times per day, if not more often.

So, it isn't surprising that I was more than willing to experiment with different things and take some personal risks in order to bootstrap myself out of depression and return to a healthier kind of life. To help me help myself, I tried every supplement known to man; I was basically a human guinea pig.

I don't recommend that approach to others, and I certainly don't intend for any of the information I present here to be construed as generalized medical or psychiatric advice. Nevertheless, some of what I've learned might be useful to bring up with a qualified professional. Targeted nutritional support, while important, has been nothing more than a tool allowing me to more easily alter the underlying patterns in my life. The first of which was...

Eliminating Stressors

One of the first things I started working toward was to remove stressors from my life. It wasn't easy because my energy was so low, so I could only do tiny little things at once.

About a year and a half ago, I took a job that was more stable and lower pressure. This allowed me to focus most of my energy on my health while having financial security. I am very fortunate in that respect, and without that security, I don't know that I would have had the ability to reach sobriety without having to go through a structured recovery program.

Nevertheless, I was socially very isolated, and the people I would expose myself to weren't good for me. Slowly, I started pulling away from poisonous influences. I have tended throughout my life to attract people with severe emotional problems because they sense in me a person who isn't made uncomfortable by their pain, but in my weakened and stressed out state, I was too vulnerable and weak to be constantly around such people all the time. One in particular had borderline personality disorder, and eventually I just had to shut him out entirely. It wasn't easy for me to do that, but I had to do it for my own good.

Self Compassion

Being compassionate to myself has never come easily to me. I began working with a therapist about a year ago, and through this process I came to consciously realize that the standards I apply to myself are about twenty times more strict than the standards I apply to other people.

In order to be kinder to myself, I had to start thinking about myself in the third person. I had to start looking at myself like I look at other people. This is an ongoing process; it's not something that I've gotten down to an instinctual level. But along with therapy, one thing in particular has helped:

Meditation

Meditation isn't for everyone, but I've found it particularly useful. What meditation helped me gain was not an absence of negative thoughts but a distance from them. It allowed me to observe my own thoughts and feelings without necessarily getting lost in them, without necessarily believing everything I think. Meditation helped to strengthen the knowledge that states of mind are as transient as the weather. This, in turn, is freeing my mind to roam again in places that had become too painful, too dangerous.

It's like when a child, just beginning to walk, starts out confidently but has a bad fall one day and doesn't want to walk again for a while. Slowly but surely, they test their way back to walking. It takes a while, sometimes, but they do recover. The same thing applies to the mind. When thoughts and feelings are too painful to experience, you shut them down. But when the healing process starts to work, you slowly allow yourself to experience thoughts and feelings again.

With meditation, it's easier to experience the dark thoughts without being overwhelmed.

The mind and the body are not separate things; they are one. When you imagine a stressor like an upcoming exam that gets your heart pounding, that triggers the amygdala. Your body responds by releasing cortisol, shutting down the immune system, and basically preparing itself for a fight. So to enhance the healing process, I tackled the problem from both directions: the mental and the physical.

Nutritional Supplementation

My diet wasn't great. I was trying to improve it, but willpower is an exhaustible resource, and I had to be careful where I spent my points. With that in mind, I emphasized controlled supplementation with a specific intention to reduce physiological and psychological stress and to enhance brain plasticity and repair.

These are the things I use:

Methylfolate + methylcobalamin + vitamin B6 + benfotiamine

Genetic sequencing revealed that I am homozygous for the MTHFR C667T mutation, which means that I am extremely inefficient at converting folic acid (vitamin B9) to its metabolically active form. This puts me at roughly a 500% increased risk for depression. Go figure. Going into too much detail here would require a whole separate post, but one thing to note is that the methylated form of folate is required for the synthesis of monoamine neurotransmitters (e.g. serotonin). It is also needed for myelination.

Magnesium. Lots of magnesium.

I take a particular form of magnesium which is bound to threonate, a vitamin C metabolite. This form is shown to enhance magnesium levels in the brain to a far greater degree than other forms of magnesium, and available evidence indicates that enhanced magnesium levels in the brain guard against excessive glutamate activity and increase the formation of new synapses. Obtaining adequate amounts of magnesium from the diet is quite difficult; around 60% of Americans are deficient.

Magnesium is involved in over three hundred enzymatic reactions in the body and is a key component in ATP synthesis. Additionally, it helps to regulate and calm down the hypothalamic pituitary axis, which tends to be in overdrive and pumping out massive amounts of cortisol in depressed people.

Omega 3 fatty acids.

Omega 3 fatty acids are vital in controlling chronic inflammation, which is linked to depression and stress, and for supporting the brain. DHA in particular is important for construction of myelin sheaths, which coat the axons extending out from neurons to enhance the speed of neurotransmission. Binge drinking does NOT kill neurons, but it does damage supporting white matter (glial cells, astrocytes) and axons and dendrites. Thankfully, this damage is reversible with time.

Bacopa monnieri

Bacopa is an ayurvedic herb traditionally used for mental sharpening. Studies show that it enhances the formation of dendrites after four weeks of use while reducing physiological stress markers like salivary cortisol. I use Synapsa, which is a standardized extract.

Gotu kola

Gotu kola is another adaptogen commonly given alongside bacopa monnieri. While it is not as well researched, it is known for being mildly sedating and relaxing, so I have used it in conjunction with bacopa to reduce my stress levels.

Lion's Mane

Lion's Mane is a mushroom shown to contain nerve growth factors capable of crossing the blood brain barrier. Evidence here is a bit slim, but what exists suggests that Lion's Mane is helpful in stimulating neurogensis, dendritic outgrowth, and synapse formation.

In addition to the above, I try to obtain through my diet (and with the occasional supplement, if I eat poorly for a couple of weeks) the following:

• Vitamin A
• Vitamin D
• Vitamin K + Vitamin K2
• Zinc
• Molybdenum
• Copper
• Iodine
• Chromium
• Niacin
• Riboflavin
• Soluble fiber (20g / day)

Aerobic Exercise

Aerobic exercise is the mainstay of my wellness program. Aerobic exercise is like fertilizer for the brain. It increases levels of BDNF and NGF (brain-derived neurotrophic growth factor and nerve growth factor) and leads to higher white matter density and bigger brain volume in areas correlated with executive functioning and memory. Aerobic exercise is downright nootropic. I have backed off a little bit now, but for a couple of months, I was doing at least forty minutes of intense cardio (heart rate sustained at 160 beats per minute or higher) at least six days per week. Combined with nutritional support, meditation, medication for my depression, and weekly therapy, this has allowed my brain to recover and learn new patterns as quickly as possible.

I had more to say, but I'm getting tired, so I'm going to stop here. Maybe this was useful to someone. Perhaps I'll come back and edit it a few times later.