Chocolates, a healthy lifestyle, and depression

CEBU, Philippines - Author and educational psychologist Diane Tillman believes that sugar, including chocolates, can aggravate depression and one's feeling of sadness.

Depression, according to Tillman, is a feeling of "pervasive low mood or sadness that continues to last."

Clinically, it is defined as feelings of sadness and hopelessness lasting for more than two weeks, leading to loss of interest on things and activities that the depressed person is usually interested in. Sometimes, this form of hormonal imbalance would be present with psychosis.

Tillman suggests that in order for us to improve our mood, we must lower our intake of sugar, exercise regularly, and for those who may show signs of clinical depression, seek professional help.

"It's very important to cut the sugar," she said. "(If you avoid) white sugar and artificial sweeteners, then my job is twenty percent easier because you won't stay in the same level of depression."

Tillman is also a practicing family and marriage therapist.

Sugar and chocolate

She said that sugar is emotionally destabilizing and suggests that we must go off it for three months and observe for ourselves the difference.

For chocolates, Tillman said that it is capable of stimulating two neurotransmitters in the brain. One of these neurotransmitters, when stimulated, would send a message to the brain, saying that you are loved, and then you would feel loved. However, this feeling would only last for 20 minutes, after which, another neurotransmitter would be stimulated, making you crave for more chocolate.

"Experiment with yourself. If you have the tendency of getting depressed, then try cutting the chocolate and sugar, and especially artificial sweetener such as aspartame, because they can actually add to depression and actually cause depression," she said.

Brown rice

Tillman said that a healthy diet is essential in fighting depression.

"If you have brown rice, the serotonin levels in your brain will increase dramatically in 30 minutes," she said. Serotonin is referred to as the "feel good" hormone because it stimulates that part of the brain that would signal satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment.

Exercise

Aside from a healthy diet, exercising 25 to 30 minutes a day would also help increase the body's serotonin levels.

"Walking is a good preventive method, and when you are depressed, it's one of the most effective way (of dealing with the feeling)," Tillman said.

She also pointed out that walking is an opportunity to meditate and have a conversation with God. She believes that in order to fight depression effectively, we must have a reservoir of positive energy, which we can only get by feeling God's love through meditation, and not merely with prayer.

Meditation

Meditation is different from prayer. Meditation is when you listen to God and when you just allow God's loving energy to flow through and in you, while prayer is the act when we ask something from God, mostly material things that would either satisfy our desires or meet our daily basic needs.

She pointed out that most of the time we take our self-respect from things that are gross and physical, like recognition, titles, people, properties, and attainments.

But when something happens to these sources of self-respect, our deep-rooted tendency to fall into depression would be awakened. That is why, through meditation, Tillman said that we would be able to understand ourselves and start to know and learn a more permanent source of self-respect.

With meditation, we are able to know our true self "in a way that is so lovely," she said. "Knowing yourself is so important and it will deepen and deepen."

"Meditate, take in love and peace... Think, 'I am a jewel of contentment'... Help God do what He wants to do with you and remember Him. Take that energy (from Him) and recharge the soul," Tillman added.

Depression may sound like a very complex and somewhat overwhelming disorder, to say the least. However, simple lifestyle changes may just be able to abate its debilitating effects.

We can choose to reduce our sugar intake or stop ourselves from gorging on chocolate every time we feel down, or even start the habit of taking time to ourselves in contemplative meditation. It's all a matter of choice.

Visit the author's blog at http://tribong-upos.xanga.com, or follow him on Twitter: @tribong_upos. The author is a raja yoga student at the Brahma Kumaris since 2002. Diane Tillman is the author and co-creator of Living Values: An Education Program, a values-based program integrated in the curriculum of schools in several countries including the Philippines. She has been practicing raja yoga for 30 years and runs a Brahma Kumaris center in the US.