*Diet at your own risk. For informational purposes only*

Gut Health is Correlated Strongly with Depression

You can read an interesting study here to find out more.

Poor gut health results in inflammation.

A poor diet can cause damage to the blood brain barrier too.

Combine the two and your body and mind will feel pretty terrible.

Cut out Pro-inflammatory Foods

• Cut out sugar & refined cards
• Consider cutting out diary and gluten. These can cause inflammation in some individuals
• Cut out all processed foods

Consume Anti-Inflammatory & Nutrient-Dense Foods

• Supplement with a probiotic or eat fermented foods and drinks such as sauerkraut
• Turmeric is one of the strongest anti-inflammatories. I supplement with Meriva Turmeric.  Black pepper increased ‘uptake’ of standard turmeric
• Eat nutrient dense foods like broccoli, spinach and kale

Supplements to Consider for Depression & Anxiety

• Consider a magnesium supplement. I’ve found this very effective as a muscle relaxant – I normally get terrible headaches from a stiff neck and back
• Supplement with fish oil and vitamin D3 in the winter
• I also drink 10g of glutamine first thing in the morning as this supposedly helps heal and protect the gut lining.
• I drink diluted apple cider vinegar about 15 minutes before main meals to help digestion
• NAC powder is also effective for some in reducing gut inflammation

• CBD Oil is very helpful for some. It literally ‘calms the mind’ and can also help to reduce inflammation:

I have tried everything to improve my mental health. Well nearly everything.

The things that helped me the most included:

• Giving up dairy
• Reducing wheat consumption
• Supplementing with Curcumin and spirulina
• Reading a lot of Stoic philosophy
• Supplementing vitamin D3 in the winter & using a SAD lamp

The ketogenic diet has also been helpful.

I that I don’t get the some muscular and joint aches and pains whilst on the ketogenic diet. I used to literally wake up in the middle of the night with pain in my elbow and knee.

For more information on this, there is an interesting paper here. A lot of the studies are on animals, which can actually be more reliable in some ways as the animals have every other aspect of their lifestyle 100% controlled (even their genetics).

I’ve written a blog post about the targeted ketogenic diet here. This is excellent if you want to train at a high intensity whilst reaping most of the benefit of ketosis.

To summarise

Stop Eating Rubbish.  
You must educate yourself in order to do this.  Listen to nutrition podcasts and videos like Dr Rhona Patricks.  People telling you, or telling yourself to stop eating rubbish rarely works, you need the information to make a conscious choice.

Stay away from pre-packaged, processed foods with additives.

Consider Giving up Dairy
This literally changed my life.
Research this but do it at your own risk.
Make sure you consume enough high quality vegetables to obtain calcium via non-dairy sources.