According to a new government report, more than 13% of American adults were treated for mental illness in 2010. People aged 18 to 25 were more than twice as likely to experience problems or undergo treatment than those aged 50 and older.
Women were also more likely to have undergone treatment than men.
According to the Huffington Post:
“Researchers gained some insight into suicide and thoughts of suicide through the report. They found that about 8.7 million Americans contemplated suicide in the last year, while 2.5 million people actually made plans to commit suicide and 1.1 million people attempted suicide. In addition, 8 percent of teens between ages 12 and 17 reported that they had had a major depressive episode over the last year, according to the report.”
The use of antidepressant drugs doubled in just one decade, from 13.3 million in 1996 to 27 million in 2005. So why are so many people feeling so low? Because these drugs do nothing to affect the actual causes of depression. They are no more effective than sugar pills, and come with serious side-effects. But there are strategies that have nothing but positive effects:
- Address negative emotions that may be trapped beneath your level of awareness. My favorite method of emotional cleansing is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a form of psychological acupressure.
- Regular exercise normalizes your insulin levels while boosting the "feel good" hormones in your brain.
- Eat whole foods as described in my nutrition plan in order to best support your mental and physical health.
- I strongly recommend taking a high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat, like krill oil. This may be the single most important nutrient for optimal brain function.
- Get safe sun exposure, which allows your body to produce vitamin D.