Vitamins Helpful for Depression

The art of Healthy Lifestyles
For millions of people living with depression there may be a simple, yet very effective, non-medicinal treatment for their depression. There are a number of vitamin deficiencies that can be responsible for depression. Likewise the addition of these vitamins and/or minerals to the diet of a person suffering from depression can be just what they need to start down the path to a happy, balanced life. Before I go any further it's necessary that I mention vitamin supplements are not a cure-all for all types of depression. For some people prescription drugs are necessary to manage their depression. However, vitamin supplements can still be very beneficial to those people, as well. It is always best to discuss the addition of any vitamins to your diet with your physician prior to making any changes. The balance of vitamins in your diet can sometimes be a delicate one. Add to that the fact that some vitamins may have an adverse reaction with certain medications and you can see why it's imperative to discuss the matter with your doctor. Below is a list of vitamins that can be very beneficial for people suffering from depression. * Vitamin B1 (thiamine): The brain uses this vitamin to help convert glucose into fuel, and without it the brain rapidly runs out of energy. This can lead to fatigue, depression, irritability, anxiety, and even thoughts of suicide. Deficiencies can also cause memory problems, loss of appetite, insomnia, and gastrointestinal disorders. The consumption of refined carbohydrates, such as simple sugars, drains the body's B1 supply. * Vitamin B3 (niacin): Pellagra-which produces psychosis and dementia, among other symptoms-was eventually found to be caused by niacin deficiency. Many commercial food products now contain niacin, and pellagra has virtually disappeared. * Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid): Symptoms of deficiency are fatigue, chronic stress, and depression. Vitamin B5 is needed for hormone formation and the uptake of amino acids and the brain chemical acetylcholine, which combine to prevent certain types of depression. * Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine): Aids in the processing of amino acids, which are the building blocks of all proteins and certain hormones. It's necessary in the manufacture of serotonin, melatonin and dopamine. Vitamin B6 deficiencies, although very rare, cause impaired immunity, skin lesions, and mental confusion. A marginal deficiency sometimes occurs in alcoholics, patients with kidney failure, and women using oral contraceptives. * Vitamin B12: Because vitamin B12 is important to red blood cell formation, deficiency leads to an oxygen-transport problem known as pernicious anemia. This disorder can cause a variety of symptoms including mood swings, paranoia, irritability, confusion, dementia, hallucinations, or mania, eventually followed by appetite loss, dizziness, weakness, shortage of breath, heart palpitations, diarrhea, and tingling sensations in the extremities. Deficiencies take years to develop, since the body stores a three to five year supply in the liver. When shortages occur, they are often due to a lack of intrinsic factor, an enzyme that allows vitamin B12 to be absorbed in the intestinal tract. Since intrinsic factor diminishes with age, B12 deficiencies are more common in older people. * Folic acid: This vitamin is needed for DNA synthesis and is also necessary for the production of S-adenosyl methionine. Poor dietary habits, illness, alcoholism, and various drugs, including aspirin, birth control pills, barbiturates, and anticonvulsants all contribute to deficiency of Folic acid. It is usually administered along with vitamin B12, since a B12 deficiency can mask a folic acid deficiency. It's advised that women take this vitamin prior to and during pregnancy to prevent neural tube defects in the developing fetus. * Vitamin C: Subclinical deficiencies of this vitamin can produce depression, which requires the use of supplements. Supplementation is especially important if you have had surgery or an inflammatory disease. Stress, pregnancy, and lactation also increase your body's need for vitamin C, while aspirin, tetracycline (a common antibiotic), and birth control pills can deplete the body's supply.
Vitamins Helpful for Depression
For millions of people living with depression there may be a simple, yet very effective, non-medicinal treatment for their depression. There are a number of vitamin deficiencies that can be responsible for depression. Likewise the addition of these vitamins and/or minerals to the diet of a person suffering from depression can be just what they need to start down the path to a happy, balanced life. Before I go any further it's necessary that I mention vitamin supplements are not a cure-all for all types of depression. For some people prescription drugs are necessary to manage their depression. However, vitamin supplements can still be very beneficial to those people, as well. It is always best to discuss the addition of any vitamins to your diet with your physician prior to making any changes. The balance of vitamins in your diet can sometimes be a delicate one. Add to that the fact that some vitamins may have an adverse reaction with certain medications and you can see why it's imperative to discuss the matter with your doctor. Below is a list of vitamins that can be very beneficial for people suffering from depression. * Vitamin B1 (thiamine): The brain uses this vitamin to help convert glucose into fuel, and without it the brain rapidly runs out of energy. This can lead to fatigue, depression, irritability, anxiety, and even thoughts of suicide. Deficiencies can also cause memory problems, loss of appetite, insomnia, and gastrointestinal disorders. The consumption of refined carbohydrates, such as simple sugars, drains the body's B1 supply. * Vitamin B3 (niacin): Pellagra-which produces psychosis and dementia, among other symptoms-was eventually found to be caused by niacin deficiency. Many commercial food products now contain niacin, and pellagra has virtually disappeared. * Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid): Symptoms of deficiency are fatigue, chronic stress, and depression. Vitamin B5 is needed for hormone formation and the uptake of amino acids and the brain chemical acetylcholine, which combine to prevent certain types of depression. * Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine): Aids in the processing of amino acids, which are the building blocks of all proteins and certain hormones. It's necessary in the manufacture of serotonin, melatonin and dopamine. Vitamin B6 deficiencies, although very rare, cause impaired immunity, skin lesions, and mental confusion. A marginal deficiency sometimes occurs in alcoholics, patients with kidney failure, and women using oral contraceptives. * Vitamin B12: Because vitamin B12 is important to red blood cell formation, deficiency leads to an oxygen-transport problem known as pernicious anemia. This disorder can cause a variety of symptoms including mood swings, paranoia, irritability, confusion, dementia, hallucinations, or mania, eventually followed by appetite loss, dizziness, weakness, shortage of breath, heart palpitations, diarrhea, and tingling sensations in the extremities. Deficiencies take years to develop, since the body stores a three to five year supply in the liver. When shortages occur, they are often due to a lack of intrinsic factor, an enzyme that allows vitamin B12 to be absorbed in the intestinal tract. Since intrinsic factor diminishes with age, B12 deficiencies are more common in older people. * Folic acid: This vitamin is needed for DNA synthesis and is also necessary for the production of S-adenosyl methionine. Poor dietary habits, illness, alcoholism, and various drugs, including aspirin, birth control pills, barbiturates, and anticonvulsants all contribute to deficiency of Folic acid. It is usually administered along with vitamin B12, since a B12 deficiency can mask a folic acid deficiency. It's advised that women take this vitamin prior to and during pregnancy to prevent neural tube defects in the developing fetus. * Vitamin C: Subclinical deficiencies of this vitamin can produce depression, which requires the use of supplements. Supplementation is especially important if you have had surgery or an inflammatory disease. Stress, pregnancy, and lactation also increase your body's need for vitamin C, while aspirin, tetracycline (a common antibiotic), and birth control pills can deplete
the body's supply.
The art of Healthy Lifestyles

Stress Lessons From A Tea-Pot

The Art of Healthy Lifestyles
Have you ever put water into a teapot to make tea before? Do you stop and think about what happens when you do? Like most of us, I'm sure you don't even give it a second thought, but let's examine it a bit.
First, you pour cold water into the teapot, cover it, turn on the stove, and leave. What happens next is interesting. As the water beings to heat, the molecules in it begin to move faster and faster until the water begins to boil.
Next the steam gradually builds and builds until it finds a weak spot in the teapot (the whistle) to escape. Once the opening is found, the pressure bursts from it, creating that noise that alerts you that it's time for tea.
What's fascinating about this to me is that this teapot can teach us a lesson or two about how pressure/frustration/stress builds and accumulates in our own lives.
What's even more deadly about this is that we often don't know how to release these pent-up emotions in ways that don't harm us or those we care about. So, let's examine this a bit more.
Lessons from a Teapot
First, there are often disturbing things that we deal with that instead of letting go, we dump into our teapot (the back-parts of our minds/heart). For example: working with someone who goes out of their way to either get you in trouble or sabotage you efforts. All day long, things that affect us negatively usually gets dumped into our sub-conscious teapot instead of being dealt with consciously and released.
Next, everything is usually fine until we're caught in some situation that lights a fire under us. Sometimes being under stressful conditions that act as a continuous heat source, often causes our hidden feelings/emotions to begin surfacing like water that boils in the teapot.
Lastly, when we've had all we can take and the pressure inside the teapot grows so much that it seeks an outlet, we blow. All the pent-up frustrations and emotions just push their way past our often rational mindset and find the release they craved. Unfortunately, if there is anyone caught in the way of this eruption, they will get burned.
I believe that like most people, you too often find yourself in state of hold-buildup-explode, so, here are a few things you can learn.
Teapot Training 101
Lesson #1 - Health Hazard - One of the most deadly things about stress is the damage it can have on your health. Just as the lime build-up accumulated from water sitting in the teapot begins to eat away at it from the inside, unreleased stress does the same to you.
Gradually, what was once a strong and reliable teapot, becomes a worn, broken metal can fit for the garbage heap. You can't allow this to take place inside you so you've got to learn to release stress properly.
Lesson #2 - Use Communication - Most of the times, we begin accumulating stress by not being upfront and clear with people we're dealing with, so we end up stuck with this negative energy. Whether with spouse, children, friends, co-workers etc, learn to be clear on your position concerning what you want done, or what can be expected of you. Let them know "this works for me" or "This can be done in this particular timeframe but without this" etc.
Lesson #3 - Turn The Heat Off - Sometimes we all find ourselves caught in situations that make our blood boil, but you must learn to either remove the heat source or remove yourself from it. Try not to stay in situations that keep increasing your pressure (literally & figuratively) and try often to seem other ways to deal with them.
Lesson #4 - Turn Off The Earth - Always remember that you need time for yourself. Take breaks from what you're doing; plan a relaxing vacation and take it; take a long drive with friends/family and talk out what's bothering you; sit in a hot bubble bath; do whatever is necessary to release your frustrations at days end. Try a much as possible not to carry yesterday's stress into tomorrow.
The Art of Healthy Lifestyles

The Five Modalities of Optimum Success: Body, Mind, Spirit, Emotions, & the Overarch

The art of healthy lifestyles
Optimum health, wealth, and success, require peak performance, or functioning, in each of the five major layers of the Self – what I have come to define in my Coaching practice as the Five Modalities. There are the basic three: Mind, Body, and Spirit, that many “progressive” thinkers in the current medical paradigm are beginning to acknowledge and embrace.
The fourth layer is the Modality of the Emotions which is as important as the above-mentioned three; and I coach through a fifth Modality that has yet to become part of the ongoing conversation about Optimum health and success: what I refer to as the Overarch, or Social Ecosystem.
Each of us is born into a Social, or Economic Ecosystem. The dictionary definition of an Ecosystem is: “a localized group of interdependent organisms together with the environment that they inhabit and depend on.” So, we all enter into this world ecosystem in a particular social or economic status. And, we enter into this world as interdependent creatures. Socially, and economically, we depend on one another for survival, just as much as we depend on the earth for our food and water and other essentials.
Although our social or economic status can change throughout our lives, based on a variety of factors; the structure of the Overarch, itself, remains intact, and will continue to remain thus. It has been this way for thousands and thousands of years in all parts of the world.
This structure is hierarchical in nature, resembling a pyramid. Those near the apex, have more control, access to resources, and decision-making capabilities than the ones near the base. Yet, those toward the apex are only able to exist at that spot with the support of all those that are holding them there from the base on up. So, we all fall into position somewhere in this hierarchical pyramid structure. And, as the physical structure of a pyramid would suggest, the vast majority of the world’s population is closer to the base of the pyramid than the apex.
Why would this be important in Optimum Health? Three reasons; the first is that the level of control over one’s basic physical survival, (in our current paradigm, this takes the form of finances and access to resources) increases as they move toward the apex – fewer people have direct influence over major areas of a person’s life the closer s/he gets to the pinnacle.
Factors such as whether a person has an income and how much they earn, are examples of specific areas that a person gains increased command over as he or she nears the top of the Social Ecosystemic pyramid. In other words, there are less people that have the capacity to fire or hire you; less people who decide how much or how little money you make; less to decide when you work and the terms of that work; less who decide whether or when there is time off for family or leisure.
The closer a person gets to the top of the Social Ecosystem pyramid, the more control they have over their time and resources, and decision-making capacity increases dramatically. For example, heads of state have the ultimate decision-making capacity; the decisions they make affect the entire social and economic ecosystem of our pyramid. They have ultimate control over their own finances, when and under what terms they work; access to more resources than anyone else in the Overarch; and ultimate control over how much income they are able to generate (not all of it necessarily being through earned income from their "job"). The same is true for others who are not heads of state, but are on par with that positioning on the pyramind.
The second major reason that this Modality should be a significant consideration in evaluating anyone’s capacity to achieve Optimum health and success in life is that the further up the pyramid they are situated, the lower their levels of chronic stress. An overwhelming number of studies have shown that predictability and control over one’s life, one’s body, one’s destiny, one’s finances, etc., is directly linked to stress levels; the less the amount of control, the higher the stress levels. And, levels of stress, especially chronic stress which is the type most common to this particular Modality, are directly linked to how healthy a person is in each of the other Modalities.
So, our aforementioned heads of state may consider themselves to be Optimally healthy in this Modality because of the level of control that being in their position affords them. Yet, whether or not they are Optimally healthy in the other Four Modalities, is debatable. Depending on what one’s definition of “success” is, having a position that affords ultimate financial control and access to resources, while having chronic ailments related to suppression of emotions does not make for optimum quality of life.
The third reason is that this Modality affects each of the other four. It has a direct relationship with the Mind, Body, Spirit, and Emotions. Some of the factors that have direct bearing on where we fall in the Overarch are the social dynamics of a particular region; economic strata; one's relationship to his/her surroundings; and the accepted wider cultural perception of a person or group. Whether you are male or female, whether you are Asian, Latino, European, or American; whether you are considered Wealthy, middle class, or working class; whether you never finished high school, or have several post-graduate degrees under your belt. All of these factors contribute to where you are positioned in the Overarch. And, that positioning absolutely lends itself to how you are perceived by your environment, how your enironment relates to you, and by extension, has the capacity to shape your thoughts and perceptions about yourself, your abilities, and what you are entitled to in this world. This all has a profound effect on each of the Five Modalities.
In order for Optimum success and health, one must strive to be healthy in all Five Modalities: Mind, Body, Emotions, Spirit, and the Overarch, or Social Ecosystem; creating balance, and thus, actualizing maximum potential, through placing equal weight in each Modality.
Source: articlecity
The art of healthy lifestyles

Vitamins for Vegetarians

There are a lot of vegetarians amongst us, some by circumstance and some by choice. Those that are vegetarians by choice can be divided into two general groups, those that do not eat meat, poultry or fish, but do consume dairy products as – in theory – the animals are not harmed or killed by the gathering of those products. Vegans, however, use no animal products whatsoever.
There are many health benefits to a planned vegetarian diet, as opposed to the unplanned vegetarian diets that result from poverty and a lack of food availability. However, there are also some special precautions that need to be taken to safeguard nutrition, as adequate amounts of some of the most important nutrients can be more difficult to obtain. This is especially true for those following the more restrictive vegan diet.
The body is a complex and delicate system, and the foundation of all of its functioning is chemical and electrical actions, interactions and reactions. The operation of this system rests firmly upon the balance of these chemicals. The majority of the chemicals in these essential physical processes come from the food that we eat, from the nutrients that come from its consumption. Thus, nutrition has a deep influence of the health of the body and the quality of its functioning.
Because the brain, like the body, functions on chemical reactions and electrical impulses, the processes of cognition, emotion, and so on, are also affected by nutrition. In fact, deficiencies in certain vitamins and minerals can result in mental illness and retardation, as well as cognitive dysfunction and difficulties and emotional instability.
The Vitamin B complex offers a perfect example of how vegetarians must pay special attention to their diets to ensure peak performance of body and mind. The Vitamin B complex is involved with every major system in the body and has a role in almost every important bodily process. It is essential to mental health and functioning, and essential to life itself. However, there are certain Vitamin B complex vitamins that need special attention by vegetarians, as vegetarians do not consume the richest sources of these vitamins.
The richest sources of Vitamin B2 are milk and organ meats. It is available in enriched breads and cereals, but care must be taken to consume the right amount daily. Niacin and Vitamin B6 are other B complex vitamins in which the richest sources are meats and, again, are available in smaller concentrations in enriched breads and cereals. Vitamin B12 is only found in animal products. It is important to note that vitamin B12, in addition to being important to the production of red blood cells, is essential for the normal growth of children.
Nutritional supplements can serve to enhance the health benefits of the vegetarian lifestyle. Indeed, they can serve to prevent the serious health consequences that vitamin deficiency can cause. Nutrition is especially essential for children, as their minds and bodies are growing and developing. If you are vegetarian or vegan, you may want to consider the complete, safe and reliable nutrition that dietary supplements can provide.
Source:www.articlecity.com
Author:Simon Harris