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Depression.
This is the second to last part on the sugar series that I decided to do to share awareness of the terrible effects from eating excessive added sugars on a daily basis. Here are the links to the previous parts :
- Our Daily Mood
- Our Hunger & Energy Levels
- Modern Day Slavery
- Healthier Types of Sugars
- Healthy Daily Amounts
- Our Teeth & Sickness
In this part I will be covering how depression stems from consuming a high sugar daily diet. Did you know that just 1% of "Mind / Brain" illnesses are the ones we consider to be mental illnesses such as Schizophrenia, being just one of the psychotic illnesses people are suffering from in the modern day?
And the other 99%? - Is Depression. That's a huge ratio difference to what we commonly believe to be true, and we (some people) even believe that depression isn't an illness at all just because it cant really be seen. If you have ever suffered from depression, you would now it to be very real indeed. I personally believe that we have all or we get depressed at some point in life, but some have it less and not so strongly over powering as others. Some people don't even know they are depressed and it just becomes who they think they are, and others have so much of it that they decide to learn about it and how to fix it to escape the repeating negative mind patterns.
Depression separates people, and by separating people you can disturb society as a whole. We live in a very stressful environment for the most part and image and ego is all around us 24/7, which leaves us very vulnerable to fall into depression simply from feeling very inadequate whilst comparing ourselves to others around us.
Its become a terrible habit that when we feel shitty we seem to go and get the chocolate out and can sit on the sofa feeling sorry for ourselves whilst demolishing rows from a chocolate bar which magically makes us feel better and it always works so that's why we do it. I used to eat 100g bar of milk chocolate like it was nothing (even whilst not in depression!) and it was so normal to do it. There was always an offer of on huge bars of chocolate and I even remember one Christmas time receiving a 1KG bar (not even kidding here) of Cadbury's chocolate, an English brand I believe.
Some indulge in other goodie's like Ice cream or candy, just something, anything sweet that we can constantly put in out mouths to give us a hit from the sugar to make us feel happy - the less to chew is even better as we can eat more of it!
A little "bump" one could say, just like Cocaine or any other stimulating drug addict would. Just one more..
When we eat sweet food we would never think of the long term effects it would have on our mental health, and why should we?
The continuous cycle of snacking on something sweet throughout the day creates many ups and downs on our blood sugar levels which creates a nice euphoric feeling and then a sad feeling once the high from the sugar is over. This roller coaster of sugar rushes and crashes, determine our state of mind to a great extent and the waves throughout the day end up playing games with our emotions and fulling the mind which will lead eventually to depression from over thinking.
Its shown in researches that men are more likely to get depression buy women from eating a high sugar diet and that women can take more sugars daily without the risk of getting depressed from it. We have it hard enough as it is without harming ourselves from the food we eat unconsciously. Its so sad the the food we get to buy is all with added sugars and added sugars are really messing us up in several ways.
People that suffer from depression will most likely learn if they are honest, that they are also consuming lots of sweet foods and hardly any fresh foods that haven't seen a factory. From personal experience sugar defiantly activates my mind when im trying to get to sleep at night. As someone who meditates 1 hour a day in 2 parts, I have experienced a non active mind , and when I don't meditate for a day or two, i will experience a much more active mind with the continuing commentary. If Ive relapsed a bit and then start eating sugary foods, my mind is on turbo mode with so many never ending thoughts back to back, which is evidence that sugar really does make our minds more active - the opposite of what we should be achieving.
One Tactic to Tackle Depression - Today!
If you are reading this and are suffering from depression, or someone close to you is, then take a note of what you are eating throughout the day. Its time to be real with yourself. If you added up all the sugars that you eat, which is easy to do by looking at the labels on the back of the packet and work out the weight of the food and how many grams of sugars are in 100g. So don't be fooled if you see 19g of sugars and then think that's fine - check the weight of the packet and then *multiply that by the said sugar amounts, so 19g could be x3 = 57g if the food weighed 300g net.
Something so simple as reducing the sweet things you are eating which you believe is actually helping daily WILL change your mood. Its recommended to do a 10 day detox from sweet foods and caffeine to really have a good chance in winning back the power from depression. If you are consuming a serious amount of added sugars then go for cutting it in half for 10 days, but really that's just cheating on ourselves. I did it for 30 days 3 years ago and wrote a food & mood diary.
The environment we live in, the food we eat, and even the medicines given to us to make us better are making depression much worse, which means that society doesn't really care about depressed people much, so it is up to you not to give up and be destroyed by something created to destroy you.
One thing I have learnt a long time ago is that for us to change the world we need to change ourselves. And for us to help others, they have to be READY and desperate enough to use the help themselves.
Its very hard to find the courage to make a change but small changes lead to big changes!
As usually Big love & Abundance..
Often people correlate sugar with physical health, but don't usually think about the mental effects. Thank you!
Hi! Great to know you enjoyed it and people do know about it, more than you think I reckon!
A high-sugar diet impacts each physical and mental state. The roller coaster of high blood glucose followed by a crash could intensify the symptoms of mood disorders. analysis has tied serious sugar consumption to Associate in Nursing enlarged risk of depression and worse outcomes in people with psychosis.
Thanks for article to me sugar addiction is the unspoken addiction that leads toba cascade of illnesses such as diabetes and obesity.With the rise of childhood obesity i foresee an environment of illness reaching unprecedented levels.Lets be vigilant and not hide our addictions
This is so good! I definitely notice a huge correlation between the food I eat and how it impacts me mentally.