I have suffered from depression for a good many years of my life. At first I thought that if I released enough sadness, guilt and limiting believes I will eventually get better. Until then, I’ll have to get through some days more stoically then others. As I dwelve more into my condition, I realised that depression is not just a mental or spiritual affliction. There is also a physical component to depression that once I started to address, the blue clouds that’s been around me for what seems eternity finally lifted.
The first noticeable change occurred when I stopped eating bread and all things glutton for 3 months last year, i.e. 2010. It was not the easiest diet change for me for I love bread. Give me bread and a bowl of soup and I am in 7th heaven. But every time I put myself on biofeedback, celiac keeps coming up. I was really curious about why I keep seeing that because I love bread and it is a big time comfort food for me. But I got curious last Summer and I decided to experiment. I decided to stop eating bread and all things glutten for a couple of weeks and see what happens. After a few days, I swear I was having withdrawal anxiety. Bread has become such a staple in my life and when I stopped cold turkey, I just didn’t know what to eat any more. Though a part of me wanted to experiment, a part of me just didn’t like the change. It took me a while to work out what else I can eat for breakfast. The 2 weeks were the most interesting. I have to re-educate myself about what I could or could not eat. It was an uphill battle at first but my pig-headedness prevail. After a few weeks I started noticing that a fog has lifted from my mind. I seemed to be able to focus much better then before. I felt a big boost in my general wellness. It wasn’t just one area of my life that I felt an improvement, I felt an overall improvement. So much so that the rest of the 3 months went by relatively easily. I still remember that I love bread but I have a much better handle on controlling my glutten addiction! I was glad that I stuck it out for the full 3 months. I realized that it takes two to three months to get rid of the residual effect of a food sensitivity.
At the end of the three months I did go back to eating some bread though I have cut my bread consumption to once or twice a week. I don’t have the anguish of not knowing what to eat besides bread any more once I armed myself with a good glutten free cookbook. My glutten free experiment expanded my knowledge of how much I have control over how I feel just by changing my eating habbits. Not eating glutten is just one of the things I have done that help lifted my mood. I felt a relieve from my dull mood though not a full recovery by all means. I guess that just means I’ll be doing more experiments with my diet. I do feel that making the decision to take glutten off my diet changed my head space completely. Even now that I’ve gone back to eating some bread, I don’t feel the reliance or “addiction” on bread any more. Once I’ve made the decision to be very mindful of what I put into my body, the confidence that I have control over how I feel grew quickly. I know, not suspect or hope, that if I don’t like the way I feel I can change it. This knowing puts me in a very different place with my depression. I know that I am not at the mercy of some affliction that I don’t understand any more. I know that it’s my choice whether I stay in this mood or decide to try on another mood. And that is a very comforting thought.