Review of Depression-Free for Life: A Physician's All-Natural, 5-Step Plan (Paperback)

In this book, Gabriel Cousens discusses his five-step program for treating depression -- without Prozac.
The book starts by defining depression and discussing the major types (such as major depression, manic depression, andsome others), talks about how anti-depressant drugs such as prozac &MAO inhibitors work, then launches into Gabriel Cousens' five-stepapproach.
The fivefold approach is basically: <1> amino acidprecursors are used to build up the brain chemistry, then <2> he addsvitamin/mineral supplements, <3> essential fatty acids, <4>dietary advice, and <5> lifestyle factors (touch, support, spiritualconnection, counseling, etc.)By far, the main emphasis on the book isabout the biochemistry of depression, as the last section on the lifestylefactors (<5>) is very brief in relation to the rest of theinformation in the book.
Along the way, there are checkpoints (thateasily stand out, for reference) which you will need to determine whichsupplements will likely be the most effective for your style ofdepression.
Some of the stuff in this book is truly new material.Theinformation on optimizing the diet for your specific metabolism (slow orfast oxidizer) is new, and since blood sugar is a major component inovercomming depression, it is very welcome.This is the most mainstream ofGabriel's books, so he does not spend any time going over the benefits ofraw foods, and though he does suggest a mostly vegetarian diet, he does notstress it very heavily here.Nevertheless, the diet section has lots ofvegan raw-food recipes that are used at the Tree of Life RejuvenationCenter, for those who are interested in that lifestyle.
I understoodafter reading this book why I feel much less depressed during the day whenI have sunflower seed meal for breakfast - it has to do with my fastoxidation metabolism combined with the seratonin boosting properties ofsunflower seeds.(I discovered that I felt better eating sunflower seedsbefore I read the book, so it was a pleasure to read the book to discoverwhy that meal is so effective for me.)



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