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The Mood Cure: Take Charge of Your Emotions in 24 Hours Using Food and Supplements
Each of the four mood engines in your brain needs a different amino acid fuel. The lower your access to amino fuel, the more false mood symptoms you can develop. The question is how much “gas” do you have in each of your engines? How do you know when you’ve run too low? How can you fill ’em up? Which amino brain fuels do you need? Where can you get them? How long will it take? You’ll soon learn what the best brain foods are for you and how to find and use the amino acid supplements that will jump-start all of your emotional engines and keep them fired up.
The four emotion generators in your brain are called “neurotransmitters.” Some of their specific names will probably be familiar to you: serotonin, catecholamines, GABA, and endorphin. Each of these four neurotransmitters has a distinctly different effect on your mood depending largely on the availability of its particular amino acid fuel.
A well-stocked brain produces true emotions: depending on your life circumstances, you’ll generally feel emotionally positive if your key neurotransmitter levels are high.
A poorly stocked brain produces false moods: If you drop too low in any of the key neurotransmitters, you’ll tend to develop a specific set of defective moods as a result.
Your Brain’s True and False Emotional Chemistry
Once any of the false moods evolve, their standard symptoms may come and go, become more or less intense, or remain constant. Whatever the case, the appropriate amino acid fuels, taken as supplements, can reliably, safely, and quickly dispel every vestige of all four false mood types by raising the levels of all four vital neurotransmitters.
Fortunately, every amino acid you’ll need can be easily found at your neighborhood health food store or drugstore or by phone or on-line.
WHY ARE YOUR MOOD ENGINES RUNNING ON EMPTY?
Did You Inherit False Moods? Some of us tolerate the same adverse circumstances with much more serenity than others. My mother endured fifty years of marital stress, polio, cancer, heart disease, gallbladder disease, thyroid disease, and more with relish, grit, high comedy, courage, and selflessness. She was rarely depressed, irritable, or fearful. What was her secret? She had two—she’d inherited her own mother’s nicely balanced brain chemistry, and she always ate lots of the protein that maintained it.
Did you inherit good-mood genes? Many of us didn’t. Over the years, numerous clients have brought in parents, siblings, and children with false mood symptoms very similar to their own. A brief tune-up with amino acids and a dietary “adjustment” was often all that was required to set them right. These experiences taught me how often false moods run in families.
Did you think that your father was hard to be around on purpose or that your mother cried at any upset because she was so weak? These are the kinds of questions that I have learned to ask when exploring the types of negative moods that run in families. My clients have often found the answers to be unexpectedly liberating: Although Anna hated to compare her irritability with her father’s rages, when she realized that they shared a common brain chemistry deficiency, she ended up having new compassion for him and less of a hurtful sense that his abusiveness had been personal to her.
We all know families in which everyone is laid-back and others where no one can slow down; outgoing, cheery families and shy, quiet families; worried, perfectionistic, families and sloppy, low-energy families. Ask yourself as you go through this book, “Do my family members share any of my mood traits?” “Are we the same false mood type?” But you won’t need to worry about being a stick-in-the-mood. Although we used to think that genetic traits were intractable, when it comes to moods, even genetic programming can be reprogrammed remarkably easily by amino acids and other nutrients.
Is It Your Diet? Regardless of your genes, but especially if your mood-programing genes are inefficient, good nutrition is essential. It’s no coincidence that our grandparents’ generation had a more cheerful disposition than ours, although they certainly had their share of wars, depressions, diseases, and other hardships to deal with. The fact is that their diets were better. They were lucky enough to grow up before the junk food invasion and before low-calorie dieting had become a way of life. They ate “three square-meals” a day, including plenty of protein-rich foods like beef, chicken, fish, eggs, and cheese. Why are these particular foods so important? Because our four neurotransmitters can be made only out of the amino acids found in high-protein foods.
But protein is not all we need. We also need a good supply of vitamins and minerals to make this magic happen. They’re found in fresh fruits and vegetables, which your grandparents ate in abundance but which are lacking in the standard American and British diet.
And there’s something else that you may be shocked to learn. If we don’t eat enough of the right kinds of fats, we will not be able to utilize these natural mood-boosting fuels. Our grandparents ate gobs of the fats we’re no longer eating, like butter, and they had much less heart disease, cancer, and depression than we have. (More on this intriguing story in chapter 8.)
Then there’s the junk food factor. Commercial food processing strips food of the vital nutrients needed to make and operate your brain’s neurotransmitters. These bad-mood foods—including white bread and pasta, sugar-laden cereals and snacks, fried and hydrogenated fats, caffeine, and even the artificial sweeteners in diet soda—can actually interfere with your brain’s efforts to create good moods. You can’t pour sugar or any of these other stressful substances into your mood tanks and expect a smooth emotional ride.
Is It Your Lifestyle? Our modern lifestyle must share some of the blame for our epidemic of mood imbalance. Too much stress—particularly of the unique twenty-first-century variety—can deplete the brain of its “feel good” neurotransmitters, literally wearing it out. A good night’s sleep, adequate relaxation, and appropriate “down time” are critical to restoring optimal levels of good-mood chemicals, but these simple restorative remedies are getting lost in our “go till you drop” culture.
Is It Your Hormones? At our clinic, we’ve continued to learn new ways to improve false moods as we’ve bumped into new mood problems that have stumped us. Our biggest lessons, beyond how to fuel the brain’s four emotion-generating neurotransmitters, have been the lessons we’ve learned about hormones. Whether it’s the two thyroid hormones, the thirty-plus adrenal hormones, or the three sex hormones—estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone—their effects on your mood can be powerful. Without enough of all these hormones operating in concert, the neurotransmitters can be stymied. Liberating your brain’s emotional chemistry may require you to launch into a hormone-balancing campaign to eliminate whatever may be holding up the mood show. But don’t be intimidated; I’ll show you how.
WILL THE MOOD CURE REALLY WORK FOR YOU?
On November 13, 2000, I made a presentation to a scientific conference held in San Francisco on mood and the brain.8 My staff and I had been asked to review the files of one hundred randomly selected clients who had come to our clinic with significant mood problems. Of the one hundred, ninety-eight had reported major improvements in mood within two weeks, most within twenty-four to forty-eight hours, using the amino acids, the basic nutrient supplements, and the good-mood foods that you’ll be reading about in this book. Twelve weeks later, eighty-three had sustained or exceeded those improvements. The depression, anxiety, oversensitivity, and stress that had brought them to us in the first place had disappeared.
You can expect to experience the same kind of relief from your own false moods, just as quickly. After all, you’ll be using the same techniques. As you’ve seen, many of the nutritional strategies I’ve discovered were developed while I was directing treatment programs for people with addictions and eating disorders. As a result, they’ve been honed on some very serious false moods. If the Mood Cure worked for them, it’s very likely to work for you.
But the Mood Cure is not for everyone. I would love to be able to say that at our clinic we’ve learned how to eliminate all false mood problems, but I can’t. We do not specialize in, and have very little experience with, severe false mood states such as autism, psychosis, bipolar disorder, violent rage, or paranoia—the biochemical imbalances commonly referred to as mental illnesses. Other clinicians have had experience treating these conditions with natural therapies, sometimes very successfully. Suggestions on finding practitioners, clinics, books, and Web sites that can advise you on how to deal naturally with mood disturbances that The Mood Cure does not address can be found in the “Resource Tool Kit,” page 289. If you have such problems, please do not use the supplements suggested in this book without expert guidance. They could actually make your particular biochemical imbalances worse.
MOVING INTO YOUR OWN MOOD CURE
The first step in your Mood Cure, like the first step in any successful repair job, is to identify what needs fixing. In the next chapter, you can start getting down to particulars by filling out the Four-Part Mood-Type Questionnaire. After you’ve completed this false mood profiling, you can move on to the specific repair chapters and the excitement and relief of experiencing your own personal Mood Cure.
Once you’ve actually shed your false moods for good, you’ll be able to use psychotherapy for any remaining true emotional problems stemming from your early life or from more current difficulties. You’ll certainly be much better equipped to do effective work if you do decide to go into counseling. You’ll also find it much easier to pray and meditate and to exercise, rest, and relax. With this full array of emotional, spiritual, and physical resources available to you, you’ll be able to face whatever lies ahead with strength, serenity, and a sense of humor.
CHAPTER 2 Identifying Your False Moods
The Four-Part Mood-Type Questionnaire
There’s a large chart mounted on the wall of our clinic that lists all the symptoms of the four false mood types. As soon as our clients walk through the door, their eyes are drawn and then glued to this chart. They’re fascinated by the four different groups of symptoms, exclaiming, “Yeah, that type is me, but that one isn’t,” or, “Wow! I have symptoms of more than one type,” or, “What does it mean if I have all the symptoms on the whole chart?” This deceptively simple chart was fifteen years in the making and is based on the thousands of client interviews and hundreds of research papers that enabled us to gradually identify each of the symptoms of the four false mood types. The questionnaire that you are about to fill out was adapted from this chart.
To identify your own false mood symptoms, start by circling the number next to any of the symptoms on the questionnaire that apply to you. Don’t minimize! Really think about it. If you’re in doubt about whether a certain symptom applies to you, ask someone honest who knows you really well. And don’t be frightened if you have most, or even all, of the mood symptoms on the entire questionnaire. Many of our clients do. It won’t be a problem. You’ll address them all at the same time, using a combination of amino acids and other nutrients.
When you’ve gone through all four parts of the questionnaire, go back and score each part to see which false mood type (or types) you seem to fit.
THE FOUR-PART MOOD-TYPE QUESTIONNAIRE
Circle the number next to each symptom that you identify with. Total your score in each section and compare it to the cut-off score. If your score is over the cut-off, or if you have only a few of the symptoms described in a section but they bother you (or those close to you) on a regular basis, turn to the chapter indicated.
Part I. Are You Under a Dark Cloud?
3 Do you have a tendency to be negative, to see the glass as half-empty rather than half-full? Do you have dark, pessimistic thoughts?
3 Are you often worried and anxious?
3 Do you have feelings of low self-esteem and lack confidence? Do you easily get to feeling self-critical and guilty?
3 Do you have obsessive, repetitive, angry, or useless thoughts that you just can’t turn off—for instance, when you’re trying to get to sleep?
3 Does your behavior often get a bit, or a lot, obsessive? Is it hard for you to make transitions, to be flexible? Are you a perfectionist, or a control freak? A computer, TV, or work addict?
3 Do you really dislike the dark weather or have a clear-cut fall/winter depression (SAD)?
2 Are you apt to be irritable, impatient, edgy, or angry?
3 Do you tend to be shy or fearful? Do you get nervous or panicky about heights, flying, enclosed spaces, public performance, spiders, snakes, bridges, crowds, leaving the house, or anything else?
2 Have you had anxiety attacks or panic attacks (your heart races, it’s hard to breathe)?
2 Do you get PMS or menopausal moodiness (tears, anger, depression)?
3 Do you hate hot weather?
2 Are you a night owl, or do you often find it hard to get to sleep even through you want to?
2 Do you wake up in the night, have restless or light sleep, or wake up too early in the morning?
3 Do you routinely like to have sweet or starchy snacks, wine, or marijuana in the afternoons, evenings, or in the middle of the night (but not earlier in the day)?
2 Do you find relief from any of the above symptoms through exercise?
3 Have you had fibromyalgia (unexplained muscle pain) or TMJ (pain, tension, and grinding associated with your jaw)?
2 Have you had suicidal thoughts or plans?
Total __________ If your score is more than 12 in part 1, turn to chapter 3, page 25.
Part 2. Are You Suffering from the Blahs?
3 Do you often feel depressed—the flat, bored, apathetic kind?
2 Are you low on physical or mental energy? Do you feel tired a lot, have to push yourself to exercise?
2 Is your drive, enthusiasm, and motivation quota on the low side?
3 Do you have difficulty focusing or concentrating?
3 Do you need a lot of sleep? Are you slow to wake up in the morning?
3 Are you easily chilled? Do you have cold hands or feet?
2 Do you tend to put on weight too easily?
3 Do you feel the need to get more alert and motivated by consuming a lot of coffee or other “uppers” like sugar, diet soda, ephedra, or cocaine?
Total __________ If your score is more than 6 in part 2, turn to chapter 4, page 53.
Part 3. Is Stress Your Problem?
3 Do you often feel overworked, pressured, or deadlined?
1 Do you have trouble relaxing or loosening up?
1 Does your body tend to be stiff, uptight, tense?
2 Are you easily upset, frustrated, or snappy under stress?
3 Do you often feel overwhelmed or as though you just can’t get it all done?
2 Do you feel weak or shaky at times?
3 Are you sensitive to bright light, noise, or chemical fumes? Do you need to wear dark glasses a lot?
3 Do you feel significantly worse if you skip meals or go too long without eating?
2 Do you use tobacco, alcohol, food, or drugs to relax and calm down?
Total__________ If your score is more than 8 in part 3, turn to chapter 5, page 77.
Part 4. Are you Too Sensitive to Life’s Pain?
3 Do you consider yourself or do others consider you to be very sensitive? Does emotional pain or perhaps physical pain really get to you?
2 Do you tear up or cry easily—for instance, even during TV commercials?
2 Do you tend to avoid dealing with painful issues?
3 Do you find it hard to get over losses or get through grieving?
2 Have you been through a great deal of physical or emotional pain?
3 Do you crave pleasure, comfort, reward, enjoyment, or numbing from treats like chocolate, bread, wine, romance novels, marijuana, tobacco, or lattes?
Total _________ If your score is more than 6 in part 4, turn to chapter 6, page 100.
True-Life Stories of the Four False Mood Types
Cara had a typical case of the “dark clouds.” She’d been low in confidence all her life. She was a doer, though—her underwear drawer was a work of art, and her boss adored her perfect projects and reports (not that she was ever satisfied herself). She worried a lot and woke up in the night feeling panicky at times. She had recently started to feel really depressed and had tried an antidepressant but hadn’t liked its side-effects, though it had lifted her mood a bit. She’d tried therapy, but hadn’t had much to talk about—she’d come from a close, warm family, and her adult life had gone fairly well. She was out of luck till she came to our clinic and completed her mood profile, which showed that she had almost every symptom in part 1! She left with some targeted brain repair supplements and the next day called to report the best night’s sleep and the best morning mood she’d had in years.
Emma was too lethargic to clean up her underwear drawer. She had “the blahs,” the kind of low-energy depression that too often made her unmotivated, unexcited, and unfocused. She was sick of being an emotional flatliner, but she had no idea what was wrong or what to do about it. We did, though. We could see that she needed our most brain-stimulating nutrient supplements. Fifteen minutes after she took them, we could see that she was feeling more like the person she was meant to be: humorous, sharp, and more alert. This became a permanent state of being for her after a few months of nutritional brain repair work and a revitalization of her thyroid function.
Rob had plenty of drive and energy, but he was a real “stress” type. Years of sixty-to-eighty-hour workweeks, too much coffee and fast food, and too many skipped meals, plus a drawn-out child custody battle, had turned him into a tense, wired, and tired mess. He was clearly sinking into adrenal burnout. On his new antistress supplements and regular meals, he was able to cut out his coffee without a backward glance, cut back his work hours, and begin to feel like a new man.
Sam was “too sensitive.” He teared up whenever he talked about anything painful. He avoided hashing out problems with his wife because it was just too uncomfortable for him. Instead, he tuned out with a beer or a bowl of ice cream in front of the TV. Things started to change when we recommended some supplements that allowed him to tolerate pain more easily and enjoy life a lot more (without either the beer or the ice cream). Then, when he was no longer overly sensitive, we recommended couples therapy, which he was then able to tolerate and even enjoy.
HOW TO USE THE MOOD CURE
Now that you’ve completed and tallied the questionnaire, you’ve taken the first step in your Mood Cure: you know which false mood type (or types) you are. Having this crucial information will allow you to move on to step two, “Eliminating the Four Most Common Mood Imbalances.” There you will discover what is causing you to have a particular set of false moods and what you can do about it. At the bottom of each part of the questionnaire, next to your score, you’ll find the page number of the chapter that will tell you more about your symptoms and all about the solutions to that particular mood type’s problem. For example, if you find yourself checking off symptoms in part 1, “Are You Under a Dark Cloud?” you’ll turn to chapter 3, “Lifting the Dark Cloud.” Each chapter ends with “Action Steps” that summarize all its suggestions, to make them easy to follow.
If you recognize significant symptoms in two, three, or all four parts of the questionnaire, you’ll read each of the corresponding chapters. If your score is under the cut-off number in any part of the questionnaire and the symptoms you do identify with are significant, look over the relevant chapter to explore further.
Next you’ll move on to step three, “Creating Your Nutritherapy Master Plan.” There you’ll learn about the good-mood foods that will become the heart of your diet and about how to avoid the bad-mood foods. I’ll make it easy for you by providing simple and tasty menus and recipes.
Step three also features a master supplement plan that will provide you with several key pieces of your Mood Cure. First, it describes the basic vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that I want you to make a permanent part of your life. Second, it warns you of anything that might make it unwise for you to take a particular supplement. Finally, it provides a master list of all the special repair supplements recommended in each chapter of the book. You’ll copy this list and check off just the items you’ll be using for your own supplement plan. Then you’ll take your list to the store, get your supplies, start taking your supplements, eat your good-mood foods, and watch your false moods slip away.