Raena Morgan: Hi, I'm Raena Morgan with iHealthTube, and we're visiting with Dr. Hyla Cass who wrote 8 Weeks to Vibrant Health. Dr. Cass, I come to you, and you're a practicing psychiatrist. I'm feeling depressed, I can't sleep, what approach would you suggest to me?
Dr. Hyla Cass: I'm glad you asked this, because most people go to their general physician or even a psychiatrist and they'll immediately be given a prescription. They have their 15 minute visit, they get their prescription and that's it. And that brings with it a lot of side effects, and it's not really dealing with the problem at its root cause. My job is really, the way I see it, is go to the root cause and to treat it safely and as naturally as possible. So I work with the body's chemistry to make the changes that will really make a difference, and really change your brain, really change the brain chemistry rather than just covering over symptoms. So the first thing, I do is ask about your diet, are you eating are you eating breakfast? Are you eating three meals a day? Are you getting enough protein? Are you getting enough good carbs? And please eliminate the bad carbs because your blood sugar is going to be all over the place if you don't eat a regular, good diet with minimal sugar, minimal white flour and enough of the good essential fatty acids. All of those are going to enhance your mood and your brain power. So this is my initial advice.
Raena Morgan: So I ask about diet?
Dr. Hyla Cass: If you think of diet right.
Raena Morgan: In addition?
Dr. Hyla Cass: In addition I will give specific supplements. If someone is particularly having trouble sleeping, I'm going to look at -- they likely have a deficiency in a neurotransmitter, a chemical messenger in the brain called serotonin.
Raena Morgan: Okay.
Dr. Hyla Cass: And people have heard of serotonin because that's what the SSRIs, the serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressants address.
Raena Morgan: Right.
Dr. Hyla Cass: Celexa, Lexapro, Prozac, Zoloft. And what I will do is prescribe 5HTP, 5 Hydroxy Tryptophan, and that will enhance your serotonin, and I would give you maybe 100 or 200 mg at bedtime. Besides that, there are some other products that I really like a lot St. John's Wort that was my first book, St. John's Wort, Nature's Blues Buster.
Raena Morgan: Oh! that's right, yes.
Dr. Hyla Cass: And St. John's Wort, even though it's gotten some kind of spotty, negative reports, it still is an excellent product. There's very, very good research indicating that it works, and I've given it to many patients. It's not by the way, it's not a sleep medication, I give it I tell people to take it in the morning, take 900 mg in the morning, or 300 mg 3 times a day, but it's not a bedtime sedative, but it helps to regulate your sleep cycles. You take St. John's Wort, or you can take 5HTP at bedtime. Some other very useful amino acids are tyrosine or phenylalanine because that will raise the dopamine and your epinephrine, which is what some of the other antidepressants address. So we have many, many things in our toolkit, and in Natural Highs I really address this in far more detail.
Raena Morgan: Well, very good Dr. Cass. Thank you for that information. I'm Raena Morgan with iHealthTube. Thank you very much.
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