There is a valid reason your doctors don’t tell you about antidepressants and I’ll explain at the end, but our job at Old Town Hypnotherapy is to empower you to take control and make positive changes in your life. Understanding about these things and how you can influence the outcome is part of that empowerment. We believe it is important that you know how antidepressants work so you can get the most out of them.
I am not going to tell you NOT to take them and I’m certainly not going to tell you to stop taking antidepressants, you should always consult your doctor, but I am going to explain how you can help them work and how they can work to complement your own natural systems.
Modern antidepressants are called SSRIs (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors). Meaning they slow down the reabsorption rate of serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter we naturally produce when we’re doing the right things in life and is probably the most important neurotransmitter we talk about because:-
- It helps us cope with whatever life chucks at us,
- it motivates us,
- it helps us deal with physical fear,
- it makes us braver,
- it helps us deal with pain,
- it boosts our immune system and
- it also puts us in the intellectual part of our brain where we can work out what needs to change, what needs to be different and solve problems.
The neurotransmitter serotonin is vitally important and we produce it naturally – we also reabsorb it. It’s like we produce our own fuel, but we also use it up in the process of the day and so we have to keep producing it or we deplete to critical levels, aka ‘depression.’
Serotonin to float across from one brain cell to another to make connections and carry messages. There is a part between the connections called a synaptic gap; the serotonin floats across and gets caught in receptors the other side. The more receptors you have, the quicker the serotonin is absorbed so SSRIs ‘block’ some of the receptors and serotonin is kept hanging around in the synaptic gap a bit longer, making the positive connections between the brain cells stronger.
Serotonin is also our ‘happy’ chemical, you know that feeling of being on top of the world, you’ve got a bounce in your step, you just feel invincible, you can cope with anything life throws at you – that’s when you’ve got high levels of serotonin – it feels fantastic.
But you have to produce it!
When you are depressed, your serotonin levels have dipped below an acceptable level and the SSRIs are prescribed to help lift that level of serotonin back into normal parameters. You are not taking seroton, the antidepressants just slow down the reabsorption rate of your naturally produced serotonin.
Antidepressants usually take 3-7 days to start working and you feel a bit better and do something positive:-
positive activity,
positive interaction
positive thinking
and you’ve created serotonin in the process, then you feel a bit better so you feel like doing something else. You go up a level and your antidepressants hold you there, so you feel a better again, happier and move motivated so you do something else, then your antidepressants hold you there, and so on until you reach a level where you have sufficient serotonin floating around for your intellect to work out what needs to change, your brave enough to make new decision, can solve problems and slowly learn how to maintain and produce your own serotonin levels.
Now, if you’ve been on antidepressants for years and they don’t seem to be doing you any good or you’re afraid to come off them, it’s because you haven’t learned what you need to do to maintain those levels yourself. You can learn, but you just haven’t learned how yet.
This is also why you can’t suddenly come off antidepressants, your serotonin levels would quickly plummet, you need to come off them slowly checking you are maintaining your own serotonin levels to an extent where the crutch of antidepressants are no longer needed.
Ultimately, in order to eliminate depression from your life, you need to learn how to create serotonin yourself. This is something we all need to learn – if you don’t or you don’t consciously know you’re not naturally creating serotonin you will need medication to help. We all can, and should learn because your natural serotonin is so much more powerful than any any medication or chemical you can take to simulate the effects.
One of the reasons doctors don’t tell you about this and how they work is because, if you were to go to an appointment at your lowest point of depression and the doctor tells you that you need to go out and take up jogging, get involved in activities, see people and give advice about what you ‘should’ be doing in life to produce your own serotonin, you might just think
“I’m not up to that, I just can’t do it, that’s why I’ve come to see you, I need help”
So the doctor’s magic placebo of ‘take this pill it will make you feel better’ does actually work because you believe your doctor, you take the medication and in a few days you feel better.
The problem is, if you don’t then learn how to maintain your own better mood you get hooked on the antidepressants believing that you need medication in order to cope with life.
There is an eGuide being released next week called ‘You don’t have to ‘live with’ depression’ that explains more about how to produce your own serotonin and it is also in Week 5 of Goodbye Anxiety, Adios Depression, the 6 Week Video Course for curing anxiety and depression.
If you are taking antidepressants, you can make them work better and quicker by understanding what you need to do to produce and maintain serotonin levels and, with your doctors advice, you can start to reduce them and even come off medication altogether – wouldn’t that be lovely :-).
Thanks for your feedback Pamina, I’m really pleased it was helpful. There is so much unnecessary mystery and stigma around antidepressants and I think in some cases people stay on them for years needlessly – if only they knew what they could do to and should do to get the maximum benefits, then come off them because they’ve learned how to maintain the effects of the antidepressants themselves.
Thank you Emma. So far everything you are saying is making plenty of sense to me. l look forward to your next post.
Thank you Tom, I appreciate you taking the time to comment.
In every leaflet of antidepressant it is written that no one knows how these kind of medicine work. It is not scientifically proven enough how our brain works and if depression is a serotonin problem. If you look at side effects of that medicines then you will discover that the side effects are exactly the same problems you are dealing with. Such as anxiety, nausea, being sick, having heart palpitations and so on.
Does anybody read the leaflets?
Joanna, thank you for taking the time to comment. Reading leaflets – a controversial one – the Dr will check contraindications before even prescribing the medication. There is a field of science called psychoneuroimmunology that studies how the brain and thought patterns affect illness and disease at a cellular level. It’s a well known fact that if you focus on feeling sick for long enough, convincing yourself this is going to happen, then it will. Many illnesses are psychosomatic brought on by thoughts, so reading leaflets of possible side effects is not the best idea for someone with anxiety as they will worry themselves into developing the side effects. Going back to your point about not knowing how antidepressants work – it is known exactly how they work – they’ve been around since 1980’s and been researched extensively. They block the receptors of serotonin in the brain slowing down the reabsorption rate and therefore making more serotonin available – it’s not a mystery. Depression is also known to be a serotonin problem and increasing serotonin levels does help depression – however, if the patient/sufferer insists on thinking negatively, never does anything to make changes in their life and never discovers what it actually is that is making them better (it’s not the antidepressants) then nothing much is going to help long term. If you would like more information about this, please see the eGuide Series on Depression available on the website.
Very informative report in looking forward to coming off them. Will I find next stage posted soon?? X
Thank you for your comments Lucy – the the process of lifting depression and what you can practically do to help is described in depth with exercises in ‘Climbing Out Of The Cloud’, you can find it in the shop on the website. Saying that, if there is something specific you would like me to write about, please feel free to ask and I will be happy to oblige. best wishes Emma
Just read this, last week I had a check up with my doctor who was trying to say this but she didn’t say about learning what to do to produce and maintain my levels. This was just after a tough few months having lost a pet, had both parents in hospital with heart issues and other small stuff and I know I am not ready to lower my meds but know I do. All we could say was how do I know I wouldn’t have coped without my meds. Your above post has made me feel bit better and will be saving it to look at the how to bit another day.
Hi Emma, thanks for taking the time to comment and I’m pleased to have been able to help. There are lots of things you can do that will help the anti-depressants. They are there to help you through the tough times and you will know when you’re ready to come off them.
Hi Emma. Thank you for this very informative advice. I am however confused as I have tried 3 different types of ssri’s and have made my original anxiety symptoms so bad that I.ve ended up in hospital. The withdrawls have been horendous for me. I.m a single mum of three autistic children and life is tough. I meditate twice a day and am generally a positive person. I am now off 10mg citalopram for 5″days and saw a phychiatrist two dsys ago and has put me on antiquietipine 25 mg twice a day and have had three days of hell needing diazapan to get me through the days.by your statement I don.t understand why ssri haven.t helped me and am I suffering withdrwals from the citalopram? Do you know roughly how long the withdrawal symptoms will last. I.m just so scared to face another day of palpitations, nausea and depressive thoughts.
Hi Natasha. Thank you for taking the time to comment and I’m sorry to hear you’re having such a tough time. There are a couple of possible considerations I would encourage you to look into further – firstly, I do hear from many people who SSRI’s don’t agree with and have had adverse reactions to, my advice is always to go back to your Doctor as they can try a different one – it sounds as if your doctor is already doing that. Secondly, you say you’re generally a positive person, I would encourage you to reflect on this a little more as your response suggests the opposite, I might be wrong but I suspect you both worry and have negative thoughts (you say you have depressive thoughts) and the starting point to getting better is always the recognition and awareness of how one is actually thinking rather than what you believe you’re thinking. Finally, I can’t comment on how long withdrawal symptoms last, you need to take your doctor’s advice on this. If you want to look into what you can do to help yourself further, this is what I would recommend https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stepping-Out-Cloud-beat-depression-ebook/dp/B01M2B68KX Best wishes Emma