Depression is serious, if you found this article because you are thinking about or have tried to harm yourself, please stop what you’re doing and call Australia: Lifeline or 131114 | UK: CALM (Nationwide) or 0800 58 58 58 | USA: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1 800 273 8255. Please seek help or otherwise encourage your loved ones to seek help no matter how serious the symptoms.

For the sake of clarity, this discussion is not about the less common type of depression - bipolar.

Today, in 2019, depression is the leading cause of disability. In fact, there are some 300,000,000 globally who are afflicted. The productivity loss is colossal; the loss of energy to this condition is immeasurable; the number of families affected by a sufferer who is disillusioned, exhausted, and lost in how to cope, is tragic.

Then there are over a million suicides per annum, 90% of these deaths are considered to be mental health related, diagnosed or not.

Nowadays, it is fairly certain you knew of someone who has taken their life, maybe more than one.

These numbers are big. The consequences are dire. And they are outstripping predictions by a long shot. It is part of the epidemic of chronic illness sweeping the world.

However, the subject of depression is still very, very sensitive, especially in professional and corporate circles. Not surprisingly so, since we are hired for our brains and how we use them.

But suffering in silence doesn't stop at the office, as it is happening in close quarters at home with those closest to a sufferer often unaware of the extent of the despair in play.

Just to cap it all off, conventional treatment options fall woefully short of getting the job done. There is even evidence that treatments are making it worse. 

There is good news and why I am writing this article.

Specifically, whilst the medical system continues to rest on its decades-old paradigm, many sufferers are now tapping into the principles of functional health as a means to resolve for “upstream” conditions that depression, amongst others, feature as symptoms.

These upstream dysfunctions in digestion, endocrine or detoxification systems, for example, can be easily identified and supported back to optimal condition, and in theory, saying goodbye to symptoms, of which depression may be one.

So depression is not so much a disease, but more a symptom of system dysfunction.

At the beginning of 2018, I collapsed. Disappointingly (at the time) my medical advisers could only come up with depression as a diagnosis. The reality was that multiple systems in my body cried out at the same time and induced a system-wide semi-shutdown simply to survive. That doesn't sound like depression to me.

Not then, not now.

Had I stuck with that diagnosis, I would have never uncovered the true cause of my depression and developed a process for recovering from it, nor would I be in a position to speak with authority about this to those who desperately need to know this. So, I have a lot to be thankful for.

Post my collapse and release from the hospital, I was encouraged to get psychiatric help. After an hour of questioning, I was told, “Well you ARE depressed and here are some pills to help you. Get on a mental health program and come back and see me in 3 months time.”

These were the same pills that were heavily implicated in the death of a friend of mine only 6 months earlier. The same pills that have suicide as a warning on the back of the packet in fact. But - they ARE the same pills that are helping millions of others manage their condition.

To take or not to take? It was a tough call.

Emotionally, I didn't want to go near the pills. However, I wasn't sure if I was thinking straight at the time, and whether that would have been a responsible decision keeping my family and work in mind.

I seriously considered taking them as a compromise and continuing my search for the cause. At the time I thought that may ease the pressure I was under to take them. I even purchased the prescription in readiness to do just that.

But my experience with my now dead friend sealed the deal for me.

With the blessing of my wife, I opted, in the end, to go all out and find my own path to solving for it, but it came with significant risk as I really didn’t know who to turn to or what sort of specialisation outside of the mainstream medical model could help with a diagnosis of depression. I also needed time to try, and perhaps not succeed to then tweak, and try again as I went through the machinations of unconventional approaches to solving for something in a way that most don't.

This level of uncertainty did not last long.

As soon as I committed, the pressure was on, and I quickly discovered that there were two predominant models of thinking around depression. They both had some science behind them, yet the conventionally accepted model was becoming weaker in the context of new research.

Serotonin Model (conventional) -  The traditional explanation for depression describes it as an imbalance of brain chemistry. The treatment for which is medication to correct the balance. Yet a Harvard Medical School review in 2014 of this model declared most of the evidence these medications work actually came from the placebo effect. 

Inflammation Model (new model) - New research now links inflammation to depression. Specifically, what is being found is that depressed people have a high incidence of pro-inflammatory cytokines. At this stage, one could read this as a correlation and not causation, but the evidence is gathering pace in favour of it. For example, a study administering cytokine-inducing endotoxins triggered depressive symptoms in otherwise healthy people.

Note - inflammation is a good thing when survival is a threat. It is absolutely crucial in acute circumstances or injuries. In this instance, depression may end up being a consequence of inflammation but at least the inflammation did its job of preventing death in these situations. Once survival has been assured and inflammation does not abate for whatever reason, and depression surfaces, sure, that is when it reasonably becomes a focus.

The inflammation model fits snugly into the functional medical way of thinking.

In the world of functional health, the body by design is able to function and heal without thinking about it. It has an innate intelligence to be able to do all it needs to do subject to feeding it well, moving it appropriately and allowing it to repair and recover from simply living out life.

If these conditions are not satisfied, then the body goes into systems-not-normal mode and the stress response is initiated. Furthermore, when an external stress becomes more than the occasional sprint from a rampaging tiger, or in today’s world running to avoid missing a bus, and in line with what we know stress to be - unrelenting, unabating, and chronic in nature, we become inflamed.

So what kinds of stress makes you inflamed? What can you do about it?

Essentially, acute injuries aside, what I want to bring awareness to the probability that our inflammatory lifestyles are at the root of chronic stress disorders including depression.

We can also raise the probability that by tweaking our lifestyle to accommodate the body to suit the world we live in, we will no longer have to experience chronic illness.

The typical sources of inflammation will not likely be new to you. Neither will the resolution for some or all of them.

One major weakness in all that I have outlined is pinpointing where the inflammation is coming from exactly. In my case, it was a comprehensive adoption of a new framework to live by that had far-reaching benefits beyond simply depression. Sadly there is no pill for that yet! Yet for some lucky ones, it may be just one thing of a few that stand out as needing to be addressed.

Yet, it is possible to move the dial from focusing on one or a few, but when you stack them together you are able to fast track the path to health and wellness, and freedom from symptoms, and far-reaching antiageing benefits.  

When I work with clients no matter where they are in the world, we explore comprehensively these items listed below for the source of stress and inflammation.

I use cutting edge remote energy scanning technology and functional lab tests to pinpoint opportunities for supporting functional systems back to full health, and thus minimising the guesswork and trial and error.

This is coupled with mentorship and coaching, where appropriate, on the path to the desired end result whatever that may be.

I have tabulated in short form what the targeted areas might be to locate a weakness in your lifestyle that may be at the root of poor mental health and fitness.

There is no doubt depression and mental health statistics are frightening.

The experience of mental ill-health, as a sufferer or spectator is absolute misery, yet, despite the growth in the incidence of it, there is a compelling alternative to understanding what it is and what you can do about it.

Inflammation, even if it falls short of being the absolute cause, is a great place to start when it comes to long term mental and physical health.

Inflammation is implicated, if not present, in pretty much all chronic stress borne, metabolic conditions.

At the very least, if depression is not completely addressed by adopting an anti-inflammatory lifestyle, the rest of your body, and you will benefit.