Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety: Nourish Your Way to Better Mental Health in Six Weeks by Drew Ramsey, MD
Meet the Author:
"Drew Ramsey, M.D. is a psychiatrist, author, and farmer. He is a clear voice in the mental health conversation and one of psychiatry’s leading proponents of using nutritional interventions. He is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
He founded the Brain Food Clinic in New York City, offering treatment and consultation for depression, anxiety and emotional wellness concerns. The clinic incorporates evidence-based nutrition and integrative psychiatry treatments with psychotherapy, coaching, and responsible medication management. Using the latest in brain science, nutrition and mental health research, and an array of delicious food, the clinic helps people live joyful, fulfilled lives. His recently launched ecourse Eat To Beat Depression helps patients and families boost mood and their brains nutrition.
Dr. Ramsey is a compelling keynote speaker and conducts workshops nationally. His media work includes three recent TEDx talks, a video series with Big Think, and the BBC documentary Food on the Brain. His work and writing have been featured by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, Atlantic.com, Prevention, Lancet Psychiatry, and NPR, which named him a “kale evangelist.” He is a member of the Well+Good Wellness Council, the editorial board of Medscape Psychiatry, the advisory board of Men’s Health, and the co-founder of National Kale Day.
He is the author of three books, most recently the award-winning cookbook Eat Complete: The 21 Nutrients that Fuel Brain Power, Boost Weight Loss and Transform Your Health (HarperWave 2016). His recent bestseller 50 Shades of Kale (HarperWave 2013) made this superfood accessible to thousands. The Happiness Diet: A Nutritional Prescription for a Sharp Brain, Balanced Mood and Lean, Energized Body (Rodale 2011) explores the impact of modern diets on brain health.
Dr. Ramsey is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He completed his specialty training in adult psychiatry at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, received an M.D. from Indiana University School of Medicine and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Earlham College. He lives with his wife and two children in New York City and on their 127 acre organic farm in rural Indiana." ~Amazon
Find Him Here:
"A revolutionary prescription for healing depression and anxiety and optimizing brain health through the foods we eat, including a six-week plan to help you get started eating for better mental health.
Depression and anxiety disorders are rising, affecting more than fifty-eight million people in the United States alone. Many rely on therapy and medications to alleviate symptoms, but often this is not enough. The latest scientific advances in neuroscience and nutrition, along with our understanding of the mind-gut connection, have proven that how and what we eat greatly affects how we feel—physically, cognitively, and emotionally.
In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Drew Ramsey helps us forge a path toward greater mental health through food. Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety breaks down the science of nutritional psychiatry and explains what foods positively affect brain health and improve mental wellness.
Dr. Ramsey distills the most cutting-edge research on nutrition and the brain into actionable tips you can start using today to improve brain-cell health and growth, reduce inflammation, and cultivate a healthy microbiome, all of which contribute to our mental well-being. He explores the twelve essential vitamins and minerals most critical to your brain and body and outlines which anti-inflammatory foods feed the gut.
He helps readers assess barriers to self-nourishment and offers techniques for enhancing motivation. To help us begin, he provides a kick-starter six-week mental health food plan designed to mitigate depression and anxiety, incorporating key food categories like leafy greens and seafood, along with simple, delicious, brain nutrient–rich recipes.
By following the methods Dr. Ramsey uses with his patients, you can confidently choose foods to help you on your journey to full mental health." ~Amazon
Numeric Breakdown:
1: didn't like it/skip it
2: it was okay/it wasn't for me
3. liked it/worth a read
4. really liked it/loved it
5. it was amazing/must read!
2: it was okay/it wasn't for me
3. liked it/worth a read
4. really liked it/loved it
5. it was amazing/must read!
This book should be on your shelf.
I love learning new information. Especially when that information can be applied to my physical & mental health. Having the opportunity to read Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety was an excellent experience and provided updated facts and details about food consumption and its impact on your mental status.
Growing up, my mom became even more interested in the body & mind and how to maintain vital health. Part of this was due to her father being diagnosed with cancer. She began researching alternative diets and how supplements, vitamins and herbs, could be helpful with someone struggling with their health. Her research included what brands were the best and contained the most essential and organic ingredients, which supplements were best to take and why, and how your diet can impact the nutrients you're gaining from the food you eat.
Basically, this book contains a large part of what she investigated and the crucial understanding that what we eat does affect our bodies and our minds. In this respect, I felt as if she had wrote some of the parts of this book as I read along with Drew Ramsey, MD. It was impressive to see so much of what she learned and self-taught making its way into a book that looks even deeper into the mental well-being of those who eat a healthier and more well-rounded diet.
Drew Ramsey, MD does an admirable and thorough job of giving readers an easy-to-read format for the "new" science that is behind how you eat to promote positive mental health. He looks specifically at studies which center on how eating differently affects depression, and often in congruence with it, anxiety. He gives a chapter by chapter breakdown of the most essential twelve nutrients for brain health, how eating right can grow new brain cells, how your gut affects your mental health and how to improve it, and what the optimal food choices are to beat depression and anxiety.
As a nutritional psychiatrist, he specializes in mood and anxiety disorders with his patients. Although he'd never been taught to include eating habits within his patient backgrounds, it had always given him pause. He attributes this consideration to growing up on a farm and being surrounded by fresh, homegrown food. Over time, he began to reevaluate his own diet and considered the question: "Are there foods that can better help promote brain and mental health?" (XI of Introduction)
Within his field, the focus for treatment among his patients who suffered from depression and anxiety were to utilize talk therapy and medication to alleviate or control the symptoms. These practices, while helpful and necessary to some degree, were not getting to the root of the problem. Instead, in some cases, relief was minimal or short-lived, and the side effects of the medication only added to the struggles and created their own issues. These were not effective treatments on their own.
So, Dr. Ramsey began wondering what else might be contributing to their depression and anxiety. His desire to help, and decision to consider other approaches, led to his exploration of how eating habits were influencing his patients' mental health. This consideration opened up a dialogue about what his patients were eating, what healthy foods were included in their diets, and what nutrients they might be missing.
This book includes several studies on the effect of food on the brain, how food can connect to elevated levels of toxins resulting in depression and anxiety, and how the microbiome in your gut contributes to brain health and connects with what you're eating. The author shares the twelve essential supplements you should be getting from your food: B9, iron, omega-3 fats, magnesium, potassium, selenium, B1, A, B6, B12, C, zinc, choline, and monounsaturated fats. He provides food examples that are a good source of those nutrients as well as how much should be a part of your daily diet. In fact, Dr. Ramsey promotes the Mediterranean diet as an example of what constitutes a well-rounded and nutrient rich diet.
His information on how inflammation can be both good and bad for your body, and the interactions between your gut and brain are fascinating. At the end, he even adds in some delicious looking recipes. It's a plethora of information, ideas, and encouragement to make the changes you need in your diet. There's so much more important and enlightening info that I'd love to share, but really, you should read the book for yourself.
As a side note, I'd like to mention that there are a few things I don't necessarily agree with completely in this book. I add this with the intent of being entirely honest and to encourage you to read and think over the content for yourself and what works for you. For me, I'm not convinced of the health benefits of pork. I've seen its negative effects in the lives of people I know and love. Also, I abstain from pork (to the best of my ability) for personal and religious reasons. I can't say I would include it as part of my diet as mentioned within this book. The good thing about that is the author does offer other food alternatives as examples, and I don't have to eat it if I don't want to.
Another final word from my personal perspective is how I'd try and utilize farm-fresh, home-grown, organic, non-GMO resources to gain these good nutrients. I'm not saying that the author isn't saying this - he grew up on a farm after all, but I want to make a point of noting this. You need to know where your food is coming from and what they're spraying it with. I'm, also, a huge proponent of taking enzymes when you eat to help with food digestion. Although I agree with the author that nutrients gained from the food source are much better than supplements in vitamin and herb form, I still take them. Some of those are suggested by a health official.
Overall, I have to say I appreciated this book. It added to my own knowledge and supported information I'd already been taught by my mom growing up. It helped clarify a few considerations and gave some wonderful in-depth examples. The illustrations were another favorite part and helped to break up the text and info overload in a fun, eye-catching way.
I'd definitely rate it a 5/5 "must read" because it contains content valuable for everyone. The impact it could make on your mental & physical health can't be understated. It's such an excellent resource that I plan on purchasing my own copy and keeping it on hand to refer back to and reread as necessary. I hope you'll do the same.
Thank you for joining me, and as always, Happy Reading!! :)
~Rebecca Reddell, Author
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