Woman, Heal Thyself

I'm back in Stockholm now, slowly preparing to face reality again. And by "reality," I mean the winter doldrums. On most days this time of year, the sun rises at 9 am and sets at 2 pm, and what happens in the sky between those times can best be described as a sickly pea-soup mess. That beam of sunlight pictured at left shooting through the Bonnier offices is such a precious and rare occurrence it warranted a photograph.

Before the holidays, I was so into the groove of my work routine that I didn't fully realize how much the Scandinavian winter darkness was affecting me. The difference really became clear after I spent a few weeks out of the country.

My first days in Santa Fe consisted entirely of sitting in the sunshine, like a plant, soaking up as much light and vitamin D as possible, skin-cancer be damned. To that regimen I added baths in the women's tub at Ten Thousand Waves spa, healthy food, and vigorous exercise in the form of horseback riding and kettlebells. John was supportive, but he sort of looked on in wonderment, like, "You sat in front of the window all day again, plant-girl?"

But something really was wrong with me, and I've decided that for my remaining two months in Sweden, I'm not going to let it happen again. What was wrong was this: against my best intentions, I slipped into a routine of gorging on sleep, skipping workouts and eating too many carbs, and my body paid for it by putting on pounds, losing muscle tone, developing caffeine addiction and weird sleep patterns, and getting achy and stiff.

I told myself that as long as I wasn't "sad," I wasn't depressed, but while my mood stayed sort of steady, depression manifested in seriously low energy. Because I've dealt with seasonal affective disorder in the past, I took a prescription antidepressant to keep things in check in Sweden, but I didn't like the dull, placid feeling it gave me. It's not like it made me "happy," I was just sort of "eh" all the time.

So about 10 days ago I stopped taking the pills. I missed a couple of doses during my "sitting in the sunshine " phase, and things seemed to go okay, so I made a conscious decision to just not take them anymore. The problem is, you're not supposed to go off antidepressants cold-turkey because you can have withdrawal effects. Withdrawal, as in the thing that happens to heroine addicts. Great!

So in the midst of CES madness, while I'm running from booth to booth, fielding phone calls and emails and running to booths again, I start getting what Web forum users refer to as "brain zaps"—this feeling like I've just touched a live wire— anytime I turn my head quickly to the left or right. I was glad I'd read about this side effect in advance or it would have freaked me the fuck out. Apparently it's harmless and it will go away—it's a result of the neurons in my brain readjusting to life without serotonin reuptake inhibition. And apparently, almost everyone who goes off SSRI antidepressants deals with brain zaps at some point, even if they're tapering slowly like you're supposed to. What I want to know is, why don't doctors tell you about this before they put you on the drugs to begin with? And why don't most doctors know that there are natural remedies you can use instead of prescription antidepressants and/or while you're transitioning away from them?

Luckily, my doc (a new one I started going to in Santa Fe—not the same one who gave me the pills) is as familiar with natural medicine as she is with prescriptions, and she recommended a cocktail of vitamins and herbs for shoring up my mood and protecting my nervous system. It's quite a laundry list, but hopefully it'll be worth the effort. This is the first day that I've taken this stuff, and I've been brain-zap free, with plenty of energy. I'd be interested to hear whether anyone else has experience with these supplements:

The first is a combination of two herbs that come conveniently boxed together in Sweden: arctic root (also called rhodiola) and Siberian ginseng (also called eleuthero; no relation to regular Chinese ginseng). Both are members of a family of compounds called "adaptogens," which help to regulate your physical systems' responses to stress. (Here's a site that sells them in the U.S.: I'm taking the Swedish equivalent of both the "Arctic Root" and "Adapt 232" products.)

Another helpful supplement is Omega 3 fatty acids, which are antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, and therefore beneficial for all kinds of things, but important in my case because they're neuroprotectants, and can be helpful in alleviating anxiety and depression.

Magnesium is a good one to add to the mix, since it's an important element used in metabolism in the body (and my last blood test showed I was low in it). Deficiency can result in low mental and physical energy. The doctor actually gave me a bottle of liquid magnesium to take before I left for Sweden and I kind of stopped remembering to take it each day, but I'm going to start again.

In addition, I'm supposed to take a B vitamin complex and vitamin D3. The B vitamins play an important role in mood regulation by facilitating the production of neurotransmitters in the brain. There's a very interesting and easy-to-read summary of this process here, if you'd like to read about it. You may or may not feel the need to supplement with the other stuff I've listed here, but I've come to believe that almost everyone could do with an extra shot of B vitamins. Same with vitamin D, actually. I always figured everyone gets enough vitamin D between sun exposure and the modern diet, but it turns out that's not necessarily so. I don't eat much dairy, so I probably don't get the minimum RDI, and now that I'm never in the sun in Sweden, my body probably isn't making much, either. I read up a bit on Vitamin D and learned that, in addition to causing rickets (which pretty much went out with scurvy), vitamin D deficiency may cause cancer. Whoa!

If I wanted to really get crazy—or "get happy," as the case may hopefully be— I could add SAM-e, and L-theanine to this cocktail of natural pick-me-uppers. But six supplements per day is more than enough for me, so I'll stick to the minimum for now. Like I said earlier, if you've tried any of these, I'd love to hear about your experiences in the comments.