The Three Best Herbs to Fight Depression

I was once talking to a patient who said that they had no idea that herbs could be used to improve depression. Now in reality, depression has existed since the dawn of human history. As long as humans have existed, there have been reasons to be depressed, both real as well as the chemical reasons. Now TCM, traditional Chinese medicine, has come up with many ways to treat it that we are talking about in this video here today. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hein, author of So before we jump in here, very quickly, I've put together two very important links right below the video. The first is for a free guide, four daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. And the second is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, you can reach out to my practice right below this video. Now when it comes to depression, there's something scientifically called the biopsychosocial model. Now the biopsychosocial model is something that's very, very important because in my observation, sometimes psychiatrists can reduce depression just to become a chemical imbalance and deny that there are other factors that may be involved. And this model, check out this research paper here on Science Direct, biopsychosocial model in depression revisited. Now I want to draw your attention to this one line that says, there are two fundamental ideological perspectives about mental disorders, biomedical, i.e. chemical, physiological, and psychosocial. The biopsychosocial model has claims to integrate these two perspectives in a scientific way. Now what does this actually mean? When we talk about bio, we're talking about biological factors like physiological imbalances, chemical imbalances, changes in neurotransmitters, serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine. When we're talking about psychological factors, we mean, for example, you're living in a bad part of town and you're walking home late at night as a woman who is a single mother with two children and you've been mugged once a week for the last three months. That's a very powerful psychological reason you have to develop depression, right? And then on top of that, there are social factors. Social, you know, obviously psychological and social can go together. Psychological can just purely be you are afraid of things that are real or imagined. That can lead to a certain kind of helplessness. And socially it can be you live in poverty, you live in a war zone, you live in an abusive relationship. So the biopsychosocial model of depression is something that I think is very, very evolved by conventional medicine standards in terms of why depression happens and why it sticks around. Now in traditional Chinese medicine, very often we're using acupuncture and internal medicine. These traditional formulas that have been used for thousands of years to treat certain patterns of depression or anxiety. Now check out this one paper here for example. This first paper, traditional Chinese medicine in depression treatment from molecules to systems. And I want to point out one line about a compound in ginseng called ginsenicides. So these ginsenicides that exist in the ginseng plant, as we call it, work on several different physiological pathways that can benefit depression. Both the HPA axis as well as brain-derived neurotrophic factor. So there are lots of single herbs that have shown real scientific merit in terms of treating the symptoms of depression. Ginseng is just one. Caihu, bupleurum. High doses of cinnamon bark or cinnamon twig are also used. As well as fuzi, which is aconite. But I want to point out how we actually treat it in TCM because we never just give ginseng like people will buy on the consumer market. We give these formulas and these herbs based on a pattern differentiation. So I want to give you a few examples of what those look like. So the way traditional Chinese medicine approaches depression is the way that we frankly approach treating any internal medicine disorder. Which is that, of course, we are treating the biological factors here, right? Biopsychosocial model. Those are the things we work on with the patient or the patient has to work on in their own life. But the biological factors, the physiological factors, the neurotransmitters, that's what we are working on on one level, right? The most material level. So when I look at patients that come in with depression, there are three main buckets of pattern differentiations that I tend to see. The first is what we call heart-kidney not communicating. Now the heart-kidney axis is not only where cardiovascular diseases are and kidney issues, but it's also where chronic nervous system disorders are. Now these are people typically with a lot of nervous system symptoms. Signs of sympathetic dominance. Where they have an elevated heart rate throughout the day, right? Prolonged chronic stress response. So they have tachycardia. Their heart rates in the 70s, 80s, 90s, sometimes hundreds. They have palpitations, so dysrhythmias. Sometimes people like this also have just a general feeling of anxiety along with their depression. I mean, in ancient Chinese medicine, you know, this term xinfan, literally is heart vexation, can sort of subjectively describe that sensation quite well. A feeling of unease in the chest, a discomfort there. So heart and kidney is number one, the most common pattern that I see. Now in the heart-kidney pattern, typically we are using formulas very high in this medical grade or medicinal cinnamon bark or cinnamon twig. So dosages from 9 grams to, you know, 10, 20, 30 grams even. Now that's bucket number one. We traditionally and typically treat it with this high dose of the cinnamon twig decoction, kind of base formula. Now the second one is what we call spleen sheet deficiency. And it's typically someone presenting with symptoms of anxiety or depression, but who also have a lot of pronounced digestive symptoms at the forefront. So these people typically have low or no appetite. They're prone to bloating or indigestion or food sits in their stomach. They can be having loose stools, food sensitivities, SIBO, sometimes prone to catching colds easily. Now this bucket is very distinct because we often treat this with high doses of renxin, ginseng, which we just talked about with the ginsenicides. Now the third bucket is what we call something related to liver chi stagnation, right. Now this is issues with the liver, gallbladder, and triple warmer in traditional Chinese medicine. Triple warmer is potentially something intersecting the lymphatic system. And these three organs, we say, not only can these patients show up with upper GI issues, acid reflux, indigestion, there's lots of stomach issues. There can be wildly varying bowels. Women can have menstrual changes or irregular menses or painful menses or mood swings. And in general, this one is more pronounced in a certain population that we say is prone towards internal tension, right. So whereas the heart kidney is sort of like a deflated person who's truly exhausted, and the spleen deficiency person is really a more digestive focused, this one is a pattern of constraint, where someone's nervous system is just shaking and buzzing like this all the time. And this one is more treated with high doses of bupleurum, which is chaihu. So guizhou, renxin, and chaihu are the three most common herbs in formulas always that I am mostly seeing that we treat depression with. All right guys, I hope that helps. 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