The Best Natural Alternative to Prozac
Are you looking for a natural alternative to Prozac? Did you ever think of deadlifting to fight depression? If you are looking for a prozac alternative, you are in the right place.
Let's look at the reasons why it is a great idea to begin a deadlift workout program in order to lift depression:
1. Who Does Not Want Serotonin and Endorphins?
The deadlift will increase endorphins in your blood that are going to make you feel much better and help you fight off depression.
2. You Need More Testosterone
The deadlift is one of the best exercises to increase your testosterone which is a known guard against depression. High testosterone, low depression and low testosterone is associated with depression.
3. Imagination to the Rescue
The deadlift will help you visualize lifting depression out of your life. How? The more adept you become at the deadlift, the more you will be able to imagine lifting the weight of depression off of your shoulders. You will be able to think to yourself that just as I am lifting this dead weight off of the floor, similarly I can lift the weight of depression out of my life. Depression is a burden for you and those who care about you, depression is a weight that you do not have to carry forever. Learn to deadlift and you will see that you will be able to imagine lifting the dead weight of depression off of your shoulders.
4. How Confident Will You Become on Prozac?
It is difficult to feel depressed when you feel confident. Confidence is the opposite of depression. When you feel confident, you will feel capable of taking on life challenges. You cannot feel hopeless when you are confident and it is difficult to feel sorry for yourself when you are confident. Consistently doing the deadlift is going to help you build confidence as you get stronger.
5. Do You Think Prozac Will Make You Strong?
Of course one of the most obvious benefits of the deadlift is increasing your strength. Conquer the deadlift gradually by slowly increasing the weight that you use to deadlift and great form. The stronger you become physically will carry over to mental and emotional strength, so the stronger your mind will be making it much easier to overcome depression.
6. Is Impotence Freaking You Out?
Not pretty. Impotence. Choose antidepressants and you run the risk of not being able to get it up. Your Doctor might tell you that does not matter since you are depressed anyways and not interested in ‘it', but do you really want that potential side effect? The deadlift will also make you stronger in ‘that' area as well since it can significantly raise your testosterone.
7. Get Rid of Insomnia – Are You Ready to Start Sleeping?
Deadlift for a good night sleep. Choose antidepressants and you just might end up with a case of insomnia, for more years than you bargained for. The first time that I took zoloft, I could not sleep for over three days straight. How do you think that and the continuing insomnia affected my job performance? Do you think your company will like having a zombie on board better than a depressed tiger with an ‘edge'? Well, my company would have preferred the depressed tiger with the ‘edge' which is why after antidepressants morphed me into a zombie over the course of a year, I no longer had my job or career.
8. No Profuse Sweating with Prozac Alternative
Would you like to wake up in pools of sweat? Are you interested in bathing your clothes in sweat all day and night? If yes, then antidepressants are for you. If not, try out the deadlift first and other exercises like squats, pushups, walking. Imagine, walking your depression away, alot simpler than popping pills that end up with your bed sheets soaked in the morning.
9. Stop Hallucinations
Enough tip toeing around the real potential side effects of antidepressants. Yes, antidepressants can be a life saver for some people, and for those people, that is wonderful. But let's not pretend that there are not other people for whom antidepressants which play with your brain chemistry can be lethal. One day, while I was walking in my room on my fourth round of antidepressant cocktail experiment to find the ‘right' doses of chemicals that were supposed to take off the ‘edge' of depression, I looked at the mirror.
I am sure you do that too, look at your mirror while you are walking by. But, I imagine that your reflection does not begin to speak to you! When my reflection began to ask me how my day was and what was I doing, I knew that I had to get off those drugs, throw out the prozac, zoloft, neurontin, risperadal, effexor, xanax, welbutrin, whichever of those I was on at that time. I knew I needed a natural alternative to prozac. I knew I had to go cold turkey no more drugs to save myself because at that moment, I was hallucinating and I did not care that I would be going AMA, against medical advice at that point. Don't let yourself get to that point. So, deadlifting to lift your depression sounds a lot saner to me than hallucinating.
10. Reduce Suicidal Ideation
Deadlifting is a much better choice than choosing death. Now, most people who go on antidepressants are of course attempting to overcome depression and avoid death by not becoming another suicide statistic. We know that depression is a significant risk factor for suicidal ideation and suicide. However, the warning labels on antidepressants are there for a reason. There is a risk of suicidal ideation. Why not try real food daily, squats, pushups, walking and the deadlift before ingesting chemicals that might cause suicidal ideation? I always had what is called ‘dysphoria' or low grade depression. But I did not think about jumping out of windows or off of bridges till I went on antidepressants to ‘cure' my ‘depression' and ‘take off the edge'.
Conclusion – And The Best Natural Alternative to Prozac Is?
These are just the first 10 reasons as to why the deadlift is a better natural alternative to prozac or any other antidepressant medication.
If the deadlift and the other exercises and strategies that I speak about here on Hashi Mashi do not help, then by all means, you must try additional methods which just might have to include antidepressants, but as a first choice, after my experiences with the catastrophic side effects of medications, I would suggest the deadlift!
And if you want more information on using food and exercise as medicine (instead of antidepressants) in the fight against depression, please check out my book here:
Are there any other reasons that you would add to this list?
Do you have a better natural alternative to prozac?
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Rich is a certified personal trainer-AAPT and the author of 