St John’s Wort is proving to be a widely popular alternative to common anti-depressant medications. Its side effects are less severe and it does work to ‘lighten the load’ in most cases.
St John’s Wort is proving to be a widely popular alternative to common anti-depressant medications. Its side effects are less severe and it does work to ‘lighten the load’ in most cases. Though contrary to popular belief, it has also been proven to increase sexual performance while relieving depression. This in-depth report explores the benefits of this herbal anti-depressant.
First, let me just say that I’m no doctor. I’m just a person sharing my experience of St. John’s Wort. Ok, so like most folks living out their days on this planet, I, too, have experienced some traumatic events throughout my life. Without going into the scary graphic details, let me just say that I have tasted depression.
When it got to the point where I felt a wee bit out of control, I contacted my therapist and cried, “help”. One of her answers was, ‘we need to medicate you’. I squirmed. You see, I’m one of those stubborn people who, instead of just being wise and just taking the aspirin for the raging headache, likes to keep a ’stiff upper lip’ and just ‘tough it out’. So when she suggested medication, my alarms went off full force.
I told her that in no uncertain terms would I give in to being medicated. There just had to be a better way to combat my depression. She listed a few other very basic ways:
1. A consistent and healthy exercise program; anything that raises your heart rate will produce endorphins which are the bodies self-made anti-depressants.2. Make sure that you are getting the proper 8 hours sleep and more if possible.3. Try and have ‘alone’ time to rest and relax.4. And lastly, avoid being a recluse. Get out there and have some fun!
Well, her other ways didn’t help me so much because I was already following all of them most of the time. So, with shoulders slumped forward as I stared defeat in the face, I asked one more time.
“Is there any other way other than medication?”
Basically put, St. John’s Wort is a natural, herbal alternative for the treatment of depression in cases where standard anti-depressants (such as Zoloft, Paxil, Prozac, and many others) would be prescribed. It is a wild plant that is harvested for its Hypericum (the active ingredient and “drug” that actually has the ‘anti-depressant’ effect on you).
I left her office with the invisible prescription to get to a pharmacy and buy some St. John’s Wort, which I learned came either in the tablet or liquid (drops) form. My therapist told me to try it but that if I didn’t feel it was working and things were not beginning to lighten up for me, that I was to bring myself back to her office right away.
I marched into the pharmacy that afternoon and surveyed the overwhelming shelves of herbal remedies. I scanned the names until I found the one I was looking for. Picking up the bottle, I read every word on that bottle two times over to make sure I got it right. I’d been told that the best type to get was the Standardized 500mg containing 0.3% Hypericum and to take one tablet in the morning and one at night, as 1000mg is all that you really need to experience results.
When I got home I reviewed tons of websites that offered me more information on this herbal anti-depressant. I wanted to read anything and everything I could before swallowing my first tablet.
One of the common information facts that I read was that it would take approximately 2-3 weeks for the full effect. The side effects that it could bring on were: sensitivity to sunlight, fatigue, nausea, skin rash, possible long-term eye concerns (cataracts), and interaction with protease inhibitors (for HIV and AIDS drug treatments). I’d also heard through the ‘grapevine’ that there was a possibility for it to stunt the affects of birth control pills.
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