Nuts to cure nuts

In case you haven't read between the lines: my winter depression is kicking my ass this year. I don't know why. I'm doing all the Good Things I Know To Do, but they aren't creating that lovely gestalt of contented peace they normally do. And my husband, not usually much bothered by SAD, is almost (but not quite) as much of a wreck as I.

I figure it's the high level of stress we're both under, plus recent car repairs ($$$) for both of us, plus...winter sucks! It just does. And not to mention the Unethical Lunatic being in full-force at work.

Today I woke up, both angry and miserably sad, and realized that I really must take action. I can't go around crying at random things every day. Jokes make me cry. Touching stories make me cry. Dropping things makes me cry. It's all very pathetic. One second I'm holding it together, the next I feel my face crumple for no apparent reason and the tears press behind my eyes. The Happy Bulbs--even the ones that didn't break--and the walking outdoors daily and the flax seed oil and the meditation and the sublingual B vitamin complex and the staying warm...not helping this season.

I had a choice to make. I could take the obvious route and visit the physician for antidepressants. But I have serious moral questions--not, I emphasize, toward antidepressants or people who take them--about the pharma industry. Ethical objections, environmental objections, and big health questions. The pharma-industrial complex. The FDA. And so on.

I could also go the herbal route. I decided that this would be the better route for my needs, given my ambivalence toward Big Pharma. It also falls more in line with my philosophy of healing, but this is a separate and very complicated discussion I'd rather not do here.

So I drove around the rotary to the Natural Gourmet store and found the owner in the herbal section. I explained that the winter had me down. She was very kind and compassionate, and spent some time showing me a few products and offering tips. I thought I'd just buy fish oil--which I did--but she also gave me the excellent idea to find an essential oil with a smell I find uplifting. And she told me that Brazil nuts, 6 per day, have a positive effect on the winter blues (it's the selenium). She also helped me to select a mood-lifting herbal formula that suited my needs.

I'll report on how these solutions work, or don't.

Let's hope they do.