I’m struggling with clinical depression and on medication.  Do you think Time Related Eating will help me?

I’m so glad you asked this and it’s important that we address mental health.  Lets be clear that if you have depression you should check in with your medical or mental health practitioner first of all.  There can be so many causes and complex factors to depression and it is not for me to try to assess this for you.  You haven’t said whether you are on medication or not but again medication is so important to support people and I would never suggest replacing medication with intermittent fasting…unless you have medical advice and especially if you have an enduring condition.     So keep yourself safe and as a priority look at self-care and always get a qualified expert opinion.  Having said this, there are a lot of pieces of research that indicate that the quality of food that we eat and amount of food that we eat will affect our mental health.  About 90 per cent of our serotonin levels come from our food and serotonin levels will impact on mental health (although this is refuted by modern science).  Over eating will put the body under strain and can just make you feel sluggish and lethargic which won’t help.  The Zoe study put around 35,000 people on to a 14 hour fast with a ten hour eating window.  Overall people reported better moods and better wellbeing just by giving the body time to rest and digest.  There are just as many studies on the quality of the microbiome and depression.  The best conditions for gut health will be with natural and unprocessed food.    As you are probably aware I really don’t like making unrealistic claims to people but I think it is safe to say that eating within a well-managed time frame and eating the right amount of the right food may well lift your moods and overall will impact on mental health and wellbeing.  What Time Related Eating does is help people prioritise their self-care and self-awareness and prioritise their needs.  This in itself would be a good step to supporting mental health and wellbeing.  There is no easy answer to your question but I hope you feel confident enough to consider the first step forward to small actions that help you make progress and feel better.    

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