Psychiatry proclaims that depression is a mental illness which needs to be treated with antidepressants. However, the actual facts about depression do not support this. Of course you can be depressed, but it is not a mental disorder, nor is it a disease. It is neither caused by a chemical imbalance in your brain.  Some forms of depression are a normal part of life.  Other kinds of depression may need more investigation to find the cause. In any case, once you know the facts about depression, it would be sensible to find its cause. That way you can find a solution without taking psychiatric drugs.

There are lots of advertisements on television these days boasting how well antidepressants help people with depression. Magazines tell you how these drugs supposedly treat a chemical imbalance in your brain. What scientific study backs all this up? The facts about depression are that it has never been proven that there is a physical cause for it or that a chemical brain imbalance even exists. Psychiatrists admit they don’t know its true cause. It’s all just speculation without any concrete evidence.
Over thirty years ago, it was discovered that the brain does have its own natural chemicals and receptors that contribute to uplifting your mood. It was posed that perhaps people with depression don’t have enough of those chemicals. Further research would have either validated this theory so that drugs would have then been developed to cure it, or this theory would have been disproven and no new drugs would have been developed. More research would have been required to find a definite cause.
The truth is further research was not done and anything scientific regarding facts about depression came to a grinding halt right there. Instead, money-oriented individuals stepped in when they saw an opportunity to incur HUGE profits by developing a drug to “balance” those natural chemicals in the brain. Hence, a cure for depression was born.
It didn’t matter that they had no scientific proof. It didn’t matter they altered trial data and hid other information. As an example, there were twenty-seven deaths before the drug even went on the market. One could assume it literally pays to have direct ties to the FDA because it was approved in the late nineteen eighties and the drug became a household name, which indicates the size of the profits.
Now that it has been established that Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and the like are drugs based only on an idea and not truth, it would be vital to know what  these drugs really do to the brain. One could conclude that if you are trying to fix something that is not scientifically proven then there’s a good chance that you are doing something else instead.
What these drugs do is they actually lower those natural chemicals in the brain that they are supposed to be fixing. This interferes with the brain operating in a normal way to such an extreme that it can cause mania, violence and suicide as stated by the FDA Black Box Warning on the package. Just as an example of the incredible amount of adverse side effects that exist, one can look in a magazine and see an advertisement for an antidepressant where one page promotes the drug and two pages follow to list out the many adverse side effects.
Through all this, the fact remains that depression exists and there is no established cause based on science. The question then is what does one do to handle depression? That would depend on first isolating the source of the depression. Was there a death of a loved one? Divorce? Diagnosis of a serious illness? Any major loss could make you depressed. That would be a normal condition that you would work through however painful that might be.
What if the depression is not caused by an event? Studies have shown that poor eating habits combined with lack of physical exercise and adequate sunshine are factors contributing to depression. Staying away from refined sugar, processed foods, junk food and fast food will make you healthier and happier. Taking Omega-3 oils, getting vitamin D from sunshine and exercising regularly are also associated with improving our emotional state. There are also many natural supplements available to help ease depression.
With the above facts about depression in mind, you can take steps toward a healthier and happier life without psychiatric drugs.
Reference: http://www.naturalnews.com/032243_depression_chemical_imbalance.html