Dr Andrew Weil: Xanax Addiction is Worse Than Opioids

now what do you do when people come to you and they're on antidepressants well I have a book called spontaneous happiness which is about emotional wellness is a lot there about antidepressants first of all they don't work so well you know that's very sometimes they work sometimes it's hard to distinguish them from placebos right no the popular ones the SSRIs yeah and now because they don't work so well you know what doctors do they add one they added a psychotic drug yeah I'm horrifying these are like four major mental illness they're not things you just add on to make the other depressant work better we've talked about that one ad nauseam on this podcast flood because it turned out to be the most prescribed drug America I can't believe it that's just astounding well the word is that 25% of women between 40 and 50 are on antidepressants and 10% of adults in the country all right now here's another that's a crazy number well first of all the pharmaceutical companies have done a great job of convincing people that ordinary states of sadness are problems of brain biochemistry that yeah it's easy with a drug we're not supposed to be happy all right secondly there's a big problem with a lot of the medications that we use in antidepressants are a good example most of the medications we use are counteractive you know they opposed some process in the bar right so when you do that the body pushes back against it that's called homeostasis you know an easy example you can relate to is if you have a stuffed up nose you spray a drug in it that decongest you miraculous right you can breathe and depending on which drug you use two hours four hours at last but when it wears off you have rebound congestion that's worse if you use another dose of the drug then very easy to slide in Jamie very easy to slide into a state of dependence on it same thing happens with many of these drugs antidepressants they raise serotonin levels at neural junction neural junction so what is the body going to do if you force an increase in serotonin it's gonna make less serotonin and drop serotonin receptors so if you stay in one of these for any length of time when you get off it you're gonna be in worse shape than you were to begin with and this is now has a medical name it's called tardive dysphoria meaning lingering bad mood due to the drug so the drug actually prolongs or intensifies the depression you know maybe okay for very short term use of very severe depression but these are not things you want to go on and stay on for a length of time what's fascinating to me is when I talk to people that are on them that want to talk to you like they're on some cancer medication or they're on you know something that cures polio yeah like they make it seem like you're insensitive to the possibility that there's other solutions right and there are many other solutions we have really good evidence for the antidepressant effect of physical activity yes both to prevent and treat yeah we have very good evidence for supplemental fish oil for omega-3 fatty acids to prevent in CDs well oh and the microbiome looks like it's involved in our mental states as well so you know there's so many different ways yes CBD for sure so again gets back to information pick Anna gets back to in an integrative approach and not just relying on a single thing like a pharmaceutical treatment yeah I've talked to intelligent people that are on SSRIs in one form or another and even ones that have struggled we're on one for awhile and it stopped working and then they tried another one and they're compounding ones and they're on this weird sort of chemical rollercoaster and they reject any possible notion that there's other alternatives especially when you bring up the exercise one right I bring up the exercise one they go oh this [ __ ] meathead exercise we just stopped I'm like I'm telling you we did this thing with my friends called sober October and what we did is we no alcohol no anything for the month of October but also we did this fitness challenge and we got real carried away and we're all competing against each other with this heart rate app so we're working out three hours four hours a day was crazy but what was interesting about it to me was not just that your body sort of adapts when you force it to work out that many hours but that your mood is phenomenal yeah I felt so good yeah and I was telling everybody if you could take what I like I don't feel that good right now okay I mean I feel great but I don't feel as good as I did during October because I was working out four hours a day it was if you could get that in pill form you would take it every day if there was no side effects because it literally removed anxiety all the internal chatter all the negative chatter it was gone everything seemed amazing true and there are side effects of physical activity are great you know it revs up immune function improves digestion asleep all that you mentioned anxiety the by far in a way the most effective treatment I found for anxiety is simple a simple breathing technique no regulating the breath I've seen this work for the most extreme forms of panic disorder and the drugs that we use for anxiety are the worst the benzodiazepines highly addictive mess with your mind yeah I have a good friend who has an issue with anxiety medication and he takes it all the time and when he doesn't take it apparently it has that rebound effect exactly right he gets horribly anxious well these are handed out like candy and nobody warns people how addictive they are it's a worse addiction than an opiate addiction it Zanic yeah really yeah yep why I did not know that harder to get off of than opioids Wow

Channel: JRE Clips

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Id: nW-t38JxAVE

Length: 5min 30sec (330 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 12 2018