♪[dramatic, triumphant
theme music]♪ ♪[music ends]♪♪ >>John Bradshaw:
This is "It Is Written." I'm John Bradshaw.
Thanks for joining me. For decades and decades,
depression and anxiety have presented the United States
and other first-world countries around the world with a
major health care crisis. Dr. Neil Nedley spoke with me
about this subject about 10 years ago. He's the president of Nedley
Health and for 25 years has been successfully treating
people battling all forms of depression and anxiety. And we're catching up
again today. Dr. Nedley, thanks for
being here with me. >>Dr. Neil Nedley: Great to be
back with you, John. >>John: You talk about
depression and how to successfully treat
depression through lifestyle. Why would we talk about
this when there are already myriad treatments
for depression? Why aren't you saying there's
an array of drugs available on the market, grab one,
and off you go? Why are you not saying that? >>Dr. Nedley: Well, because
those drugs have been tested and tried, and all sorts of
studies have been done on them. They can help certain patients,
but their help is limited, and they actually don't
decrease suicide risk, and they don't improve
functioning that much. Uh, I mean, over placebo, one
of the drugs improves function by about 6 percent, but most
of them don't improve function. And depression is a
disease that disables. It causes a lot of
dysfunction, and of course, it's also one of the
leading causes of death now with suicide rates
being so high. And so, why would we recommend
that they take something that isn't going to improve
in those parameters? And so, it's not that
we're against medicine. We have patients come to
our program with medication. We'll take them
with or without, and we'll keep them on their
medicine until they're better and don't need them,
but medications alone are not the answer for
depression or anxiety. >>John: Okay. Be really easy
for somebody to say, "Well, Dr. Nedley has
a vested interest," or, "He's got an ax to grind."
I want to ask you, do you? And I want to ask you, how much
of what you're sharing with me is opinion versus hard science? >>Dr. Nedley: It's hard science. Even the top pharmaceutical
researchers in the world will tell you that drugs
have their limitations and that they're not the answer. Uh, consensus mental health
organizations tell us that drugs are not the
answer to this problem. Once again, they can help
in certain situations, but they're not the answer. We have to go beyond drugs
if we're going to eradicate and produce the great results
that can be obtained for depressed and
anxious people. >>John: In a moment,
not right now, in a moment I'm going to
ask you what the answer is. Here's my first question
going down that road: Is there an answer for
depression and anxiety? >>Dr. Nedley: Absolutely,
there's an answer. >>John: You said
that unequivocally. >>Dr. Nedley: Unequivocally,
yes. And we published on it. Our case reports are,
are very well obtained, and the typical patient that we
see with depression and anxiety, severe, actually,
or maybe even extreme, will leave our
program in 10 days with no depression and anxiety. And their emotional
intelligence will go up. Now, it requires
their cooperation. We have to do a number
of different things to produce this dramatic change
in their brain chemistry and their change in
their thought pattern, but it's well worth the effort. >>John: The reason I think it's
important we speak about this from a, a faith-based point of
view is that the Bible speaks again and again and
again about health, and mental health is
supremely important. Look, just to digress
for a brief moment, I think it's important
we talk about this because...too few people
speak about mental health. Like it or not, there's still
a stigma about mental health where someone who has
a, an ingrown toenail is happy to tell his friend
he had surgery, but somebody with a mental
health issue will keep it to himself or herself, maybe to their detriment
or even their demise. >>Dr. Nedley: Exactly. >>John: And, and another reason
we want to talk about this is because looking at it
from a biblical point of view, we see that ultimately,
ultimately this thing between good and evil is
a battle for the mind. >>Dr. Nedley: Mm-hmm. >>John: So, in one place
the Bible says, "We have the mind of Christ."
We want that as far as possible. >>Dr. Nedley: Mm-hmm.
>>John: Okay. Let's define some things here.
What's depression? I know you talk about
that ad infinitum, but briefly, what's depression? And help me understand
the difference between severe and, and, and extreme and
these various forms. >>Dr. Nedley: Yes. So, a major
depression is actually a constellation of symptoms.
And I use the psychiatric bible; the Diagnostic Statistical
Manual gives us nine hallmark symptoms
of depression. You don't have to
have all nine of them, but you have to have
five of those nine. But two of the classic
are deep sadness-- which you may not even have
and still have depression-- and apathy. This is where
you wake up in the morning and you're not
excited about the day. You get up out of duty but not because you're
interested in the day. And that will happen not
just once in a while, but for a depressed person
it'll be there for, you know, at least two weeks. In addition to that,
there'll be energy issues. There'll be sleep issues,
either wanting to sleep all the time or not being
able to sleep, and waking up too early and not
being able to go back to sleep. Then there's more irritability
than there used to be. And then focus and
concentration issues can also be a major problem,
where you're reading something that's interesting to you, you
get to the bottom of the page, and you forget what was
at the top of the page. And you have to go back
and read it again, and it might even happen again. And that can be a sign of
both anxiety and depression. >>John: But you're not saying
one of those means you have depression. You're
saying there's nine points; if you have five,
that qualifies you. >>Dr. Nedley: Correct.
>>John: So I don't want anyone to think because they can't
focus on a page, that means too much, but it might.
>>Dr. Nedley: It might. >>John: Yeah.
>>Dr. Nedley: It might, yeah. >>John: Taken together
with other-- >>Dr. Nedley: Yeah.
>>John: ...things. We're going to get to
the cure, if you like, the treatment for depression in a moment, but I wanna--
>>Dr. Nedley: Sure. >>John: ...ask you this.
See, we, we, we've spoken about this before. Ten years ago
we talked about this. >>Dr. Nedley: Right. >>John: And society has
known for decades we have a great problem
in this area. What's happened in
the last 10 years in terms of depression
and anxiety? >>Dr. Nedley: The rates have
gone up astronomically in the last 10 years. And, you know, what has also
shifted is depression used to be the older you get, the more
likely you're going to get it. And now we're seeing this
big peak among young people, adolescents, uh, teenagers,
even pre-teenagers, and particularly those
in their 20s-- off the charts in regards to
depression and anxiety levels. And that's changed
over the last 10 years. >>John: And why is that? >>Dr. Nedley: The reason is
actually the smartphone usage. Uh, it wasn't till about
10 or 11 years ago that about half of Americans
owned a smartphone. And now that smartphone is
actually able to distract them very easily. And when we are
driven to distraction, it actually decreases an area
of our frontal lobe that is precisely the
area that's needed for managing
distressing emotions. And so, it's not the
smartphone itself, per se, but the normal use
of the smartphone where we're allowing ourself
to get distracted by Snapchats, texts, push notifications, and
even when we get on there to do something, we forget why
we got on there to do something, and we immediately see a text
or an email or things like that, and that division of
attention actually causes biochemical, uh,
consequences in the brain, and those biochemical
consequences increase the rates of depression
and anxiety. >>John: So, in recent years
it has become much worse. In recent years it's affecting
far greater numbers of younger people. Okay. We're going to talk about
what a person can do about depression and anxiety. My guest is Dr. Neil Nedley,
president of Nedley Health. In just a moment we will talk about what a person
can actually do. Dr. Nedley said a moment ago there is successful treatment
for depression and anxiety. We'll find out what
that is straight ahead. ♪[upbeat music swells
and ends]♪♪ >>Announcer: With
economic instability, interpersonal challenges,
and the use of social media on the rise, rates of depression
and anxiety have skyrocketed. Call now for your free copy of "Finding Lasting Healing
for Depression and Anxiety" and learn helpful and
practical methods that have been scientifically
proven to benefit mental health. Call 800-253-3000. That's 800-253-3000. Or visit us online at
iiwoffer.com. >>John Bradshaw: Welcome
back to "It Is Written." Thanks so much for joining me.
I'm John Bradshaw. With me, my guest
is Dr. Neil Nedley, the president of Nedley Health. Dr. Nedley, you--we're about
to start talking about successful treatment
for depression. Give us a little
background here. I said for a quarter
of a century now you've been successfully
treating patients. >>Dr. Neil Nedley: Correct.
>>John: Uh, give me a, just a very quick overview. What do you see walk in the
door? What do you see walk out? Once we help people understand
what the, the reality is of successful treatment, then
we'll talk about the treatment. >>Dr. Nedley: Okay. So, what we
see typically walk in the door is someone who is
severely depressed and also thinking about
ending their life. At least most of them
now that see us think that they would be
better off dead. And they're actually
convinced of that, uh, when they come to the program. It's affected their family life.
It's affected their work life. It's affected their
feelings about themselves. Uh, and it has also, uh,
caused them to even think that they're worthless
or that they're of no value. And so, uh, that is
more of the typical. Of course, there can be a lot of
varieties, um, concerning that. Uh, but on top of it,
they'll also have anxiety. They'll have social anxiety, which is more of our
typical patient now. Uh, they don't really want
to interact with people-- fear of embarrassment, uh, fear of being exposed
in some way, shape, or form, fear of being judged. And so, uh, this is our,
um, our typical patient that comes in. And of course,
they're pretty reticent because they're in a new setting, and
this has been, you know, a big, big challenge for them
to even come to the program. And on day three,
they're not sure that they've actually
made the right decision because it takes time
for the therapies to actually start
changing the brain. By day four, they're actually
starting to feel better. By day seven, it's pretty
amazing the difference. And by day 10, when they're
walking out the door, they say, "I don't even really realize
who that person was. I'm so different now." They are motivated.
They're self-motivated. They're actually
sleeping better. They're able to interact with
people that they don't know, uh, and not have that
anxiety and fear of judgment. They realize that they're
a valuable human being, and they realize that they
have much that they can give to their families and, and their
work and the world around them. And so, depression scale
goes from severe, on average, to no depression
when they're leaving. That doesn't mean it's solved. They still have to
continue to do the things that made them better
in the program, and then they'll even get
better yet, uh, two weeks after they're in their
home environment. Some of them get fearful because
they say, "I got better here. "Now I'm going home,
where I was really bad, and I'm getting backed
into the same place." But actually, as they utilize
the tools that we've given them, they'll actually feel better
two weeks after being home than the day they left
the program. >>John: See, this sounds,
this sounds miraculous, [Dr. Nedley chuckles] like,
like people are being reborn. But this is what God wants
for a person's life. And I, I think, as we
talk about depression, it's really important to
point out that depression isn't something that the average
person can just get over-- "Why don't you pull
yourself together?" >>Dr. Nedley: Right. >>John: This is--
depression's a monster. And it absolutely
disables people. Okay. Let's talk about the successful
treatment. What works? And I want you to share with me
what works scientifically-- >>Dr. Nedley: Sure.
>>John: ...and verifiably. >>Dr. Nedley: Okay.
>>John: Okay, so, what really helps? >>Dr. Nedley: It's actually
a combination of a number of simple factors
we've put together. >>John: Simple factors?
>>Dr. Nedley: Simple factors, like drinking more water. >>John: We're talking about...an
absolutely disabling condition-- >>Dr. Nedley: Right. >>John: ...where the people
suffering from this-- >>Dr. Nedley: Yes. >>John: ...believe in their
hearts that the world would be a better place without them?
>>Dr. Nedley: Right. >>John: And you're starting
with drink more water? >>Dr. Nedley: Drink more water.
>>John: Okay, okay. I don't want to hear too much
more about the treatment. [Dr. Nedley chuckles]
Take, take 20 or 30 seconds and tell me why does that
kind of simple thing help. What, what's going on in a life that something like that could
even make a difference? >>Dr. Nedley: Well, our
brain cells work better when they're hydrated.
And nothing hydrates like water. All the other water substitutes
actually take away from the hydration
of our neurons and our ability to have
good synaptic activity. >>John: Okay.
>>Dr. Nedley: And so, studies have shown, actually, if we just take someone from
less than two glasses of water per day, which the
typical person has, to greater than five
glasses of water a day, their rates of depression and
anxiety will actually start to improve within a week
of that treatment. >>John: So what else is
effective in the treatment of depression and anxiety?
Simple things. >>Dr. Nedley: Becoming
physically fit. Physical fitness is actually
better for our brain than it is our body. And cardio exercises actually
improve a protein level in our brain called brain-
derived neurotrophic factor. It's kind of a brain fertilizer, and it helps the brain get
ready for positive changes. So, there are some
people that are fit that come to our program. Their causes are different,
but most people that come are not at the fitness level
they should be at, and that's why we have fitness
experts, and in 10 days, and they're going
to actually show measurable fitness
improvement in their cardio and a lot of
different parameters. And that will mirror
very much, uh, their success
during the program. >>John: Give me another one, and then something
I want to run by you. >>Dr. Nedley: So, another one is
actually light--light therapy. So we utilize light
in the morning. Actually we have them wake up
at the same time every morning, and then they're exposed to a
bright light that actually sets their body clock,
their circadian rhythm, and it also starts the
production of serotonin in the brain. And those two
factors are very important. It's going to improve
their energy level throughout the day, and it's
going to improve their ability to go to sleep at night. In fact, that's one of
the best sleep aids, is a light therapy box utilized
upon awakening in the morning. So, they're only exposed
to it for about 30 minutes. Then we get 'em out
and exercise. And those simple treatments of
hydration, physical exercise, and light therapy
start the process. >>John: You said
"simple treatments." They are profoundly simple.
[Dr. Nedley chuckles] It, it seems that what you're
doing is actually treating the causes of depression-- not enough activity,
not enough water, not enough light.
>>Dr. Nedley: Yes. >>John: You're, you're
actually taking us down to the granular level in
treating the very things that cause depression.
>>Dr. Nedley: Exactly. >>John: That's not how
depression is typically treated. It's typically treated-- well, we have a range of
possible medications. "We'll try this one; come
back in a, in a week or two or whatever, and maybe we'll
change your medication." >>Dr. Nedley: Mm-hmm.
>>John: As a society, we're really stuck
on medication, as though it's the
solution for everything. How in the world do we
change our thinking? >>Dr. Nedley: Well, we have
to educate the public that it's not just a lack of medicine
that's causing depression. Uh, it's actually the lack
of good brain biochemistry that has to do with
things like nutrition, what we're putting
into our body, and what we're
doing with our body. >>John: What do some of the
medications actually do to the brain? >>Dr. Nedley: So, how the
typical antidepressant works, it's not helping the
brain to produce more of a neurotransmitter, nor
is it helping the receptors. When we get to the root cause,
we're going to actually help the brain produce more
of the neurotransmitter, and we're going to be helping
at the receptor level so that the synaptic
activity goes up. How the drugs work is
that they actually plug the reuptake channels
in the releasing neuron of the substance
they're trying to treat. So, if they're wanting to have more serotonin
synaptic activity, they plug the serotonin
reuptake channels. And that allows more
serotonin in the synapse. The problem with it is now we
have to make even more serotonin because that serotonin's
not being vacuumed back up into the brain. And so it produces a short-term
benefit--by "short-term," maybe six months, nine
months--and after that, now the brain is even shorter
in serotonin than it was before you started to use the
drug, and now you're needing dosage increases; you're
needing additional medicines; you're needing a number of
other factors to try to help the neuron of its even more
severe depletion of serotonin. >>John: Simple
treatments that work, a complex,
challenging diagnosis, but simple treatments
given by God that make all the difference. More on depression with Dr.
Neil Nedley in just a moment. ♪[upbeat music swells
and ends]♪♪ >>John: Thank you for
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800-253-3000. You can send your
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itiswritten.com. Thank you for your prayers and
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800-253-3000, or you can visit us online at
itiswritten.com. >>John: Most everybody wants
to live a little longer, a little healthier,
and a little happier, but the question is, how can
you experience that life? Jesus said that He came
into the world that we might have life
more abundantly. Evidently, it's what
God wants us to have. So, don't miss
"Life and Longevity" with special guest
Dr. David DeRose. We uncover simple secrets of
the Bible, attainable secrets, the things that God presents
to us that are guaranteed to enhance our lives
and at the same time open up our hearts and minds to receive more of
the Holy Spirit of God. "Life and Longevity,"
Bible secrets to living the abundant life that
God wants you to have. Featuring special guest
Dr. David DeRose, "Life and Longevity"
on It Is Written TV. ♪[upbeat music]♪♪ >>John: Thanks for joining me
on "It Is Written." My guest is Dr. Neil Nedley,
who for a quarter of a century has been successfully treating
people with depression and anxiety, in many cases
extreme depression and anxiety. You've had a great deal
of success with this? >>Dr. Nedley: Yes. >>John: We're talking about simple treatments.
>>Dr. Nedley: Mm-hmm. >>John: I mean, very simple
treatments. Let me ask you this. When it comes to,
uh, depression, what role does nutrition play? Well, what role does nutrition
play in the treatment? >>Dr. Nedley: It plays
a major role. In fact, it is well documented
now that nutritional medicine is one of the best therapies
for depression and anxiety-- and directed nutritional
supplements to actually help the individual with
the genetic challenges that they might have as well. >>John: Okay, so what
would that look like? >>Dr. Nedley: For instance, uh,
taking a S-adenosylmethionine to help the person methylate
and be able to make more serotonin and dopamine
in their brain. >>John: Okay. >>Dr. Nedley: If they have
a genetic defect, they're going to have
certain personality traits that go along with that defect, like a calm exterior
and a tense interior, tendencies for obsessions,
tendencies for addictions, and actually being
highly competitive. Often it's the attorneys
or even the sports heroes that suffer from mental health
issues, and they just need more methionine or
S-adenosylmethionine to help them methylate better.
That's a nutritional therapy. That is something
that's natural; it's not something you can
get in a pharmaceutical agent because the trademark
organization won't allow something natural
to be trademarked. It has to be unnatural in
order to get it trademarked. And so, natural therapies
often are superior. >>John: Diet--you mentioned
nutrition--what about diet? What, what am I eating
that's helping me or mitigating against
good mental health? >>Dr. Nedley: Yeah, exactly.
So, we need to get tryptophan in your diet
in order to make serotonin. And we need to get the
tryptophan into the brain. So, we don't just
give IV serotonin because serotonin won't even
be picked up by the brain. The blood-brain barrier
prevents it from going across. So we need to get
the tryptophan, even that's too large
to get into the brain, so we have to have it
with specific carriers. And it turns out the best
carriers are foods that have tryptophan and
natural carbohydrates in them. And those are going to be more
of your plant-based foods. One of the reasons why
a plant-based diet has been shown to be
superior to other diets, improving depression and anxiety
in as little as two weeks, once we shift over to a,
a highly antioxidant diet that has adequate
tryptophan and tyrosine to make the
neurotransmitters we need. >>John: So, you can
eat certain foods that are going to help you.
>>Dr. Nedley: Exactly. >>John: Generally speaking,
they're more plant-based. >>Dr. Nedley: Correct.
>>John: Okay, okay. You mentioned
genetics a moment ago. I want to ask you about this. Are some people genetically
predisposed to depression? Is that the case? And--
>>Dr. Nedley: Oh, absolutely. >>John: Well, if so,
what do you do about that if it's your genes?
>>Dr. Nedley: Well, fortunately, we can shut down
those bad genes. And so, when people come
to our program, we measure their genetics--and we also
measure their epigenetics-- to see if that gene
is active or not. And fortunately,
it's not medication, but it's natural therapies that can actually
deactivate that gene. And then we can actually measure
the before-and-after results. We can see that the gene was
very active to start out with, and within a few
weeks, we remeasure. One of the reason why we do
follow-up on our patients after they get back is
we're actually doing follow-up blood work
to show that that gene has been deactivated. Or if it hasn't, there might
be some other therapies that we can put into the
equation that are simple, side effect free, that'll actually shut down
that mutated gene. >>John: Thank God there are simple solutions.
>>Dr. Nedley: Yes. >>John: Appreciate
what you are doing. What I'm hearing as I
listen between the lines is, is you're following
a very, a simple-- I don't mean in
a derogatory way-- very biblical plan
because God wants us to have a sound mind.
>>Dr. Nedley: Mm-hmm. >>John: Can anyone have that
sound mind that God is offering? >>Dr. Nedley: Absolutely--
>>John: Yeah. >>Dr. Nedley: ...absolutely, we,
we, the design of our brain is tremendous because of
its ability to change itself. It can dramatically improve
under the right conditions. And that brain can
not only learn new things; it can start making
better neurotransmitters. It can have better receptors. It can have much more
fulfillment and success. Our brains are capable
of amazing things if we just foster 'em
in the right way. >>John: There's one thing I
would like you to remember. That's this; the Bible says, "Thou wilt"--speaking
about God-- "Thou wilt keep him
in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee:
because he trusteth in Thee." You read that in Isaiah 26:3. "Perfect peace."
>>Dr. Nedley: Mmm. >>John: The Bible says,
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," speaking certainly
of an attitude, an approach, a humility, but definitely
speaking about a mind. When we look, Dr. Nedley, at
earth's last great crisis, it's a battle for the mind.
>>Dr. Nedley: Absolutely. >>John: Mark of the beast,
the seal of God, affixed to the minds of
those who receive them. I think there are
good days ahead. There's reason for every
last person to be hopeful. >>Dr. Nedley: Absolutely. >>John: I appreciate you sharing
that hope. Thanks so much. >>Dr. Nedley: Thank you. >>Announcer: With
economic instability, interpersonal challenges,
and the use of social media on the rise, rates of depression
and anxiety have skyrocketed. Call now for your free copy of "Finding Lasting Healing
for Depression and Anxiety" and learn helpful and
practical methods that have been scientifically
proven to benefit mental health. Call 800-253-3000. That's 800-253-3000. Or visit us online at
iiwoffer.com. >>John: Let's pray together now. ♪[soft music]♪ Our Father in heaven, we thank You that Jesus
is the Prince of Peace. Anxiety and depression are
not Your plan for our lives. We find no fault with people
who find themselves there; instead, our hearts
beat in harmony and in sympathy with them, asking that You, Lord,
the Great Physician, would deliver everyone
looking for deliverance, would strengthen everyone
looking for strength, that You would encourage
and uphold every last person and deliver to each one a sound
mind, a transformed life, a new experience. We thank You for
salvation in Jesus, and we thank You
that through Jesus we might have joy on this earth. We thank You, and our hope is
strong in the return of Jesus. We pray with John,
who wrote Revelation, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." This is our prayer.
In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you so much
for joining me. I'm looking forward to
seeing you again next time. Until then, remember: "It is written, 'Man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds
from the mouth of God.'" ♪[dramatic, triumphant
theme music]♪ ♪[music ends]♪♪
