Fish Oil – Get The Upper Hand On Bipolar Cognitive Disfunction With The Potent Natural Health Benefits of Omega 3’s

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“Omega-3 fatty acids are considered essential fatty acids
The benefits of omega 3’s in fish oil cannot be overstated.”

My Story
According to the psychiatric community, I have bipolar 1 with ultra rapid cycling, but I don’t take pharmaceutical medications. What I do instead is, take responsibility for my own life by taking control of my sleep, food, diet and fish oil regimes.

It hard enough for most people to get their life in order according to what is healthful, useful and what serves you well. When you factor in a chemically imbalanced brain, the challenge is a little greater, but it’s certainly doable. I’m proof.

Out Of Control 20’s To Zen Mistress 40’s
I suppose that, yes, it’s partly to do with maturation, however, I feel that the process of my recovery from bipolar can be pinpointed to have started with the introduction of fish oil at the age of 35.

I have many years of working-out-my-stuff under my belt, and I’ve pretty much got my act together these days, especially when compared to my younger years. Out of control, thinking everyone ELSE was the problem, didn’t help in any way, to get better in the head. It was only once I seized onto the ideas of fish oil and omega 3’s and that yes I could help myself, than life started settling down for me.

It was only after I’d tried a few different pharmaceutical drug cocktails before the thought occurred to me, ‘Now hang on, this totally sucks and what if I NEVER find the right combo of drugs to meet someone else’s definition of normal?’

My Way Isn’t For Everyone
Not being on pharma meds is definitely NOT for everyone. Being an advocate for natural living, I don’t know that I’d ever recommend going the pharma route for anyone? I’m sorry if this offends, but, I see putting pills down my throat as non effective, lazy and a cop out. I also think that it’s quite enabling of non self responsibility.

It’s just about the easiest thing in the world to make a doctors appointment once a week, throwing pills down your throat all the while. To me, that looks a lot like sloughing off one’s responsibility to be the best version of yourself that you can be. Pills don’t change anything about the root cause of the problem, can make you very sick, and, psychiatry is based on you coming up with your own answers. The harder route, but infinitely more powerful and life affirming route, is that of self awareness and natural living. It actually works and without poisoning your body!

My Laypersons Logic
This is a disorder of chemical imbalance, so, let’s get a little logical about that idea and think about it for a minute. To effect a change in chemical balance, you add or subtract something from the equation, right? Therefore, your body being the chemical soup that it is, will also be affected by a change in it’s chemistry. All you need to do is hunt down the source of the missing vitamins, minerals, enzymes and molecules and put them back in. In a certified organic way, of course.

What’s harder to deal with is the root cause/s of why you’re so sick. I’m referring to your emotional health. Emotions have long been known to affect the body. I’ve known inherently for a long time that ‘bad thinking’ will give you cancer. It’s nice to know that the science bears me out on this.

How I Do My Best To Maintain Balance
So, no pharma for me, but I have to work hard at maintaining my whole life. This is something I think we should ALL do, not just those of us that have a problem to correct. Because I choose the non pills way, that means I MUST look after my body and life especially well. To be able to not only exist, but to thrive with bp and no meds, I MUST get 4 things right MOST of the time; sleep, exercise, diet and fish oil.

Sleep – I am naturally a night owl, but to get proper sleep I force myself to go to bed at 10.30/11pm every night except about once a week. I do love to stay up!

Exercise – I get in the form of yoga of about 30 min every second day. Or yogahh as I like to call it. It’s just that delicious!

Diet – is slowly getting better, forcing myself to eat at least one piece of fruit per day, and I love eating my own organic veges so that makes it easier to get the nutrients I need.

Fish oil – This is WONDER stuff! When I’m talking about fish oil, I’m referring to the EPA (Eicosapentaenoic Acid) and DHA (Docosahexaenoic Acid) levels in organic fish oil. The oil you choose should have very specific levels of EPA and DHA.

The Main Benefits Of Fish Oil
Fish oil will help you with;
– Supporting healthy cognitive function
– Relieving arthritis symptoms
– Keeping triglyceride levels within the normal range
– Supporting the body to maintain a normal LDL:HDA cholesterol ratio.

Dosage
The recommended adult dose is for 5mL daily, which is about a teaspoon’s worth.
You should be aiming for at least an equivalent of 500mg EPA and 800mg of DHA daily.

BIG HINT: Have a hot drink to wash it down with. NEVER use a cold drink!

If you really don’t want fish oil then you can get your EPA and DHA from flaxseed, chia seeds, tofu, walnuts, linseed and pumpkin seeds. However, before the body can uptake the EPA and DHA, it gets converted from alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) Bear in mind that getting your omega-3’s this way requires a bigger intake to achieve the same therapeutic benefits as from fish oil.

I first started taking 5ml of liquid fish oil daily approx 5 years ago. Yes, I do mean the “liquid” form. It’s pretty wrong-feeling in the mouth, but…
Within the first 5 minutes (I kid you NOT!) I was saying “Is this how balanced most people feel, most of the time?” This effect continues in the same way, even all these years later. Fish oil has removed the ‘sobbing-all-day-for-no-reason’ days and you can feel the clarity of the cognitive effect nearly immediately. It feels like you’re smarter. There’s no other way to explain the cognitive effect.

It Feels Like You’re Smarter
That’s because you are smarter on fish oil! The positive cognitive effects from taking fish oil are very, very well documented. The Google scholar results when I typed in ‘research review paper cognitive effect fish oil omega 3’ are in the reference section below. There are  20,500 results!

Please, bp’ers that aren’t on meds, get yourself on fish oil TODAY! It’s cheap and life changing-ly worth it!

Do It, Do It Now! 

The only other thing I have to say is DO IT, DO IT, DO IT because it’s a BIPOLAR LIFE CHANGER!

Remember to always choose a certified organic product to get the purest product as you can.
p.s. I was first recommended fish oil by a pdoc, who also put me on a script for pharma meds at the same time. So, I THINK you can still use the fish oil while on meds. I would check with your pdoc first to be sure.

References:

http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/supplement/omega3-fatty-acids

https://www.choice.com.au/health-and-body/medicines-and-supplements/vitamins-and-supplements/articles/omega-3-supplements
http://www.ehealthme.com/drug_interactions_side_effects/Adderall-XR-25mg-3109001

 

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Pixie Seymour
Natural Living Advocate at Our Golden Life
Pixie is an impassioned woman, empowering others to live a natural, healthy life. When not researching and writing about natural health and healing, she's in her healing herb garden, practicing yoga.

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