Nootropics and Vitamins for the Depressed Athlete

Are you sad? Do you feel less sad after a workout or a drink or junk food? Does your sadness keep ebbing and flowing?

Do the following words by Chuck Palahniuk in Fight Club resonate with you:

“I see all this potential and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars, advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of the history man, no purpose or place, we have no Great war, no Great depression, our great war is a spiritual war, our great depression is our lives, we've been all raised by television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won't and we're slowly learning that fact.”

If the answer is yes, and if you’ve not deluded yourself into believing that 100k followers on your Instagram account is success, then congratulations ?!, you’re depressed; like most of the people around you.

Many people take up exercising for extracting its mental health benefits, or they may start exercising for other reasons but end up experiencing the positive mental changes it can induce after a few weeks.

Mostly, people exercise voluntarily, but sometimes if you’re fortunate to meet a good doctor who is not fat and sedentary, and his default mode for alleviating sadness is not anti-depressants, then he may prescribe exercise as step one to enable you to climb out of the misery hole. If you have such a doctor, send him a thank you note, because he saved you from a paralyzing life-long addiction which would have altered your original easily excitable brain into a lobotomized remnant.

An addition to your exercise regimen, and an alternative to some anti-depressants are ‘nootropics’. Both, antidepressants and nootropics, work on the brain and alter your mental state, or alter it for whatever your immediate requirement may be.

Nootropics can be synthetic and natural. An example of a synthetic nootropic, which I’ve taken sometimes for being more productive is Modafinil. Think of Modafinil as a smart-drug which works like turbocharged coffee. Pop one; it’ll wake you up and dismiss the lazy inside you.

A natural, abundant (in Asia), and cheap nootropic to alleviate symptoms of sadness/depression is Bacopa Monnieri. I know that’s a fancy scientific name, but it belongs to a very common herb in India called Brahmi. Brahmi can improve memory, and even significantly reverse the amnesia which is caused from the usage of benzodiazepines (Psychopharmacology (Berl) 2008 Sep;200(1):27-37. Epub 2008 Jan 13). Win-Win!

"Bacopa Monnieri, is an indigenous plant, found throughout India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Florida, Hawaii, and some other southern states of USA. Its description in Indian scriptures dates back to 5000 BC. It has been used in Ayurveda since 500 AD as “Medhya Rasayana” for treatment of anxiety, poor memory, epilepsy, improvement of cognitive processes, comprehension, memory, and recall. Animal studies have shown that it has anxiolytic, cognition enhancing, relaxing, bronchodilatory, antioxidant, anticancer, antidepressant, immunomodulatory, and anti-inflammatory effects" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5075615/).

But do take note that Bacopa Monnieri does not work immediately like a regular anti-depressant pill, and that is why you should ideally take it for at least 8-12 weeks before reaching any conclusions about its efficacy.

As far as dosage in milligrams (mg) is concerned; 500-750 mg of Bacopa Monnieri extract could be the minimum daily dosage, ideally divided into 2/3 smaller doses per day which are taken with food. Bacopa Monnieri does not have a standard dosage since its effects on the brain differs between individuals. The 500-750 mg dosage mentioned above is not exact/standard since manufacturers may have used different parts of the herb during the manufacturing process and therefore the actual compound (bacoside) in the product may differ between brands.

Coming to vitamins now! Magnesium is known to help with mental health. I don’t want to copy paste links here, since if you Google, you can find a lot of information on how Magnesium is extremely beneficial for maintaining our bodily functions (especially the brain) and how modern diet is extremely deficient in Magnesium. But Magnesium Oxide which is commonly sold online at cheap rates is not easily absorbed by the body since its bio-availability is quite low. Therefore, Magnesium Malate/Magnesium Citrate/Magnesium Glycinate are better options since their bio-availability is higher. 

You can receive Magnesium even through food items which are rich in it. A simple food to this end would be oats (especially as breakfast). You can Google to find a whole list of Magnesium rich foods.

There are more vitamins (such as B-Complex and Zinc), herbs (such as Mucuna Pruriens and Withania Somnifera) and natural notropics (such as Rhodiola Rosea) which can be a part of your 'mental health diet', but I don't want to overload this post since Magnesium and Brahmi should alleviate your symptoms and are easily (and cheaply) available in India.

To create an anti-sadness stack (even for non-athletes), combine Brahmi extract tablets/capsules with a Magnesium supplement. Both Magnesium and Brahmi capusles/tablets are abundantly available online. I’m not linking any brands here since, for now, I just want to help and I don’t intend to commercialize/monetize this blog for whatever it’s worth/not worth, and practicing law is quite my gig....for now.

- Aman Yadav