Every once in a while a natural product or food supplement comes into the public domain which promises a lot:
- Anxiety Relief
- Cheap
- Drug Free
- Side effect free
- Permanent
Let’s face it, 5-HTP, tryptophan, amino acid complex, kava kava etc didn’t really do it for the most part. That isn’t to say that they don’t have their place and many people have got some kind of good results from them, and from a balanced diet that includes the main sources of them. But the holy grail of anxiety sufferers they ain’t.
Recently there has been a lot of interest in Inositol for the treatment of OCD, anxiety and depression. Sometimes, when substances like this are sold as a cure all, it is hard to believe that they are any other than just hype as a result of poor research. I say this as I have just read that Inositol is sold as a solution to baldness and hair loss. That said, there is some evidence to suggest that Inositol is as good as SSRI anti-depressants in the treatment of mood disorders.
Rather than buy expensive food supplements, I would be inclined to moderate your diet to make sure you are getting sufficient ability for your body to produce Inositol. Good sources of Inositol include wheat germ, brewers yeast. bananas, liver, brown rice, oat flakes, nuts, unrefined molasses, raisins and vegetables.
Inositol worked for me. At a dose of 2 grams per day, it is a major step forward in regaining my health after an 18-year chronic illness. Neither my doctors nor I recognized that my poor sleep quality was really the result of generalized anxiety. The sleep problems were over within a few days of starting inositol.
Since I am a celiac disease survivor, I may never be able to process as much inositol as I need, from food. But I don’t mind taking it, and it isn’t expensive. If you bought it in bulk, it would be dirt cheap.
It’s interesting to note that many multivitamins contain inositol in very small dose, with a note that they don’t know what the daily requirement is. The multi I use has only 10mg inositol per 4 caps – hardly enough for diddly-squat.