When I feel down, I want to eat. It is a simple equation: when you feel empty inside, you want to fill yourself up. Some people go off their food when they are depressed. I get like that when I am anxious. But when I am feeling down, I develop the appetite of an Italian mamma. It is not unusual for me to put away a whole chocolate cheesecake, a glistening tub of ice cream, a packet of Hobnobs. The sugar makes me feel good. And when I say good, I mean I can stop treading water for an hour and just float, artificially buoyed by E numbers and preservatives and the sheer energy lift of all that sugar.
It wears off, of course, and once my mood has crashed and burned, out rolls the inevitable backlash. The healthy eating, commonsense me wags a disapproving finger at the reckless me that has just stuffed himself with a tub of Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough in a bid to feel OK, good, normal, better than normal. Disgust is the primary feeling at this point - I feel blobby, internally dirty.
Dessert, the champagne of mood foods. Biscuits, the Cuban cigars. Pain au chocolat, a smoochy weekend for two in Montmartre. Who can resist a sweet-toothed fling? The backlash in full swing, I usually announce a dietary U-turn and begin a Major Health Craze. After stopping off at a juice bar for a thimble-sized shot of wheat grass - the only real antidote to a sugar OD - I hit the supermarket and fill my basket with all the so-called "mood foods" I can carry - avocados, bananas, brazil nuts, cashew nuts, cottage cheese. These foods are all rich in tryptophan, a natural chemical that boosts the production of serotonin in the brain.
Since, physiologically speaking, depression is all about a shortage of serotonin, it is not surprising that a depressed brain is always stomping its stroppy little foot until it gets a hit of tryptophan. I treat these grey matter tantrums by eating my patented Spiralling-Into-A-Seriously-Depressed-Nightmare-Of-A-Mood Crisis Dinner which consists of all of the above drizzled in olive oil and topped with chopped herbs. Or by gobbling up my Gloomy Day Crisis Snack: the crack cocaine of natural mood elevators. Somewhere, I read that eating a pulped up mash of raw garlic and ginger helps ease depression, so I drop a few cloves and a knob of ginger into a pestle and mortar and pulverise it.
With much cussing and watering of eyes, I wolf down a few spoonfuls of this cocktail and get an undeniable, natural, organic high - probably because the shock triggers a rush release of endorphins, the body's natural feel-good pain killers. It should be noted that my wife always joins in. You might not want to try this if you are in a new relationship as the effects on the breath can't be described as appealing. But the effects on the brain can. I coast on a green high, goodness shining throughout body and mind.
Unfortunately, even a mood tweaker this healthy loses its lustre and then it is back to the supermarket for another futile somewhere-over-the-rainbow blitz of the dessert aisle. A few weeks ago, an embarrassing sugary mountain of super-fattening, quick-fix foods fluttering their way towards the barcode check, it struck me that I was no better than a tired dog chasing its tail. I mumbled an apology to the check-out operator and fled. Later that day, during a yoga class, I vowed that there would be no more biscuit binges, no more cheesecake sprees. I would stick to a healthy, balanced diet. While settling at a new, lower dose of anti-depressants, I had to do whatever I could to keep the boat steady.
The next night, pausing mid-lentil and nut salad to wash my dose of antidepressants down with a glass of freshly juiced apple and beetroot, I shooed away a pop-up craving for a slice of mood- enhancing tarte tatin because I felt balanced inside - and, for once, that was a nice feeling.
