Nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is the most common effective treatment for sleep apnea. The patient wears a mask over the nose during sleep, and pressure from an air blower forces air through the nasal passages. The air pressure is adjusted so that it is just enough to prevent the throat from collapsing during sleep. The pressure is constant and continuous. Nasal CPAP prevents airway closure while in use, but apnea episodes return when CPAP is stopped or used improperly.

Believe it or not, some patients even resort to surgery for this problem. Surgical procedures are used to increase the size of the airway. Obviously, none of these procedures are completely successful or without risks.

One of the most consistent recommendations for sleep apnea though is to normalize your weight. Reducing grains and sugars as I discuss in my new book, The No-Grain Diet, is one effective way to do that.

While this study found that drug-based antidepressants were helpful for sleep apnea, the implications are clear and obvious that any approach that improves depression will likely help sleep apnea.

It is important to recognize though that non-drug based therapies rarely have the funding and support required to be studied.

So, it’s likely that non-drug-based solutions designed to treat depression will be helpful. Soda, juices, sugar-coated grain cereals, candies, cookies, doughnuts, chips, popcorn, ice cream, pizza and vegetables oils are loaded with trans omega-6 fats along with a deficiency of omega-3 oils. The amazing thing is that so many can actually survive this nutritional assault.

When it comes to documenting the devastation that depression has on us, the material is identical from a natural approach. Depression, or more accurately, un-repaired emotional short-circuiting, absolutely devastates our health and, in my estimation, causes far more profound negative health consequences than all the rotten food, toxins and poisons we expose ourselves to.

Adequate treatment for depression in a traditional model is a nearly universal synonym for drug therapy or ineffective cognitive counseling. Earlier this year another major review clearly showed that there is very little difference between most all antidepressants and a placebo.

Does this mean that antidepressants don’t work? Absolutely not, but in the vast majority of cases a benefit is felt because the person taking the pill believes that the pill will heal their depression. The "science" is quite clear on this.

Similarly, I posted an article earlier this year on the multi-center placebo randomized controlled trial on arthroscopic knee surgery for arthritis. Amazingly, the study showed that the surgery is no better than a placebo, yet 650,000 people in the United States receive this infective surgery each year, at a cost of about $5,000 per procedure. This equates to a total cost of about $3.3 billion every year in the United States.

But that cost and waste is a mere drop in the bucket when it comes to the devastation that results when people’s lives are damaged by the trauma of inadequately treated depression.

Optimizing the diet is clearly an important step, and one of the most important tools will be to make sure you are getting enough omega-3 fats. I have had large numbers of patients spontaneously take themselves off their antidepressants once they started the fish oils.

Dr. Stoll, director of the psychopharmacology research lab at Boston's McLean Hospital and assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, discusses this topic extensively in his book The Omega-3 Connection. I highly recommend this book, which reviews new evidence supporting the use of omega-3 oils for depression.

I also recommend a high-quality source of fish oil. It is necessary to have a quality source to ensure that toxins and other impurities have been removed from the oil. I offer Carlson’s brand fish oil and cod liver oil on this site, as I have found it to be of superior quality.

However, when it comes to the major player here, it is certainly energetic rebalancing techniques, my favorite of which is EFT. You can review my free, 25-page report that discusses how to perform the EFT technique, however, depression is best treated with a trained EFT therapist. To find an EFT therapist near you, you can review Dr. Patricia Carrington’s guidelines.

Exercise will also be another important tool to optimize your recovery.

Related Articles:

Treatment Options for Dealing With Depression

Antidepressants Proven to Work Only Slightly Better Than Placebo

Sugar Pills Work as Well As Antidepressants