You should never live with a writer. I mean, that's not the public health information I was referring to, but it's good advice anyway, because writers get writers' block, and then they become really, utterly intolerable...

It doesn't happen to me very often, but it did last week. Suddenly, my mind went completely blank, and I couldn't formulate a word to say about anything. I stared increasingly desperately at a flashing cursor and blank screen, and decided, "right, that's it. It's all over. The muse has gone and I'll never be able to pen another word ever again. It's all been a fraudulent illusion and my life is now meaningless and worthless" (never let it be said that creative types are in any way prone to exaggeration or hyperbole...).

I've had this thought approximately 8,347 times since I first experienced such a block at the age of 11 (I vividly remember the acute sense of panic in my year 6 classroom, as I stared at that empty journal page, unable to summon up my usual descriptive enthusiasm for detailing my weekend's bike ride or game of Sonic The Hedgehog...).

So it does always dissipate eventually, but on this occasion, I realised something key. I was trying to understand WHY I suddenly couldn't think of anything to say, and WHY I felt so flat and uninspired - after not really experiencing this at all for the last three years, no matter how dire and dystopian etc. the world became - when I realised something:

Like all committed conspiraquacks, I adhere to natural health, and the idea that food/nutrition/supplements are medicine, rather than experimental injections concocted by serial felons in a hurry, and so I routinely rattle around full of various pills and potions (magnesium, B-complex, iron and zinc being my "must-haves").

However, about four years ago, I inadvertently added another substance to this collection, which had a surprisingly powerful effect. I didn't mean to start taking it: what happened was, one evening, I had big night out planned but had to be up early the next day, so wanted to counter any potential hangover symptoms. I ordered an "anti-hangover" remedy from the web that had decent reviews, thinking, "it probably won't do anything much, but it's better than nothing".

So I consumed it, went out that night, and woke up the nest day feeling... fantastic. It wasn't that I had no symptoms of a hangover - I had the usual mild headache and dry mouth - but I just felt really... happy.

This was frankly rather perplexing, since, previously to this and for as long as I could remember, I'd always felt a bit low first thing in the morning, a sensation that ebbed away over the first few hours of being up. I just thought this was "normal" - who isn't cranky first thing, right? - but this morning, the sensation had completely gone. I felt thoroughly great - not cranky or low at all.

I then spent the rest of the day feeling unusually energetic and optimistic, to the extent that it started to become noticeable to others, and Mark commented on it.

"Yes, I don't know why," I said. "But it must be something in that hangover remedy. It's made me feel really good."

Mark looked at the ingredients.

"Oh yeah," he said. "It contains 5-HTP. That'll be what it is?"

"What's that?"

"It's a natural anti-depressant. A seed extract that counters low mood."

"Wow. Well... it's worked."

I immediately ordered a further supply of 5-HTP, and the "low mood in the morning" feeling I'd been having for years, completely disappeared, never to return... until last week, when - I suddenly realised - I'd run out of 5-HTP and hadn't taken any for at least a fortnight. So, I quickly acquired some more, took it, and woke up the next morning with all sensations of "writers' block" completely gone.

This sounds a bit "miracle cure-y", I know, and not everyone is going to be so responsive to it (and a small number of people can experience nausea from taking it - please don't mistake this blog for medical advice, etc etc) (as what this blog says might actually work...), but, having investigated the mechanisms by which it works, it's clear why it works so well for me.

5-HTP (or 5-Hydroxytryptophan, to give it it's full honours) is the precursor to serotonin production, and serotonin, as even "the experts" know, is involved in stabilising mood. The reason we do not all feel constantly bleak and hopeless, even in the face of legitimately bleak and hopeless situations (like reading The Guardian, for instance), is because of serotonin. When a person is in optimal health, with no gastrointestinal or metabolic issues, and following a species-appropriate diet, they produce serotonin by converting it from an amino acid called tryptophan in certain foods. Tryptophan is first converted into 5-HTP, and then into serotonin. However, for many who are compromised in terms of gut function, it seems they do not convert tryptophan into 5-HTP adequately, thus resulting is low serotonin levels. Low serotonin is linked both to gastrointestinal disorders such as IBS (why it has long been common practice to prescribe anti-depressants for IBS) and to low mood (hence why there is a strong link between depression and IBS).

I have IBS and have since my teens (it's mostly under control with diet but flares up from time to time) - which is also when I began experiencing low mood in the morning.

So it seems that I cannot convert tryptophan to 5-HTP in adequate quantities, therefore leading to a serotonin deficit, yet when I supplement with 5-HTP, my serotonin levels go to where they should be. 5-HTP doesn't make you feel "high" or anything like that, it just makes you feel normal and level, and you might not actually fully realise that you didn't feel like that (conflating persistent low mood with being tired or stressed etc), until you take it and experience the difference.

I suspect that the scourge of alleged "depression" sweeping the Western world is, in a very large number of cases, actually a tryptophan-conversion issue, and that, therefore, a fortune in time, money, and emotional energy could be saved, simply by prescribing "depressed" people 5-HTP in the first instance, rather than whacking them straight on brain-mangling pharmaceuticals or sending them for very oversubscribed and expensive talking therapy.

Sure, this won't work for everybody, and those dealing with profound trauma need much more support than a nutritional supplement - but a great deal of depression is not a result of major trauma, and, indeed, many depressed people are not really sure why they are depressed. Of course, there are always bad things going on in the world that we can point to, but not everyone who experiences bad things becomes depressed - certainly not in the long-term. While acute depression is generally related to a trauma - the body responding by depressing, literally pressing down, feelings, because they are too much to handle - chronic depression - that goes on for many years or decades - is more likely to have a biochemical cause, and this is what the evidence shows.

But why are millions of people suddenly having a problem with their biochemistry, tryptophan conversion, and serotonin production, that they didn't have in previous eras? We can answer this by looking at just how mercilessly healthy gut function has been targeted in the West for the past few decades. Everything from the chlorine and aluminium in tap water, to the pesticides and hormones in food, and, of course, the endless injections (vaccines being a known primary cause of IBS and related conditions), has conspired to completely destroy normal, healthy gut function - including the conversion of dietary tryptophan to serotonin, the key neurotransmitter that keeps us feeling buoyant and optimistic.

Needless to say, the ultra-rapacious pharmaceutical industry is never going to admit that a cheap, plentiful plant extract can treat most depression cases more effectively than so-called "anti-depressants", and with - in most cases - no side effects. Anti-depressants are a key weapon in the arsenal of destroying public health for profit, leaching as they do all sorts of key nutrients, further undermining gut function, and causing irreversible changes in the brain akin to a frontal lobotomy.

I think most people - most people reading this site, at any rate - are wise to the complete scam of anti-depressants (which, more recently, even the mainstream has started to admit to), but less widely known is what a crucial role tryptophan conversion plays in combating depression or low mood.

If you're not converting tryptophan adequately, then it doesn't matter how many top-notch therapists you see, how many insightful self-help books you read, how many walks in nature, Ayurvedic retreats, or cleansing organic fasts you undertake - if you don't address the underlying serotonin deficiency, resulting from an impaired ability to convert tryptophan, you won't get optimally better.

This is especially so if you have any kind of digestive abnormality, including:

*IBS

*Acid reflux

*Bloating / distention after eating

*Any kind of IBD (Crohn's, Coeliac Disease etc)

It is widely assumed that many of the above conditions are "normal", but none of them are. We should not experience any kind of discomfort or distention after eating, as these all indicate indigestion - that elements of our food have not been properly digested, and this is indicative of an underlying problem, most often SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) and poor gut motility.

An overlooked consequence of these issues can be enduring low mood, but for a long time, "the experts" got the correlation the wrong way round. For years, gut disorders were seen as being "in the mind" - not that the symptoms weren't real, but that they were a consequence of an emotional disorder (such as depression).

Now we know it is the other way around. It is the disordered, damaged gut that is causing the symptoms of low mood, through the so-called gut brain axis. Hippocrates told us in 4,000 BC that "all disease begins in the gut", and more recently, the father of modern psychiatry, Phillippe Pinel pronounced "the primary seat of insanity is generally in the region of the stomach and the intestines".

(The link between grain consumption, particularly wheat, and poor mental health being very strong.)

The perennial question we must ask when looking at such mammoth public health issues as the creation of a huge groundswell of people with poor gut function and, in many cases, resulting low mood is, is this "cock-up or conspiracy"? Given the site you are on, I don't think the answer is going to surprise you... I think the ubiquity of digestive disorders is a targeted assault on the populace. The social engineers know that the way to destroy the mind is to target the gut, so they have done so, with the end goal being - partly to hook people on lucrative, useless pharmaceuticals - but also, and perhaps even more principally, to dramatically undermine people's ability to deal with challenging situations, corrupt regimes, and to fight back in an effective way.

All throughout human history, populations have had to deal with extraordinary adversity, challenge, tragedy, and loss - and they have been able to deal with it, overcoming hardship with their spirit and strength intact, and going on to forge a better future (look, for instance, at what many of our grandparents had to endure in the world wars - but they endured, and persevered, and triumphed).

The powers that be want to eliminate that. That ability to withstand, to endure, and to bounce back stronger. They instead want you drained, dispirited, with no fight left in you, just wanting to pull the proverbial duvet over your eyes and give up. That's why they've interfered with healthy gut function ("all disease begins in the gut" - they know this), that's why they've pushed grains and wheat as the foundations of a healthy diet, knowing the profound mental health implications of this for many. It's to induce an epidemic of depression that effectively neutralises people. Chronically depressed people lose all hope and the ability to keep fighting - and, if the initial depression didn't have this effect on them, the emotion-decimating, lobotomy-causing anti-depressants certainly will.

So, in these particularly challenging times, that are most certainly designed to distort and degrade our mood, our optimism, and our levels of inspiration to fight back and keep going - and especially if you've got any kind of digestive issues - do get yourself a stock of 5-HTP and see if it works for you.

And seriously - don't ever, ever live with a writer...

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