Fasting - Why I do it, and why you should do it too

Disclaimer - I am not a mental health professional and anything written on this blog may not be taken as Health advice. Anything you decide to do with your life is 100% your resposibility. Actions you take motivated by reading my story do not make me liable for what  you do and the consequesces, I do not know you and your story I am just telling you what I did and what worked for me.

In 2013-2014, I got depressed, really depressed, really really really depressed. I was 16 ~ 17 then and I did not want to live a life of a deprpessed person. 

I tried reading books, I tried to exercise I tried what I could, but I was too young and dumb and depressed to help myself.

My family suffered a lot because of my depression, I was just too erratic and unpredictable for them to help me. I also many times turned against them, after reading and being influenced by the internet and stared to blame them for my depression. 

Over the years this depression continued to make the life of people close to me and my life a hell on earth. 

I had small episodes or chapters of happiness and felt like I had conqured depression only to fail again and be swollowed by the deamons again.

I had started to lose hope. 

Then in 2017, at the age of 19, I flew out of India and came to New Zealand, I was very lucky to be able to do this and am really thankful to my family for it because it was because of them I was able to come to New Zealand and study for 3 years here.

New Zealand felt more like home to me than India. I could not feel at ease in India but in New Zealand I was much happier and felt a bit more independent.

However my depression did not stay behind, it tagged along with me.

But in general I was happier and less depressed than I was in India.

After 2 years of college, and living in Auckalnd I made an effort to find a friend and perhaps a girlfriend. My former years were not like my peers who seemed to have an easy time making friends and being in social situations. I looked up resources online on how to make friends and in perticular how to make femal friends, and found mountains of information on the subject. With all this knowledge at hand I was compelled to go out and apply it. 

This  was not easy, yet I tried - I got into the habit of approaching strangers and talking to them. I would go to one of the busy streets in my city every day after work and approach and talk to pedestrains.

It was really scary at first and some days I came home having talked to no one but after some time it became fun and because I was doing it regularly I could learn and improvise on what to do.

This was one of the happiest times of my life.

I talked to so many people and had fun conversations with them, and finally talked to a gril who is now my girlfriend, :) 

I had accomplished my goal I had concured my social anxiety, and gained social skills that I lacked and did not learn growing up.

For the next 2 years my girlfriend and I lived together and had lots of fun times, we fought but we learnt about each other and from each other. During this time my depression was nowhere near as bad as it was in 2014- 2017. I also stoped taking the depression pills I was talking unwillingly.

My depression though not as bad as before still was a bit of a problem. It would destroy what I would build, It would create self doubt, it would make me really unproductive at times and make it difficult for me to function normally in my life.

All this changed one day when I read somewhere that fasting could bring mental clarity.

I had noting to lose, so I tried it, and by this time I had read a lot of non-fiction self help books to know that intermittent fasting bullshit was not going to be enough for me to test this fasting thing so I did not plan on bullshitting myself with trying intermittent fasting because maybe I was already intermittent fasting by eating when I wanted and being depressed  for 4-5hrs a day and sleeping for 12hr that day.

So I decided to do a real fast. A real fast is at least 22 hours for me - in this 22 hrs you do not eat anything nothing. NOT even water.

I faild the first time I tried to do it, I could only do a 4 hr fast and then I ate something small 

But I was not going to give up so easily, I tried again and this time I did a 12 hr fast starting as soon as I ate after the previous fast. Mind you, I started counting the first fast after waking up.

this was the first time in my life that I had consciously fasted for 12 hours straight - No Food No water - nothing going in through my mouth.

I ate something small and decided to fast again the next day after sleeping.

And then it happened - I felt alert, I felt calm and I was not hungry, I was full of energy and I was present.

The thoughts of depression and suicide were 100% absent. It was nothing miraculous but it was awesome, I basically felt ok and content, and I did not feel tired, I felt full of potential. 

That is when I decided to make fasting a thing in my life. 

Yes my friend, fasting - the act of not eating like a normal person eats. It provided me long term relief from my depression.

Today my depression is not a problem to me anymore or atleast it has not been one for 4 months.

I have been fasting for 22 hrs everyday for about a week every last week of the month for the last 4 months.

Every time I fast like this I feel more alert and able to accomplish my goals. 

And this is why I fast now, I do not plan on stopping antime soon. I do not see any downsides to fasting and on the contrary it makes senses to me to fast.

It makes sense to me that our bodies that were adapted to living in the forest, for more than 400 thousand years, where you might not find edible food for some days in a row, might have adapted to best function in that way.

Add to that all the unnatural food like stuff we have available in abundance in grocery stores and as many indredients to us now. No wonder why so many of us are depressed.

So I emplore you, if you havent tried fasting, and are having mental issues like brain fog - try it. 

But do your own research first and check the pros and cons of fasting before you do it.

Also see how to avoid the cons of fasting before you start the fast. 

you can check this link here on my list of pros and cons of fasting

and for more resources on fasting - I recomend Cole Robinson's stuff on youtube

Hope you have an amazing life free of mental health problems and full of energy :)

;)