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.
