The ‘Wild 5’ protocol to treat depression: exercise, diet, sleep, social connectivity & mindfulness
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Over the past decade, pharmacologists have begun recognizing that wellness practices, in addition to pharmaceutical drugs, may be incorporated into the treatment of depression. The Wild 5 protocol is an example of an online-based resource that combines exercise, nutrition, sleep, social connectedness, and mindfulness practices. The program, which allows individuals to track their behavior and receive feedback, is easy to use. Depressed patients may experience improvements after using the program for 30 days. In this clip, Dr. Charles Raison describes the Wild 5 trackable wellness intervention and how it may be incorporated into the treatment of depression.
- Charles: There’s many people that are interested in trying to invoke these sort of, many of them older ways of transformation. So I’ll make a plug for one of my closest colleagues, two of my closest colleagues: Rakesh and Saundra Jain, J-A-I-N. They have developed a program called “The Wild 5,” which is this fascinating online-based resource that basically combines exercise, diet, sleep, social connectivity, and, what an idiot, I can’t think of the fifth one, and I’m involved in all this stuff. Let’s see: diet, exercise, sleep, social connectivity, and meditation.
- Rhonda: Meditation.
- Charles: Yeah, mindfulness. it’s a beautiful program because it’s all, you know, it’s completely sort of user-friendly, and not overwhelming, and doable. It uses a lot of things like tracking your behavior that make people get the kind of feedback. I’ve been involved in this work with them because we do so much medical education together, and we do some research together. And the results are really striking. Man, people do it for 30 days and they feel way, way better. So Rakesh is one of the great psychiatric leaders at the interface of pharma. The guy is very deeply involved in sort of, he’s a pharmacologist like me but, you know, way up there. But over the last 10 years, while not abandoning that, he’s become utterly convinced that that is not the final way forward. That we really need to move into these sort of transformative wellness practices.
- Rhonda: Wow.
- Charles: And so, you know, the king of pharma goes into this and he brings some of that expertise into it, but it’s a classic example. I mean they and I, many of us are now talking about, “Well, how can we develop, you know, various levels of programs that interdigitate these wellness practices?”
- Rhonda: What was the name of the program?
- Charles: “The Wild 5.”
- Rhonda: “The Wild 5?”
- Charles: Yeah.
- Rhonda: Do they give you advice on protocols to follow for diet?
- Charles: Oh, yes. Absolutely.
- Rhonda: Oh, wow.
- Charles: I don’t know, it’s all kind of protocol, manualized. Oh yeah, they’ve published a book, if you just Google “Wild 5,” to get there, yeah, you definitely will find.
- Rhonda: It’s kind of like the, you know, those five things are so incredibly important. I mean, sleep, of course, sleep deprivation, all that’s been shown to be, especially with depression or it caused depression symptoms.
A mood disorder characterized by profound sadness, fatigue, altered sleep and appetite, as well as feelings of guilt or low self-worth. Depression is often accompanied by perturbations in metabolic, hormonal, and immune function. A critical element in the pathophysiology of depression is inflammation. As a result, elevated biomarkers of inflammation, including the proinflammatory cytokines interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha, are commonly observed in depressed people. Although selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and cognitive behavioral therapy typically form the first line of treatment for people who have depression, several non-pharmacological adjunct therapies have demonstrated effectiveness in modulating depressive symptoms, including exercise, dietary modification (especially interventions that capitalize on circadian rhythms), meditation, sauna use, and light therapy, among others.
Important for the endocrine enhancing properties of exercise. Exerkines are exercise-induced hormonal-like factors which mediate the systemic benefits of exercise through autocrine, paracrine, and/or endocrine properties.[1]
(of two or more things) interlock like the fingers of two clasped hands.
The term "mindfulness" is derived from the Pali-term sati which is an essential element of Buddhist practice, including vipassana, satipatthana and anapanasati. It has been popularized in the West by Jon Kabat-zinn with his mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program. Large population-based research studies have indicated that the construct of mindfulness is strongly correlated with well-being and perceived health.
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Depression News
- Exercise improves depression through positive modulation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).
- Association of serum interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein in childhood with depression and psychosis in young adult life. (2014)
- Mouse study suggests that blocking the action of interleukin-6 may reduce symptoms of depression. (2010)
- Mouse study suggests that interleukin-6-releasing immune cells outside the brain influence the propensity to develop depression. (2013)
- Microglial interleukin-6 signaling and prostaglandin synthesis may regulate depressive symptoms in neurological disorders. (2021)
