Part 2: Food and Mood

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In last week’s blog I shared my personal experience with how food impacts my mood. If you haven’t read part one yet I suggest giving it a quick read, at the very least you will get a good laugh!

 

I touched briefly on how we are a society that has now become obsessed with feeling happy and content, yet now more than ever we are struggling with higher rates of depression, anxiety, and sense of not belonging. 

 

There are many lifestyle factors that contribute to these feelings such as:

  1. Sleep

  2. Stress

  3. Movement

  4. Social Interactions

  5. Job

  6. History of Trauma

  7. Nutrition*

 

Today we are going to focus on how nutrition is impacting our mental health. 

 

There are two large parts to linking nutrition to mental health:

1.     Gut Brain Axis

2.     Blood Sugars

 

Gut Brain Axis

 

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This is mostly a one way communication system that connects our digestive tract to our brain via the Vagus Nerve. The gut breaks down the foods we eat and then based on what you eat the bacteria tells the brain how you feel.

 

If you’re eating a diet high in fiber, vitamins, minerals, healthy fats, and quality protein you’re feeding the “good bacteria” that promote feelings of joy, contentment, and vitality. When you eat foods that feed the “bad bacteria”, refined sugars, processed foods, and sweetened beverages, they send signals associated with depression, anxiety, frustration, and sadness.

 

How is this possible? 

 

First, your gut is responsible for producing 85-95% of the hormone serotonin, most popularly known as the feel good hormone. When you’re not feeding the “good bacteria” it produces less.

 

Second, since the gut is constantly sending signals to the brain, if it is irritated, inflamed, or leaking it will tell your brain that something is wrong. Foods and medications such as refined sugar, processed carbohydrates, low quality dairy products, NSAIDS, and PPI (proton pump inhibitors) are just a few on the common irritants of the digestive tract. 

 

These foods and medications irritate and breakdown the cells lining allowing food and other particles that should be isolated to your gut into your bloodstream. This is called leaky gut and is a HUGE problem because it is the reason for autoimmune conditions such as; Arthritis, Lupus, Celiac, Sjogren’s, Multiple Sclerosis, Alopecia, Vasculitis, and Eczema. When leaky gut occurs all of the sensors in our gut are signaling frantically that something is not right, which results in:

  • Depression, Anxiety, Frustration, Melancholy, etc.

  • Eczema, Rashes, Hair Loss, Hair Overgrowth (ladies w/ chin hair) etc.

  • Achy Joints, Bloating, Gas, Constipation, Diarrhea etc.

 

 

Blood Sugars

 

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People think if they don’t have diabetes they don’t need to worry about their blood sugars, but blood sugars impact EVERYONE not just diabetics.

 

Your blood sugars follow the law of physics, everything has an equal and opposite reaction. When you eat foods that spike your blood sugars to high levels you feel full of energy and often giddy, but as they begin to restabilize they often swing lower than your preferred base line leaving you in the classic mid-afternoon slump. You grab an extra cup of coffee or lean on another carbohydrate snack to raise your blood sugars again.

 

What people don’t realize is that when blood sugars drop it leaves you feeling anxious, tired, frustrated, in a mental fog, and hangry (hunger-angry). This is because your body hates feeling a low blood sugar so it signals frantically for you to eat something that will raise it again, hence feeling hangry and having intense sugar cravings.

 

 

So to bring this all back together the foods your eat impact your mood by impacting the bacteria in your gut and spiking blood sugars. This is wonderful news because you have the power to impact both of these areas every time you eat or drink.

 

I have personally seen how changing my diet to include more whole foods vs processed has:

1.     Decreased my anxiety

2.     Improved relations with loved ones

3.     Gave me emotional security

 

If you find yourself with any of the above mentioned symptoms changing your diet to feed the “good bacteria” is an easy step towards improving your mental health.

 

Want more specifics on how to feed the good bacteria? Schedule a free discovery call today to see how we can begin working together.