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Therapeutic Nutrition for Mental Wellbeing
Tuesday 25th April 2023
Nutrition and Mental Health
The satisfaction of life and our mood is everything, it helps us get up in the morning, win the day and have a good night's sleep. This is reliant on key chemicals that are released in the brain to increase excitement, satisfaction, reward, drive and relaxation.
If you haven't checked your nutrition, then you can utilise this as an adjunct to medication or as a preventative.
Key Neurotransmitters for optimal feeling of wellness
- Serotonin regulates sleep, by breaking down into melatonin, and is responsible for appetite, mood and pain. The gut produces 95% of the serotonin through microbiome known as beneficial gut bacteria. Serotonin communicates to the brain via the longest nerve in the body connected from the brain to the gut, known as the Vagus Nerve. This has a bi-directional function, as how we think can impact our levels of serotonin and mood and also gut issues including IBS can signal low mood. Incidentally, low serotonin is linked to constipation.
- Dopamine is essential for reward, drive, pleasure, and concentration and is produced in various parts of the brain including ventral tegmental and hypothalamus. Dopamine and adrenalin are closely related, as Dopamine has to breakdown to adrenalin to be cleared out. Too much dopamine leads to too much stimulation, and this can be shown in being impulsive, competitive, and possibly ADHD. Conversely low dopamine can lead to addictive behaviour. The higher the BMI or a better measurement would be body fat correlates with low dopamine. Food can then become a real addiction to just release a "normal" amount of dopamine for reward. The food manufacturers know this for sure.
- Histamine promotes rapid eye moment sleep, which is essential for health brain development and creativity and controls the wake/sleep cycle.
- GABA is a relaxing neurotransmitter and can influence our feelings of well being and help lower our stress response.
All of these need to be balanced as we do not want to feel too stimulated, excited, stressed, sad or anxious. These neurotransmitters either get broken down by enzymes or put back safely into the neuron where they live.
Vitamins and minerals play a key part in enabling the break down and build up of neurotransmitters and these can be in therapeutic amounts, for a bigger impact.
Abram Hoffer pioneered nutrition and mental health in the 1970s through running trials with high dosages of B6, B3, Zinc and Vitamin C to help modulate neurotransmitters with patients that were bipolar.
Phosphatidyl Choline supplementation helps build acetylcholine which assists in activating on neurotransmitter and has been shown to increase mood.
Essential Fatty Acids are essential for brain health, given the brain is 20% of the dry weight of the brain. Helps to create more potential for neurotransmitters to fire. Especially Omega 3
Book a consultation for Neuro transmitter and Mood Consultation, including neuro transmitter testing, essential fats, vitamins and minerals.
