As a therapist, my role is to help you with the mental health portion of your anxiety. Talk therapy is a proven method of addressing your symptoms, your thought patterns, and your behaviors. Still, if you’ve ever looked for tips on addressing anxiety and related mental health conditions, you’ve probably seen people advise you to “eat better.”
It’s odd advice – after all, why would your diet affect your mental health?
In a way, it doesn’t. Or, at least, you’re not going to cure your anxiety because of a different meal, nor is your diet likely to be entirely responsible for your anxiety.
But still, let’s take a moment to talk about why what you eat can still matter, or how food can affect your mental health. Because while there is no replacement for therapy or mental healthcare, most people do not realize how their bodies can affect their mental health.
About the Gut Brain Axis
It starts with the gut/brain axis. You may have heard of the term “Serotonin” before, or other neurotransmitters like GABA. These are messengers in your brain that affect your mood, thought patterns, energy levels, and more.
When you have anxiety, they’re typically not functioning properly. Therapy can create connections in the brain that help regulate these messengers in a beneficial way.
What you may not know, however, is that the *majority* of your serotonin is actually in the gut.
Does this mean that serotonin travels from the gut to the brain?
No. Serotonin in the gut cannot cross the blood brain barrier to reach the brain to improve mood.
But it is likely to mean that there is a link between your gut and the way you feel, and that link may exist at a chemical level. We know that the two can influence each other, and we know that the body uses diet to create serotonin.
The gut brain axis is also why foods that reduce inflammation seem to have a way of improving mood, and that healthy microbiomes (living organisms in your gut) can affect a person’s mental health. It’s not as simple as “more serotonin in the gut means more in the brain), but many links are there.
In addition:
- There is evidence that when the body is stressed, the mind is stressed as well. Bodies are more stressed when a person has a stomach-upsetting diet or lacks nutrients.
- Stomach issues can affect a person’s anxiety levels. People feel less confident when they’re feeling uncomfortable, and stomach issues from diet can affect that.
- Our bodies can signal to each other how a person’s mood should be. A more balanced diet can play a role in sending out more positive signals.
There is no substitute for psychotherapy when a person has an anxiety disorder. It is effective, safe, and long lasting. But advice to “eat better” isn’t entirely off base as a supplementary strategy to help you manage your mental health. When you feel better physically, because you’re giving your body everything it needs, you are improving the likelihood that you feel better mentally and supporting the gut-brain axis by giving your body what it needs to thrive.
For more information about how to treat anxiety, or to get started, please reach out to me today.