Hi everyone!
I just want to take a second to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for the support my original mental illness post received. It makes me so happy to see how many of you are willing to open and publicly breach the topic of mental health, which is key to managing it within our society. At least 20 people reached out to me to ask for advice on how to deal with varying levels of depression, anxiety, panic disorder, etc. While I am certainly not a doctor, I did see enough of them and do enough obsessive research that I feel like I can give some pretty decent recommendations. So, here goes.
1. Take a probiotic.Â
Up until just a few years ago, even doctors and scientists were unaware of the incredibly strong connection between our gut health and our mental health. Our gut produces roughly the same amount of dopamine as our brain, and 95% of our serotonin comes from our bellies – it is even sometimes referred to as The Second Brain. Nerve transmitters from our gut relay signals to our brain which impact our mood, which means our gut health is critical. So what exactly is gut health, then? Within our gut there is a ton of good bacteria and bad bacteria. The good bacteria helps digest food, create cells, and find and fight inflammation and infection. But when we are chronically stressed and take antibiotics or birth control frequently, the good guys are killed off and the bad guys can take over. Taking a probiotic is critical to establishing balance within your gut, as it repopulates your body with the good guys. But you have to take a high quality one, or else the strains will get burnt up in your stomach before they even make it into your gut. My recommendation is the Advanced version of Hyperbiotics, available here on Amazon. (No, I do not get commissions or credit for recommending these products. These are what I use and swear by.) Although I was already taking probiotics, when I switched to Hyperbiotics I noticed a huge difference within two weeks.
2. Drink lots of water.
Chronic dehydration wrecks your system. I know, because I am terrible at drinking water and often get dehydrated. It makes you tired, dizzy, cranky, and gives you headaches. At a time when you need stability and as much energy as possible, why throw an additional variable that you have total control over into the mix? There is no magical number for the amount you need to drink each day, but it is largely known that consistently taking sips every 10 or 15 minutes is better than huge chugs every hour. Also, if you exercise, you need to hydrate extra in order to make up for any water weight you might have lost.
3. Take a high quality magnesium supplement.
Oh Magnesium, how I love thee. Magnesium is a largely unknown and highly underrated supplement, which is shocking since it’s the 4th most plentiful mineral in our bodies. When you think of Magnesium, think of electrolytes, because that is what magnesium is. Some doctors are beginning to refer to it as the mental health mineral because of it’s demonstrated impact on mental health. Similar to our gut bacteria, our bodies’ magnesium supply is chronically depleted due to stress, fatigue, antibiotics, chronic illness which put our bodies under duress, and other medications. Being deficient in magnesium means that nerve transmissions don’t make it through the body as they need to, your liver can’t detoxify properly, and your temperature can’t regulate itself, among many, many others. Basically, just about anything that makes you tense or feel “wound up” can be traced back to Magnesium. Here is a direct quote about the less publicized effects of magnesium deficiency, because the Journal of The American College of Nutrition is way more knowledgeable than I am:
“Similarly, patients with diagnoses of depression, epilepsy, diabetes mellitus, tremor, Parkinsonism, arrhythmias, circulatory disturbances (stroke, cardiac infarction, arteriosclerosis), hypertension, migraine, cluster headache, cramps, neuro-vegetative disorders, abdominal pain, osteoporosis, asthma, stress dependent disorders, tinnitus, ataxia, confusion, preeclampsia, weakness, might also be consequences of the magnesium deficiency syndrome.â€
4. Tweak your diet.
Many times, mental illness can be traced back to inflammation within the body. I won’t go into detail here to avoid butchering it, but it has something to do with cytokines and shit like that which basically turn our bodies against themselves. A LOT of inflammation can be reduced and controlled by tweaking our diet. If you don’t know where to start, try cutting out or manipulating the Big Three: Wheat, Sugar, and Dairy. Wheat is highly inflammatory for a number of people, and casein (the main protein within dairy) is the same. And did you know that for every molecule of sure you consume, your body has to give up 54 molecules of magnesium to process? That can really add up.
I did a blood test called ALCAT to see what types of things my body reacted poorly to and cut all of them out. It’s not 100% accurate, but it gave me a great starting place. Weird (but favorite) foods like onions, pork, and cucumbers came back as moderate reactions which needed to be removed from my diet, and although it was hard to give them up, even just a few weeks later my anxiety was SO much better. I know tests can be expensive and there are plenty of other reasons why people might not want to get bloodwork done, so my recommendation is to chart what you eat every day for a few months and take little notes at the end of the day on how you feel. The goal is to identify a pattern, like maybe eating corn or avocados always makes you feel tired or gives you an upset stomach. Corn and avocado would be contributing to inflammation in your body, and when there is too much of that irritation, your body starts to go a bit haywire.
5. Find something that distracts you.
It is entirely too easy to get so caught up in your problems that you are never able to get away from them, and they are always there just lurking in the back of your mind. To help, find something you enjoy that distracts you. But there is a caveat: choose something that isn’t inherently dangerous or addictive, i.e. not alcohol or drugs. You do not want to become dependent on those things, which will wreak havoc on your internal systems and mental health. For me, I began to watch TV shows. Anyone who knows me from 4+ years ago would tell you that I did not watch TV shows. Movies, yes. Shows, never. They just didn’t interest me as much as things like reading or writing, my schedule was so inconsistent that I couldn’t keep up with them, and I had lots of other things to be doing so I never bothered. When I got sick, I had all the time in the world and was tired of spending it thinking about how miserable I was and worrying about my health. I started watching more TV in an attempt to really relax for a couple hours each day, and it worked. I watched New Girl and Parks and Rec probably three times through, and they have such a fond place in my heart because they really helped me get some mental quiet time. It doesn’t need to be TV. It could be drawing, listening to music, gaming, watching youtube videos about cats…who knows? Whatever it might be, I encourage you to find it.
