How NUTRITION Helps You Heal [Essential 8 Series]

Essential 8 Series (Part 6)

Today we’re chatting about nutrition and its impact on mental health, specifically anxiety, depression. Treat today’s episode sort of like you and I were casually chatting and I said, “Hey, did you know…”

• "Did you know that blood sugar regulation (or lack there of) has been linked to anxiety and depression?"
• "Did you know your gut is often referred to as your “second brain” and that research shows that emotions play out in your gut and gut issues can create mental health symptoms?"
• "Did you know that the quality and quantity of food we eat matter?  If you’re under-eating or under-nourishing yourself then you’re likely nutrient deficient and those deficiencies stress out the nervous system contributing to living in survival mode?"

To which, you’d look at me with awe and wonder and reply, “OMG Amanda, I didn’t know that - tell me more?”

Wonderful, that’s the conversation we’re having here - let’s chat through blood sugar, mind-gut connection, and nutrients needs that can impact your mental health.

3 Takeaways:

1. Your gut is your second brain. Gut flora impacts your mood, digestion, immunity, and how safe your system feels.
2. Blood sugar impacts your mental state. Spikes and crashes can lead to panic, fatigue, or depressive dips.
3. Deficiencies matter. When your body is undernourished, your nervous system stays in survival mode. Balanced meals help build resilience.

CLICK HERE for the full show notes, resources, and 3 tangible takeaways! *Nutrition workbook download can be found in the show notes

—

Looking for more personalized support?

•  1:1 Coaching (RESTORE):  Learn more or book a free discovery call (HSA/FSA eligible & includes comprehensive bloodwork)
• Regulated Living Membership:  A mental health membership and nervous system healing space (sliding scale pricing available). Join here.
• Order my book: Healing Through the Vagus Nerve

*Want me to talk about something specific on the podcast? Let me know HERE.

—

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Website: https://www.regulatedliving.com/podcast

Email: amanda@regulatedliving.com

Instagram: @amandaontherise

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@amandaontherise

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Welcome to regulate and rewire an anxiety and depression podcast where we discuss the things I wish someone would have taught me earlier in my healing journey. I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong, and I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences, and tangible research based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind, and reclaim your life.

Thanks for being here. Now let's dive in.

Hey, friend, welcome back. Today we're going to chat about nutrition and its impact on mental health. Specifically because this is an anxiety and depression podcast, specifically on how nutrition can impact symptoms that we label as anxiety or depression. And we're going to walk through a lot of some basic mind body physiology pieces. And just a reminder in case you're tuning in for the first or one of the first times, today's conversation is part six of an eight part series that's called the essential eight series. With each of these episodes, I am diving into different research supported habits that heal. These are all key pillars and components to more regulated living that we at rises. We, which is my mental health coaching practice, support our clients with every single day.

Now, before we jump into a conversation on nutrition, I want to just get really clear on a few things. Number one is that talking about food and nutrition can be really triggering. There's a lot of really toxic messaging out there, diet, culture. And I want to acknowledge that I know each of you listening has a very different relationship with food, different history around food, different preferences towards food. So just acknowledging that, number one, this is a really personal and nuanced topic. And within that, the fact remains that there is mountains and mountains of research informing us about some key ways that food and nutrition play a role in potentially exasperating or supporting our healing when it comes to our mental health. And if you don't, you don't know what you don't know. So if you don't know some of the ways that blood sugar or gut health or nutrient deficiencies may be exasperating symptoms of anxiety and depression, well, then you don't have that information to help you put some of the pieces together in your healing journey.

And so there is going to be an element of just, hey, hey, did you know, have you considered, does this help you put some pieces together with your symptoms with today's conversation? Also, in talking about food and nutritionally dense food and high quality food, I also want to note that I am not tone deaf to accessibility points around food, grocery store prices increasing, cost of living increasing. And so acknowledging that, and even still, I think it's important that you're taught the basics around food science and our physiology and the context that foods can play a role in mental health symptoms. So just also acknowledging that caveat that I understand that all of you listening are in different places in life. And not only do conversations around food and accessibility have to do with income and money, but also time. Because I have been in seasons of my life where maybe the financial resources were there to feed myself a certain way, but the energetic capacity wasn't. There have been seasons of deep grief where eating anything at all was a big victory. I was not even for a second considering whether what I was eating was spiking my blood sugar or whether it was good for my gut health. I was in a place where my capacity was so low that eating anything at all was a victory.

So, again, contextualizing this conversation to I want to present you with some research, some information, and it is your job to personalize and filter what serves you. And I think the last big kind of caveat and disclaimer to this conversation is simply a reminder, is simply a reminder that I am not a registered dietitian. I am not a nutritionist. I don't, in fact, have any formal or professional education in the world of food science or nutrition of any kind. What I am good at, what I am really good at is looking at complex research, its jargon, and regurgitating it into human speak. And that's what I plan to do today. Another thing I'm really good at is talking to a lot of other mental, physical health professionals, taking that information and putting it and piecing it together. So do not take anything that I offer here as gospel.

I am simply gonna share with you what I've interpreted a lot of data and science and professional conversations to mean. And I invite you to figure out how this applies to you personally, based on your specific nutritional preferences or needs. So, for this conversation, I wanna invite you to put on that detective hat, to really put on your coat of curiosity and just reflect on how the foods that you're eating might play a role in mental health for you. I really want you to treat today's episode kind of like you and I are just having a casual conversation. We're chatting, and I look to you and I say, like, hey, hey, friend. Did you know that blood sugar regulation, or a lack thereof, has been linked to anxiety, depression, hormone imbalances? Did you know that your gut is often referred to as your second brain? And that research shows that our emotions play out in our gut and that gut issues can exasperate or even cause symptoms of anxiety or depression. Did you know that the quality and quantity of the food that we eat matters? That if you're under eating or undernourishing yourself, then that nutrient deficiency also reads as threat and adds stress to our nervous system, can keep us living in states of fight, flight, or shutdown. And when I ask you those questions, you might look at me in awe and wonder and reply, oh my gosh, Amanda, I didn't know.

Tell me more. So that's what this conversation is about. It is the tell me more and we're going to chat through blood sugar, mind, gut connection and different nutrients as the primary topics of this conversation. And with each of these topics, I am going to review some of what the research tells us and then I want to turn towards more practical application. Each of these conversations we've had, my goal primarily is to empower you, number one, to better understand aspects of your physiology and how it impacts your psychology, but then to invite you into the practical application of how can I take what I now know and do something different in my life in a helpful way? Take a step towards more regulated living. Because I also think today's conversation might hold a couple aha. Moments that can help you piece together some of your seemingly unrelated symptoms, especially in regards to digestive issues and mental health issues, and to reflect on the fact that maybe your anxiety symptoms are due to childhood trauma. But it also might be, or at the very least, these symptoms may be, exasperated by skipping breakfast, over caffeinating, grabbing a granola bar, and sending yourself on this blood sugar roller coaster throughout the rest of the day.

And that can be really insightful and impactful information. And some very, very small lifestyle shifts around food have been really impactful at measurably, reducing certain anxiety and depression symptoms for the clients that we work with. And in order to give context for this greater conversation around nutrition, I want to offer just a quick, I don't know, three or four minute lesson on basic nutrition concepts. Because I didn't come from a home where these concepts were taught. I left my home at 18, not knowing much about food and how different foods impacted my body. I grew up in a typical nineties home where I think maybe my mom actually thought that fruit by the foots were healthy because they had fruit in them, and I would slam four of those without even thinking about it. And I don't even, I don't want to imagine the blood sugar spike that that caused, but I walked away from the home that I grew up in just not knowing much about how to nourish myself well. And in the last, you know, few decades since, I've had to learn how to nourish myself through also different seasons of my life.

I was a really competitive athlete for a long time. I have been pregnant, I've been depleted postpartum, I've been living more sedentary lifestyles, more active lifestyles, and also explored whether certain nutrient deficiencies or gut health issues after antibiotic use were increasing anxiety symptoms. So when it comes to just some basic things to know about food, food is made up of what we call macronutrients and micronutrients. So macronutrients are these nutrients that our body needs in large amounts to provide energy and support for our bodily functions. And the three main macronutrients that we talk about most often are carbohydrates, proteins and fat. And sometimes we'll also talk about fiber in kind of its own necessary category here as well. But when, when I say the word macros or macronutrients, I'm talking about carbs, protein and fat. And I want to be clear that our body needs all three of these macronutrients.

So unless you have a specific medical need that makes one of these more or less helpful for you, I'm going to go ahead and say that any diet promoting being overly free or excessively consuming one of these macronutrients is typically problematic. And to give you a little bit more information, I want to break these down to talk about the function of this macronutrient and its common sources. So carbohydrates are here to primarily be a source of energy for the body, for our brain, for our body. During physical activity, carbohydrates turn into glucose, which is energy. So if you ask my son, like, why do we need carbs? He'll say, fast energy. Carbs, fast energy and sources. Common sources of carbohydrates are fruits, vegetables, grains, like rice, wheat, oats, legumes. We're all fairly familiar, I think, with sources of carbohydrates.

Then we have protein. And the primary function of protein is that proteins are essential for building and repairing tissues, making enzymes and hormones, and supporting our immune function. Again, if you ask my four year old, like, why do we need protein? It makes my muscles big and strong. And the most plentiful sources for protein are things like meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy products, legumes. There are also other plant based options for protein. And then we have fats. And the primary function of fats are to provide a concentrated source of energy. They support cell growth, they protect our organs, and they also help us absorb what are called fat soluble vitamins.

So those would be vitamins are part of the micronutrients. So things like vitamin A, D, E and K, we need to have fat sources in our diet to absorb those vitamins from other foods. If you ask my four year old, like, what is fat? It's slow energy. So we need our fast energy, our muscle builders, and our slow energy. And for a four year old, that's what he needs to understand about macronutrients, but just that our body needs all of them to thrive. And sources of healthy fat options are oils, things like olive oil, avocado oil, avocados themselves, butter, nuts, seeds, fatty fish. And then we have this other category of nutrients, which are called micronutrients. So this includes vitamins and minerals that our body needs for proper functioning.

There is plentiful research out there linking things like low vitamin D levels, low vitamin B levels, you know, decreases in magnesium, with increased symptoms of anxiety or depression. And I would love to do a whole future conversation around the importance of certain vitamins and micronutrients and ways that we can supplement that through different vitamin and mineral supplements to support mental health. But for today's conversation, I just want to illustrate the role that a particular micronutrient deficiency can play in nervous system dysregulation, in symptoms of anxiety and depression. And I'm borrowing this from Doctor Ashley Delluna, who is a licensed naturopathic doctor, and she hosts her own podcast, drop it like it's Doc. And I've learned a number of things from her on her podcast. And in one of those recent episodes, she's talking about how if she was anxious, if she was somebody struggling with anxiety, she would really want to know if she had low iron. Because what is helping your cells hold oxygen is iron, as well as some b vitamins. But she's talking about how iron is what's helping your cells hold oxygen.

And that oxygen is going to your brain. And if your brain doesn't think that it has enough oxygen, that's really stressful. And if you want to test that out, just hold your breath for a minute and see if your brain freaks out, because it probably will. And so if you are somebody who does not eat red meat, if you are plant based, if you have really heavy periods, if you are iron deficient for any reason, your brain is perceiving that there is an issue, at least in some way, a low grade issue. All of the time causing your anxiety. And so adjusting your iron levels could be really, really life changing. And so this is just one example of what I mean often when I say that our practice takes a physiology first approach, I know that perfectly dialing in your macro and micronutrients may not be the cure all for your anxiety or depression. But if you are deficient, excessively deficient in certain vitamins or minerals, that is going to read as threat.

Remember that your nervous system is constantly scanning outside, inside and in between, and saying, am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? Is the world outside of me safe? Am I safe in my relationships? But it's also looking inward. Am I safe inside? Do I have the macro and the micronutrients that I need to perform functions? Or am I really deficient here or there? Am I not able to effectively carry oxygen on the cells to my brain? That is going to be stressful. And there's no amount of talk therapy in the world that is going to cure anxiety symptoms caused by some nutrient deficiencies. And so having proper support in blood testing or looking into this can be really, really helpful if you feel like you're hitting a dead end in trying to take a more cognitive or medication based approach to managing your symptoms. And I'll talk a little bit later in this conversation around a program that we're developing inside my practice to meet this need. Because far, far too often, we have encouraged some of our clients to go get some of this testing done from their normal family practitioner doctor, and they are told no. And that, just for me, is unacceptable. To have certain nutrient levels or hormone imbalances that research shows correlate with mental health.

And these doctors would rather just write a prescription than offer this testing. And I know it's nuanced and it's personal, and sometimes one can be right over another. But I also don't think that people should be told no at getting more personal health data. So I'll talk about how we're going to provide a small solution to that in a little bit. But let's step into just a really quick recap before we dive into some of these more specific conversations. So, overall, nutrition plays a critical role in the regulation and functioning of our nervous system. Food is the foundation to our cell health and the fuel to our brain and body's functioning. Stress load on our nervous system increases when you are calorically or nutritionally depleted, when you are consuming too many inflammatory or over processed foods, when you have major blood sugar spikes or dips.

This all can negatively impact our gut health, which plays a major role in our mental and immune health, which we'll talk more about in a minute. And there is a clearly established bi directional connection via the vagus nerve from our brain and our gut. So let's start there. Let's start by talking about our mind gut connection, what it is, and why it matters. Because when we talk about how foods can significantly impact our mental health, a major part of that conversation needs to be put here with understanding the mind gut connection. Because up to 80% of your immune system is in your gut. 90% of the serotonin in your body is made up in the gut lining, not the brain. 50% of your dopamine is made in the gut lining.

Again, not your brain. There's a major correlation between mental health diagnoses and gut dysfunction. So what is the mind gut connection? And to answer this question, I want to jump and read to you a little excerpt from a Harvard Health article that reads, there is an anatomical and physiological two way communication between the gut and the brain via the vagus nerve. The gut brain access offers us a greater understanding of the connection between diet and disease, including anxiety and depression. Now, let's take a minute and maybe pull back from some of that medical jargon. And I want you to take a quick minute to think about if or when you've ever heard these phrases to describe feelings like, I just had a gut instinct. I had butterflies in my stomach. When I was nervous, I had this gut wrenching experience.

And we know that terminology like this has been around since we have record of human speaking. There are early philosophers who refer to the gut as a second brain. And modern research shows us that emotions that we feel in our mind, in our body, play out in our gut. And when I am talking about your gut, I'm mostly referring to your intestines. But your gut could also include your stomach, the intestines, colon. But what can be helpful to know is that inside your intestines, you have something called your gut flora. And essentially, this is healthy bacteria colonies that we need for those things that we just talked about, your immune system, serotonin production, dopamine, that all happens there. Food digestion, proper excretion of those, especially those micronutrients, from the food that you are eating.

And your gut plays a huge role not only in your digestion, but also in a lot of different functions for your overall wellbeing. So, referencing back that Harvard health article, our brain and our gut are talking to each other all day long via the vagus nerve. And this is another place where all of these essential eight concepts all work together for your benefit. Because when you improve vagal tone, this communication highway becomes more efficient and more accurate. And what we see is that when people have a lot of distressing thoughts, thoughts, so they're feeling a lot of distress in their mind. When they have a lot of these big emotions, it sends a signal of stress to your gut, and it disrupts your digestive function. So when you are experiencing a lot of stress in your mind, your vagus nerve says, ooh, activate your fight or flight. This changes the way that your digestion works.

It changes the way that you're absorbing different nutrient levels. It also could be helpful to note that there are certain antidepressants, specifically SSRI's or snris. And so what studies are showing is that these medications can reduce the diversity of gut bacteria, and this can be helpful information. What I'm not saying is don't take SSRI's ever because it's going to mess with your gut health. I'm saying, hey, be really deliberate, be really intentional. Make an informed decision before you get on SSRI's, because it can also have negative implications for your gut flora, which can exasperate mental health symptoms. And so if you're still going to make that choice, know that this might be a side effect of that. And can you take extra consideration, extra care, extra steps to promote healthy gut flora in spite of taking these medications to the best of your ability, can you balance out that equation better? That is what true and informed consent is.

That is what navigating your health with agency looks like, is when you have all of these pieces and this information. And so I feel like this is becoming more well known, this mind gut connection topic. But I'm still shocked how many clients we work with who have never been told that their IB's or digestive issues and their anxiety are likely linked. And because I do really want to talk about other things, I'm not going to go down too much of the rabbit hole anymore on mind gut connection. We will likely have a future full episode talking more about this, because there are so many wonderful things to understand about this mind gut connection. But what I want you to know and take away from this right now, for the sake of today's conversation, I just want to put it on your radar that your gut and your mental health are highly correlated. And when you are spending a ton of time in a fight or flight response, it's going to mess up your digestive system. When we're in a sympathetic activated state, or even that dorsal vagal shutdown state.

Our digestive system operates differently. And it's because the proper breakdown or the perfect ideal breakdown of your food isn't necessary when you're truly needing to fight or flee, or when your system needs to just shut down from overwhelm. And if you are somebody who has a lot of food sensitivities or intolerances, if you have IB's or regularly struggle with things like diarrhea or constipation or bloating, then this may be something that you want to take a deeper look into. And when it comes to optimizing mind gut connection, eating mostly healthy, most of the time consuming probiotics or fermented foods can really promote a healthy gut flora, avoiding antibiotic use whenever possible because that also decimates your gut flora. Mindful eating, stress management, regular physical activity, all of these things that are also wrapped into so many other parts of this essential eight series are helpful. And if your digestive issues are extreme, what does it look like to find a functional medicine practitioner who is going to help you assess the current state of your gut flora and really work with you to heal your gut as a way of also helping to heal anxiety or depression? Let's now move this conversation to chat through blood sugar regulation and to answer the question like what does the research have to say about the impact of blood sugar regulation on anxiety or depression symptoms? What is blood sugar? What does it mean to be regulated or unregulated? And I think when we talk about blood sugar, it's really common to think about diabetes. But every human, diabetic or not, should understand blood sugar regulation and its implications for mental health. Because how many of you listening, and let's be honest in the way that we reflect this, this is a judgment free space.

How many of you listening skipped breakfast this morning? And worse yet, how many of you skipped breakfast or have ever tried to make the argument that coffee was breakfast? I once had a client try to make a case that because they mixed collagen protein powder into their coffee, that that counted as breakfast. And that was a hard no from me. But here's a mini lesson, an introduction to blood sugar. Things that can cause our blood sugar to spike are carbohydrate rich meals or snacks. So breads, pasta, fruit, sugary snacks, soda, all of these can cause a really rapid increase in our blood sugar levels, especially if they are consumed on their own. And more on that in a minute. And I want to be really clear, I'm not saying don't eat these foods. I'm not saying these foods are bad.

I am simply saying it could be really helpful to balance them out with some of those other macronutrients. Again, more on that in a minute. And to illustrate just how impactful blood sugar regulation is on our mental health, specifically anxiety and depression, I want to share with you some findings from the research, because it is really well documented in research that diabetic individuals, again, diabetic individuals, simply representing a population that has uncontrolled blood sugars, typically illustrated by these frequent bouts of hyperglycemia or high blood sugar levels, and then oftentimes drop offs in blood sugar. These individuals are twice as likely to have depression as individuals without diabetes. Approximately 25% of diabetics are diagnosed with depression, and nearly 20% experience anxiety. Other research shows us that uncontrolled blood sugar has been shown to increase risks of mood disorders in both diabetic and non diabetic populations. A 2017 study showed a positive association between increased sugar consumption and common mental health disorders, things like anxiety or depression, in otherwise healthy populations. We also see that dips in our blood glucose, or what's called hypoglycemic events, can trigger feelings of anxiety or other mood disruptions.

And so when we're talking about blood sugar regulation, we're not just talking about spikes in blood sugar. We're also talking about drops in blood sugar. And what can cause drops in our blood sugar levels are things like skipping meals or fasting, intense physical activity without food, consuming alcohol, especially on an empty stomach, because this can interfere with your liver's ability to release glucose into the bloodstream. And the biggest culprit here is when we experience sharp spikes and then quick drop offs. And that's what I want to talk a little bit more about, because this is the blood sugar roller coaster that I rode for many years. Unknowingly, that our clients are writing unknowingly, that I think many of you may be writing unknowingly, that could be exasperating some of your mental health symptoms. So what's helpful to know here is that where there is a quick spike in blood sugar often follows a quick drop off of blood sugar. And when we experience that quick drop off, that is when we can experience an onset of quick, panicky anxiety, fatigue.

It's when we may feel hungry, even though we just recently ate. So picture this. There's a person, this person skips breakfast mid morning. They grab a granola bar or a bagel. Then at lunch, they eat a sandwich and have a soda. About mid afternoon, they grab a banana for a snack. A few hours later, they have pasta for dinner. Now, you may be thinking, Amanda, what's the big deal? Like, this is me on an everyday basis.

Quick breakfast, sandwich, soda, banana for a snack, pasta for dinner. There's nothing glaring about this. If you don't understand blood sugar and blood sugar regulation and how it works, when this person woke up, their blood sugar was likely low. A granola bar or a bagel. Or think about any easy breakfast foods. Pancakes, waffles, cereal. These are all usually carb heavy breakfasts. And, and carbohydrates are sometimes almost the only macro, or at least the very major macronutrient offered in those food groups.

So when you grab a granola bar or a bagel or even just a bowl of oats, which is marketed as a really healthy breakfast option, but it spikes your blood sugar a ton. This leads to, I'm going from really low because I woke up and I've been fasting all night while I was sleeping. I'm quickly going to spike my blood sugar, which is also going to lead to a quick drop off, and then I'm going to eat a sandwich, which, especially if there's a lot of meat in that sandwich, that could be pretty blood sugar neutral. There's carbohydrates from the bread, there's protein from the meat. There's probably some fats in some of the condiments or cheese that's on the sandwich. But then you also have a soda, which maybe leads to, to that spike. And then there's the snack. A banana, while healthy, right? That's fruit.

There's a lot of vitamins and things that we need in that. When you have snack options that are still exclusively a carbohydrate, it spikes your blood sugar, leading to another quick drop off. And then if you have dinner, that's a lot of bread or pasta or potatoes. We're spiking our blood sugar with that big carbohydrate heavy meal again, and it's going to drop off before we go to sleep. So if you are somebody who feels exhausted by 02:00 p.m. You struggle to focus in the afternoon at work, maybe it's because you're not sleeping enough. Maybe it's because your general stress load is too high. It also could be because you've been riding this blood sugar roller coaster of peaks and drops off, peaks and drop offs all day long.

And so what I want to offer you now is how this could look instead, because that's what I want you to take away from these conversations is like, okay, Amanda, if you identified with that person, what, what could this look like instead? And here is what I prioritize personally and what we often support our clients in doing as well nutritionally is to think about in any given day, three balanced meals and two or so balanced snacks. And so what do I mean by balanced? That means that rarely, if ever, is it a carbohydrate only or carbohydrate predominant meal. So what this could look like is if you're going to grab an apple for a snack, amazing. Can you also eat a cheese stick or some deli meat with that? Because we want that, that carbohydrate is great. We want that energy. But to balance out that, the macronutrients that are pretty blood sugar stabilizing are fats and protein. So anytime you're having a carbohydrate, can you also have another food group that qualifies as a fat or a protein just to keep you at a more blood sugar neutral place? Now, cottage cheese is a really great snack. And I know, I know those of you listening, you either love it or you hate it.

But for the sake of giving you some snack ideas, a snack that I'm really into right now are those like thin pretzels and then using those to dip into cottage cheese. Love it. But when you are going to eat, whether it's a meal or whether it's a snack, can you say, okay, if there's a carb, if I'm grabbing fruit, if I'm grabbing chips, if I'm grabbing a piece of toast, can I also check a couple of the other macronutrient boxes? Protein and fat, or at least protein or fat to pair with that carbohydrate is going to help you stay more blood sugar neutral. Another shift that has made a huge difference for many of our clients is prioritizing a high protein breakfast. Especially our clients who had a habit of skipping breakfast. And so what this can look like is eggs, greek yogurt. The doctor I'm currently working with, she often promotes having dinner for breakfast. And what does it look like to make your breakfast plate look like dinner plate? We don't have to subscribe to traditional breakfast foods that are almost always really carbohydrate heavy.

So maybe taking a moment to pause and think, like, what would it look like for me to prioritize a new way of doing breakfast? So really what I want you to take away from this part of the conversation is that blood sugar regulation matters. And to be curious about whether it might be playing a role in some of your anxiety or depression symptoms. Are you noticing in the afternoon, or could a blood sugar drop off be the reason for this, like unexplained, mysterious, panicky anxiety you get in the afternoons? I don't know. But what we do know is that blood sugar fluctuations significantly impact mental health. Sugar crashes lead to irritability, fatigue, even panic attacks. Choosing balanced meals and snacks with protein, healthy fats and carbs helps to stabilize our blood sugar. And when possible, can you limit excessive consumption of really sugary drinks, highly processed foods that cause these rapid spikes and crashes with our blood sugar levels? And the heart that's really fueling this conversation, at least for me today, is that I can't tell you how often we talk to people in our practice who say something like, I've never considered the role that my breakfast was playing in my anxiety. And my reply to that is always like, of course you didn't, because mainstream support options aren't asking these questions.

We've had certain clients notice considerable decreases in anxiety or depression symptoms by simply changing their breakfast habits, snacking in a more balanced way, working on improving their gut health by introducing a probiotic or fermented foods by decreasing inflammatory foods. We have other clients who have pressed their doctors and gotten these micronutrient levels tested to discover that they were wildly low in iron or vitamin D or B, and when they supplemented appropriately, they saw a considerable decrease in their symptoms. And I know I say this often, I think I've even said it in this conversation already today. But I know for many, even most of you, meeting your macro or micronutrient needs, it's not going to be a cure all for your anxiety depression. But it does deserve some consideration if you are deficient in some way. If you are under consuming in helpful ways, or over consuming in unhelpful ways, then you should expect symptoms. Research makes it really, really clear that mental health symptoms fall on those expected symptoms lists, and I wish comprehensive physiological assessments were more routine in anxiety and depression treatment and management. I wish, before anyone was put on meds, that these conversations were had, that these tests were run.

I also have context and understanding for why that's not always the case. But I am doing my small part in the ways that I know how by offering this education to you here on this podcast, for free, to put these considerations on your radar. And like I mentioned earlier, by developing a program for my mental health practice that does run our clients through this process. And I want to offer just a quick behind the scenes about what we're working on, because I think it's really exciting, I think it's innovative, and we know it's something that people want because they keep asking us for it. And so right now, in my practice, there are two ways to work with us. The first is a monthly mental health membership, and then we also have our one on one anxiety and depression coaching program. But this other program that we're developing is a program that I feel really, really fills the gap that I see in mainstream mental health support, which is an easy and streamlined way to make sense of your symptoms by assessing your physiology first. And we're going to support clients in doing this through personalized blood work and a detailed lifestyle audit.

Because I cannot tell you how many times, again, one of our clients has requested this lab work and been told no by their general doctors. And so this is our way of taking matters into our own hands. And I am co developing this program with a friend of mine who is a nurse practitioner, also specializes in hormone health. She's a certified health coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. And we will also be consulting a number of other practitioners who specialize in these things to serve anybody who's looking to take a more whole human approach to healing. And we're developing this program because, again, reiterating, there's no amount of talk therapy that can alleviate anxiety symptoms that stem from a lack of sleep or a hormone imbalance. There's no pill that can heal depression that originates from adrenal fatigue or a nutrient deficiency. And too often, doctors prescribe medications without running thorough blood tests.

And therapists focus on shrank before considering underlying health or lifestyle concerns. And our hope with this program, too, is that this empowers other clinicians, especially this empowers other therapists. One of the things that many, many of my therapist friends have expressed frustration with is that there is a lack of any education around the physiological contributors to the symptoms that clients seek them out for. And so what we're hoping is that this program can become the physiology arm to the work that so many of you incredible therapists are doing in the psychology world. If you're working with clients and there just seems to be some sticky symptoms and you are talking through and navigating some of the same things, and it comes up, hey, maybe there's a gut issue, or hey, have you had your micronutrient levels tested? Have you had blood work done, comprehensive blood work done recently what are the different lifestyle habits? I'm not asking you to go get more education. Your client in your caseload is already probably too heavy. But can you have a go to place to say, hey, I know this program that helps you look at the physiological contributors, that helps you really pop the hood to see what's going on on the inside. That could be adding stress load to your nervous system, that could be contributing to, and by working on that physiology piece, that creates more capacity in their system to do the deeper work, that you're there to guide them, that deeper healing, that re patterning, that rewiring.

And so what we're really excited about with this program is that it is a way to say goodbye to cookie cutter healthcare. It's a way to help you take control of your own healing journey. It's a way for you to work collaboratively with a practitioner to create a strategic, data driven and really personalized path to healing. So I will drop in the show notes. Like I said, this program is still in development, but we do have a waitlist that's open and I will drop a link in the show notes for those of you who just want to learn more. If you get on that waitlist, you'll be the first to know a timeline and details. And as always, my inbox is open if you've got questions. But I want to wrap this up and bring it back to today's conversation about nutrition.

When it comes to nutrition, it's not about eating perfectly. Aim for mostly healthy most the time, lots of diversity in vegetables when possible, and that is going to get you most of the way there. We have really, really resilient bodies that can absolutely eat cookies and even have a little red dye 40. And I know that's going to be really controversial for some of you listening, but in my home, I'm the primary meal prepper and we eat mostly healthy most of the time. But I'm also not gonna stop my kid from eating a bright red cupcake at a birthday party because I also want him to know that his body is really resilient and can handle all sorts of things in moderation. But it's also important to know that there are things that can contribute to and exasperate. So if you're on a healing journey, what does it look like to take special consideration, to consider if you're eating enough, if you're eating enough diversity, are there any vitamins or minerals that you might be deficient in? Are there certain medications that you're taking that are negatively impacting your gut health? What's the frequency of caffeine or alcohol added sugars? Inflammatory foods? Do I notice a pattern between the foods that I eat and the symptoms that I experience? And in the show notes, you'll also find a link to a totally free mini workbook that I've created that offers you some basic guidelines on ways to better nourish yourself as a means of supporting your mental health. And again, when it comes to food, it's personalized, it's nuanced.

And the way that I think about, talk about, navigate food might be different than how you want to. But some of the universal truths that I want you to take away from today's conversation are here in these three takeaways. Number one, mind gut connection is well researched and established. So if your gut flora isn't healthy, then having mental health implications of that makes sense. Number two is that blood sugar regulation, or lack thereof, is directly linked to mood and the likelihood and intensity of anxiety or depression symptoms. And number three is that both macro and micronutrients matter. Consistently eating too much or too little can stress out our system. And there are certain micronutrient deficiencies that also are directly linked to symptoms that we cluster and label as anxiety and depression.

So what this boils down to is the foods that we eat matter, if they matter. And this was a compassionate invitation to explore the role that food or nutrition might be playing in your symptoms. And just a reminder that what you'll find in the show notes is a totally free mini workbook that offers a little extra guidance around navigating nutrition for your mental health, and a link for those of you who are interested in this program that we're developing to help you really pop the hood and see if or what underlying physiological conditions that we can get from blood testing or taking a deeper look at your gut health, as well as what we can learn from a really detailed lifestyle audit, looking at habits that hurt versus habits than heal and how that can support your overall journey towards healing. All right, friends, that's what we've got today. Thanks for being here and I'll see you next week.

Thanks for listening to another episode of The regulate and rewire podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today. Please subscribe and leave a five star review to help us get these powerful Tools out to even more people who need them. And if you yourself are looking for more personalized support and applying what you've learned today, consider joining me inside Rise, my monthly mental health membership and nervous system healing space, or apply for our one on one anxiety and depression coaching program restore. I've shared a link for more information to both in the show notes. Again, thanks so much for being here.

And I'll see you next time. You.