Why ‘Healthy’ Is Making You More Anxious (No One Talks About This)

You’re eating well. You’re doing the “right” things.  So why do you still feel anxious… or even worse?

In this episode of The Anxiety Compass, Sammy and Nat unpack a lesser-known piece of the anxiety puzzle...how your body’s chemistry and genetics might be keeping you stuck in a constant state of “on.”

Because anxiety isn’t always coming from your thoughts.

Sometimes… it’s coming from your nervous system being overstimulated at a chemical level.

We explore how certain people are more sensitive to stimulation, and why some of the most “healthy” foods... like bone broth, fermented foods, and cheesy chips can actually make anxiety feel worse for some individuals.

Not because the foods are "bad"… but because your body’s capacity to process them is different.

✨ In this episode, we explore:

•  Why anxiety can feel physical, not just mental 
•  The “accelerator vs brake” system in your brain 
•  How genetics can impact how your body processes stimulation 
•  The role of key nutrients like magnesium and B vitamins 
•  Why some people feel worse eating “healthy” foods 
•  The concept of “load” and how overstimulation builds up 
•  How to start supporting your body instead of fighting it 

This episode is for anyone who feels like they’ve been doing everything right…
 but still feel wired, overwhelmed, or stuck in their body.

Because the goal isn’t to follow more rules.

It’s to understand your body.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

It's Emily and Natalie here, and welcome to the anxiety conversation. Where anxiety isn't the enemy, it's actually a guide. We'll swap stories, share tools, and have a laugh while we find our way back to true north.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Come along.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Hello and welcome back to another episode. Hey Nat, how are you going? I'm good, Sammy. How are you, lovely? I'm fantastic. Yeah. Fantastic. Hey, you know, I find I've been watching, I've been scrolling more than often on my phone. It was good when I went away, but when I come back, it's like I've started scrolling and looking at things again. And I've noticed there's a lot of people in our industry who are promoting specific foods to calm ourselves and to do all these things. They've got millions of followers. And I cannot eat those foods. And it bothers me that people are just rolling with these influencers or whoever they are and not actually listening to their body. Do you agree with me?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Oh, absolutely. Especially they're yeah, they're they're promoting a lot of the foods that are good for our gut. So while it might be good for our gut, it is not necessarily good for other parts of our system. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Yeah. And this is why I'm I'm sort of leaning towards we're doing this episode. Why health with inverted commas, I never call them health foods, why health foods might be making um that anxious feeling inside you worse, and nobody's talking about it. This was a huge one for me, and I actually wrote a whole section in my book on it. Um, I particularly for me, I don't know if you have a similar story, but I was doing all the right things in inverted commas. I um was big on bone broths, um, I was having sauerkraut, kimchi, uh eating clean, and uh because uh, you know, I'd read so much into building your gut colony to strengthen your mood and everything. Uh so I ticked all the boxes for that, and I found it actually made everything much, much worse. I was more anxious than I had ever felt in my life, and I'm like, but I'm doing all the right things. So I didn't put it on food, I thought it has to be something else I'm doing because it can't possibly be the foods that I'm doing. And yeah, it actually felt like I was having six coffees a day. Like I was literally in the shower. I could feel, you know, when you feel anxious and you can feel it in your chest or in your tummy, it was there all the time, like I was about to have a panic attack. Yeah, and and you know what? It was actually the all those foods I was eating. It was all those foods. And I'm wondering if people are listening, if they're eating all those foods, can drinking all the kombucha every day, thinking they're doing this, you know, healthy thing, if they are feeling anxious too. Have you ever felt like you've you know concentrated on specific health foods to fix yourself only to have the opposite reaction?

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Yeah, I did. You're asking me or the audience? Yes, me, I'm asking you.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

I would tell the audience too.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Yeah, I I was very similar. You know, when I started on, you know, nutritional medicine before I'd even started studying in in my early years, I was doing the same. Like, oh, feed my gut, have the bone broths, you know, all the nourishing, nurturing foods. And my anxiety was just going through the roof. And of course, I was blaming, oh, you know, what am I doing wrong? You know, maybe I need to do more meditation, or maybe I need to add in another supplement, or oh, what am I doing wrong? And all the it was simply this, you know, well, or looking at other neurotransmitters, you know, maybe there's too little GABA, you know, maybe I need to add more of that in. Like I went and bought a tea a GABA tea to try and add in more of that when it was actually that was making it more issue. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

So if you're let's say you're thinking, well, what what what's going on? Yeah, it's some people aren't struggling because they're doing the wrong thing, it may just be because their body processes um stimulation differently and foods and chemicals in your body. So for me, and I know you we've spoken about this before, but genetically um things change, like we can't break down certain things in our body. My hubby can eat all the things and do all the things. He has ZMA every night, which has um it has glutamate in it and uh glu glutamine, sorry, and it helps him to sleep. But if I take that, not the same reaction because it's got a specific uh chemical in it and in these foods that are building up in my body, and my body can't break them down. And there's a lot of people out there like that that are taking these things that are keeping our body, it's like your brain has an accelerator and a brake, or your nervous system, and your accelerator's turned on, uh, you're constantly alert, focused, you're switched on, you're go, go, go, you're do-do-do-do do do do. I sound like I'm on it at the moment. Woo! Um, but then your brake is meant to calm things down. And some of us, the accelerator works really well, but the brakes don't work as well. So I'm driving a Ferrari with bicycle brakes, basically.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Yes, it's a great analogy. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

And so you've got to be really careful with specific foods that are good for us, inverted commas, um, because they might not might not be working the same with you because of perhaps the genetics, or perhaps you're really stressed and overwhelmed with life, and it's just adding to that. Yeah, yeah. I feel like I went on a bit of a tangent there.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

No, no, that's no, that's good. So, you know, you've mentioned with foods, while we're talking about them and you've mentioned the you know, bone broths and the sauerkraut and all those sorts of things, but there are other things that um where it's uh this um glutamate is hiding as well. So flavor enhances. Oh, number one is MS MSG. So a lot of people know about MSG and they're like, oh, I can't eat MSG. This is why it because it's stimulating if you've got a glutamate sensitivity. It's also another one, E621. So look out if you find that you've got the yeah, if you've got this excitatory pathway that you find with eating certain foods, stock cubes have um are often really high packet soups, yeah, um seasoning.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

That taste ridiculously good, like cheesy powdery things. I've got and even things in the health food aisle that are marketed, like um cauliflower chips and you know, all those healthy chips, they're loaded with yeast extract. That was one that tricked me. I didn't know yeast did the same thing with glutamate in the body.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Yep, absolutely. And your aged cheeses specifically. You know, your parmesan, your cheddar cheese, your soy sauce, your miso. I mean, I when I was going through, you know, when I was having, you know, when I had this sensitivity, um, and I often had um, I took miso soup to uni with me. And I'd add in all these lovely little veggies and stuff. And then I wondered why all afternoon I my anxiety was through the roof because I'm like but I'm having miso because I'm not I'm the same.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

I bought a packet of those cauliflower chips. Oh no, it was the mushroom ones that were and then I started eating like wow, this is really good, you know. MHG. And so I'm like eating the whole packet. And then later in the afternoon, my heart was racing like I'd had like an espresso, and I'm like, what the heck? And I looked at the packet and I'm like, oh my god, it's the mushroom chips.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Yeah, because mushrooms have natural yeah, mushrooms have natural glutamate in it.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Well, that was enhanced with the MHG onto the body.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

And the enhanced, yeah, exactly. Well, that's the thing. You got you were getting the double wham whammy because of the enhancements in there, but also the mushroom mushrooms themselves. And I think as well as tomatoes.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

For those listening, our body has these little workers inside us called enzymes, and they help to break things down in the body and convert them into so glutamate converts into GABA, which is your breaks, your calming. You want to calm that glutamate. But if you struggle to produce those enzymes, which is me, up to 70% of um certain things in my body and stress and all these things can accentuate that. So when you're already, you know, flight or fighty, you're just enhancing that that breakdown's not going to work very well. Um it's unable to work as efficiently. So those workers are a little bit sluggish, sluggish, I suppose say slaggish, slaggish, and they're slowing down. And yeah, it's just not working. And there's like without getting too much into genetics, like you know, you've got your G A D, C O M T, um, MAO, like there's just so many little um what are they called? SNPs, is that what it's called? Yeah, yeah. So in the genetic line, it it's coded slightly differently. And you can I mean genetics, yes, uh, epigenetics, you might not actually trigger that or you know, convert that to what is it? You can switch that gene on.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

But I think a lot of people are switching it on because it's switched on with stress, poor diet, um, lack of sleep, all these things trigger that to switch on. So not only.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

And even I mean, so many more people now are using protein, you know, um shakes and and on drinks and collagen and stuff, and even they like whey protein isolate, hydrolyzed proteins, and and some collagen blends also, you know, go down that that glutamate pathway. It's too much. Oh, and aspartame. Yeah. Anything with a horrible I mean, we go into a whole other episode about that, but that's another thing.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Yes, yeah. And glutamate's not a bad thing, like it's a little chemical that happens in the brain that turns it's essential. We feel amazing, we need it, but if it's too much, it's gonna feel like you're revving your car and going nowhere. Like it's it's not it's not great. The compass is just going crazy if we're gonna use this as an analogy. Absolutely, and uh, we can't slow it down. It's like magnets are pulling it at every angle. You can't find your true north in that.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Um but also, I mean, it's essential for learning, it's essential for our memory, it's essential for our neural activation. So, yeah, it's not it's not a bad monster in our body, it's just that if it's switched on and and over excitatory, then that's when we have an issue.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Yeah, and I also wonder, like, as it builds up, I find people they feel anxiety is just something that you're doing or worried or stressed. I could be sitting down perfectly happy, everything going great, my hormones are all balanced, and I have a bloody packet of those freaking chips, and all of a sudden it's a chemical thing. So, anxiety and those anxious feelings quite often they don't come from your thoughts, it can be a chemical overactivation. And people don't understand that. Like they're like, Why am I overthinking? Why am I panicking? Why am I worrying? It's like uh your chemicals are out of whack because of something you've put in your body, and those little workers aren't able to keep up, and it's just building up, and your nervous system cannot switch off. So, this is a very chemical episode we're doing here because it is part of the buttons, it's important, yeah. Yeah, be careful. So if you're sitting there constantly drinking bone broths and all of these, uh, we haven't done an episode on histamine yet, have we? But they're no really good amine foods.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Um because that that can also overlap with the histamine sensitivity, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

And I wonder, like, if you are doing a gut healing, check your check your supplements because I do find a lot of nutritionists uh and naturopaths don't consider this when they're treating their patients. Um a lot because glutathione glutamine is really great for gut healing, but yeah, you're not breaking it down. You could be taking these wonderful gut healing powders and they have two grams of glutamine in them. Like I cannot touch these. I cannot touch these, particularly when I'm you know already a little bit stressed. And if you're having gut issues and you're overwhelmed, the chances are you're probably a little bit stressed, right? You don't end up with gut issues when you're really chill most of the time. No, yeah, pouring fuel on the fire, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Absolutely, and I don't think it's about you know, don't rush off and do a strict elimination diet and just remove everything. Again, just being bit being aware, being mindful, maybe have a two to three week um period where you reduce if you are having a lot of these um foods that we've mentioned, and just observe things like your sleep. Does that improve? Yeah. Your anxiety levels, your nervous system, how are you feeling on a day-to-day basis? Are you feel are you walking around constantly still hyper-vigilant? Or have you noticed that oh, things have just quietened down a bit? That may be an indicator that you do have this issue with glutamate.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Yeah, because I don't that we're not fear-mongering foods. These foods are incredibly nutritious, so they've been around for centuries. Incredible, yes, for the right person at the right time as well. Absolutely, they can be extremely calming because as we said, that glutamate breaks down to GABA. And if you are really calm when you're eating these foods, then they're fantastic for you. Um I can have small amounts, they're very activating for me.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Um, yes, and and the way to support that, I mean, obviously, go don't self-prescribe, come and go and see a qualified um practitioner, like someone like ourselves, clinical nutritionists, naturopaths, you know, um anyone that that is aware like of of this sort of um uh work in the body. But you know, vitamin B6. Now I know that there's been a lot of you know talk in the media in in recent times about B6. So again, do not go and just um self-prescribe because B6 can actually have issues with our nervous system.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

That was me.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

But B6, so so look at B6 foods, you know, because because B6 is actually what converts glutamate into GABA. So if you've got this this this um issue with um you know conversion of of glutamate and regulating it, then B6. Magnesium calms our um whole nervous system down, zinc modulates our neurotransmitters, um, and also looking at have your blood glucose, stable um blood sugar um also helps to calm that down because you know, when we have those sugar spikes, that also feeds into that excitatory pathway in our body.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

I'm all I'm always excited, man. And that's the thing. Like I say, I'm not anxious, I'm excited. I literally am. My body is very excited about everything. Yes, sometimes a little bit too much. A little bit too much of a Ferrari running around. It's like a little bit. You're like a kid on Christmas Eve. I know, right? I am uh I need to come. Oh that's why I love you though. Um my kids put me in check. They're like, Mom, can you just stop talking for five minutes? I'm excited. Like, particularly if we go to a theme park or something. I'm so on a cruise, you get given sort of like an itinerary of what's on, and I'm like, oh my gosh, we're gonna do this and this and this and this, and I'm flagging all things, and my husband's just sitting there like, can we just can we just sit and watch Ben? I'm like, but I want to do the trivia. It was Katherine.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

I love trivia on on um cruise ships, they're the best and bingo. The first time I went on a cruise, I was 21, and every afternoon at 5 p.m., I went off to do the bingo because it was so much fun.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

It is fun, it's all fun, and I am an excited person. I just want to flip from one thing to the next. Like I said to him, we have to do the Kath and Kim trivia and the Friends trivia. Like, I'm great at these things. Yes. Um, we did the Disney trivia, and the table next to us was uh an Asian family, and they were all wearing uh Mickey Mouse shirts. I was like, so they were they were they were your competitions. They were good fun, good fun, but they were definitely yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

But yes, having that time to just lie by the pool or and read a book. Or I'm I remember, I mean, I've only been on a cruise once or twice, but I used to love going and sitting right up the top, right near the big funnel. Oh, yeah, nobody else would go up there to get away from the crowds, and I would just sit there and look out at the ocean.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

Oh, it's so therapeutic, isn't it? I get a little bit nervous at night though, I'm worried about like the deep ocean is one of my fears. Like, oh, I couldn't think of anything worse. And go there. Yes. But going back to the topic or question, when you're saying relax and that, like I find I can handle these activating foods because it's not just the it's not just about one food, it's about the total load on your system. So painting the bigger picture, the stress, the poor sleep, we've mentioned that, the blood sugars, the low magnesium, all of that, a busy lifestyle, and then environmental toxins. Yeah, so your system tips over. So if you are a really calm person and you're enjoying all these, like I've got a friend who's lives over in South Korea at the moment, and he shares pictures of all the kimchi and stuff he's eating over there. I'm like, perhaps his system isn't the same as mine. And I said to him, I these foods, I just can't eat these foods at the moment. Um, I've got too many things going on. Take him on a cruise ship with me, I'll eat him on the cruise.

unknown 18:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

So if you're listening and you take yes to any of these, I'm wondering, you feel wired but exhausted. Your brain won't land the plane, you're just constantly on, you're sensitive to noise, lights, people, you feel anxious in your body, you overact but don't know why. Um, hello, you can't switch off at night, and it feels like your body is always in a panic, ready to run away. Your brain's trying to catch up with your body basically. If you are sitting in the car or wherever you are and you're nodding your head, going, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, have a look at your diet. See how many of these foods that you eat. Maybe you eat H cheese for dinner with biscuits with a little bit of sauerkraut on the side. Hello. Uh, and I wonder if that anxiety is reading false danger signals because of the chemical in balance imbalance in your body. Yes, reducing that load temporarily, as Nat was saying before. Don't just go and remove everything, just slowly remove juice and see. Um, and support the body, go and see a nutritionist and look at things like magnesium, balancing your blood sugars, as we mentioned, flowing down, going into the forest.

unknown 19:48

The forest.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

Yes, learn your body, not someone else's health plan. I'm always I'm always preaching that. Learn your body and not someone else's health plan.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Absolutely. Yeah, we are all completely different, and you know, yeah, two people could walk into our clinic and they've both got exactly the same presentation, but two completely different you know, root causes, why how they got to that point.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, let's close with a reflective question. Do you have anything else to add before I jump in there?

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Because we noticed yes, for a for a very science-heavy um uh subject, I think we've done well to just you know well, we could have gone down.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Condense it down, yeah, glutamine to this, to this, to this.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

And glutamine, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, no, that's too much.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

You know, I love my metaphors. Um, yes. Have you ever added something inverticobas healthy into your routine and felt worse, but ignored it because you thought this is what I need to do because this is what Jo on this channel does, and she has a million followers. It must be good. That drives me mental. Me too. Shall we leave it there? We shall, I think. Yes. Alright, if you of course, if you ever want to learn a little bit more, feel free to reach out to us. Um, we're more than happy to chat further on specific topics on the channel. On the channel. Oh, I guess we've got a channel. Um and uh yeah, we will see you on the flip side. I think I need to go and find a tree to sit under.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Yeah, me too.

unknown 21:30

Bye.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Thanks for joining us on the Anxiety Compass. If you love this episode, share it with a friend who needs a little laugh and a low calm. We'll see you in the next one. Keep following your true norm.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Disclaimer time Sammy and Natalie may be clinical nutritionists, but we're not your personal doctors. What you're here is for learning and laughing, not diagnosing or prescribing. If things feel bigger than you, call your doctor or local support line or reach out to a qualified health professional. They've got your back to.