You Think What You Eat
How sharp is your mind, how balanced is your mood, how consistent is your energy, how happy are you – and what, if anything, do these qualities have to do with what you eat?
Here are some sobering stats which involved 37,000 people, for instance, are the proportion of people who said they suffer ‘frequently’ or ‘always’ from certain conditions:
- Become impatient quickly 82%
- Have low energy level 80%
- Energy is less than it used to be 76%
- Feel have too much to do 67%
- Become anxious or tense easily 64%
- Have PMS/PMT (women only) 63%
- Easily become angry 53%
- Suffer from depression 44%
- Have difficulty concentrating 43%
- Become nervous/hyperactive 38%
- Have poor memory/difficulty learning 32%
Does this sound like anyone you know? Does this sound like you? Welcome to the 21st century. Despite improvements in diet and better standards of living, the average person is exhausted, amongst other things. So, what’s going wrong?
Our minds and bodies have been shaped over millions of years of evolution. Diets have changed radically in the last 100 years, along with our environment. When you consider that the body and brain are made entirely from molecules derived from food, air, and water, and that simple molecules like alcohol can fundamentally affect the brain, isn’t it unlikely that changes in the diet and the environment have had no effect on our mental health?
I believe that most of us are not achieving our full potential for mental health, happiness, alertness and clarity because we are not achieving optimum nutrition for the mind. I also believe that significant proportion of mentally unwell people are suffering from a chemical imbalance brought on by years of poor nutrition and exposure to environmental pollutants.
As Einstein said,
‘The problems we have created cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.’ We need a new way of thinking about mental health that includes the role of nutrition and the chemical environment and how these affect the way we think and feel.’
Mind and body are not separate
One of the most limiting concepts in the human sciences is the idea that the mind and the body are separate. Try asking an anatomist, a psychologist and a biochemist where the mind begins and the body ends. It is a stupid question, and yet that is exactly what modern science has done by separating psychology from anatomy and physiology.
But it’s not just the scientists who live by this false distinction. It’s us. When you’re having difficulty concentrating, when your mood is low, when you struggle to find a memory, do you consider that you may be poorly nourished? Why not? Every one of these states – your thinking, feeling, mental energy and focus – happens across a network of interconnecting brain cells, each one of which depends on an optimal supply of nutrients to work efficiently.
Optimum Nutrition and psychotherapy work wonders
Of course, as I’ve mentioned, improving our mental health isn’t only about nutrition. While most therapists ignore the role of nutrition and the brain’s chemistry in how we think and feel, let’s not make the same mistake of omission. I believe the solution to the mental health problems that plaque our society lies in a combination of optimum nutrition and good psychological support, which includes having a place you can call home, being treated with respect and dignity, and counselling.
Certain kinds of counselling are highly effective for depression, for example, but far too infrequently prescribed or available. The combination of optimum nutrition and therapy/therapeutic approach works wonders for a wide variety of mental health problems, from depression to schizophrenia – and it may work better than drugs. Most of the therapists that I have spoken to find that while drugs can be life-saving in the short term, they become unnecessary when people are receiving the right combination of nutrients and psychological support.
We need a radical new approach based on science
With mental health problems rising at such a pace, we need a new way of thinking about the state of our minds.
As Marcel Proust said,
‘The real act of discovery consists, not finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.’
We need to wake up the realisation that poor nutrition and chemical imbalances probably underlie the majority of mental health problem. While psychotherapy can make a positive change, you must also address deficiencies in essential fats, vitamins, minerals, and other key brain nutrients. We must think our way out of the box and get to grips with the fact that chemistry directly affects how we think and feel.
This means a new basis for both diagnosing and treating problems, and a new way of living and eating that supports our mental health, rather than eroding it. I believe we already have solutions to most forms of mental illness. We just have to look with new eyes.
SUMMARY:
In summary, we can now say with confidence that:
- Most people are achieving well below their full potential for intelligence, memory, concentration, emotional balance and happiness.
- The right combination of nutrients works better than drugs, and without the side-effects.
- Psychotherapy (and other forms of therapy) works best if you’re optimally nourished.
- Most mental health problems can be solved, or at least considerably relieved, with the right nutrition, together with the right psychological support and guidance.
The Five Essential Brain Booster Foods – Check Yourself Out
Whether you’re in good shape or are currently dealing with depression, mood swings or another mental health problem, there are five essential foods you need to tune up your brain,
- BALANCE YOUR GLUCOSE – it’s fuel for the brain.
- ESSENTIAL FATS – these keep your brain ‘well oiled’.
- PHOSPHOLIPIDS – these memory molecules give “oomph’ to the brain.
- AMINO ACIDS – these are the brain’s messengers.
- INTELLIGENT NUTRIENTS – these include vitamins and minerals that ‘fine tune’ your mind.
Knowing a few simple facts about your amazing brain shows you why these foods are so important for your mind. Every day we have around 6,000 thoughts – most of them repeats! Every single thought you have is represented by a ‘ripple’ of activity across the network of nerves called your brain. Here’s how it works.
What we call the brain in a network of neurons – special nerve cells that connect to other neurons. You’ve got 100 billion neurons, each connecting to thousands of others. To get an idea of just how complex that is, let’s look at the Amazon rainforest. The Amazon stretches for 2.7 million square miles and contains about 100 billion trees. So, there are as many cells in your brain as tress in the entire Amazon rainforest, and as many connections as leaves!
The connection between neurons are called dendrites. Where one dendrite meets another neuron, there’s a gap, like the ‘spark’ gap in a spark plug. This gap is called a synapse and it’s across this gap that messages are sent from one neuron to another.
The message is sent from a sending station and received in a receiving section, called a receptor. These sending and receiving stations are built out of essential fats, found in fish and seeds, phospholipids, present in eggs and organ meats; and amino acids, the raw material of protein.
The message itself, the neurotransmitter, is in most cases made out of amino acids. Different acids make different neurotransmitters. For example, the neurotransmitter serotonin, which keeps you happy, is made from the amino acid, tryptophan. Adrenalin and dopamine, which keep you motivated, are made from phenylalanine. Turning an amino acid into a neurotransmitter is no simple job. Enzymes in the brain that depend on intelligent nutrients do it. These include vitamins, minerals, and special amino acids.
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT, but that goes beyond the physical body. How you think and feel also depends on what you eat. You can check out whether you are getting enough of these essential brain foods using the Brain Food Check below ↓
Brain Food Check
In each section there are ten questions. Tick the box for ‘yes’. If you tick five or more in the ‘yes’ column, the chances are you’re not getting enough of the essential brain food factor.
❔ GLUCOSE CHECK
☐ Do you usually eat white bread, rice or pasta instead of brown/wholegrain?
☐ Do you crave certain foods such as carbohydrates?
☐ Do you have tea, coffee, and sugary foods or drinks, or cigarettes, at regular intervals during the day?
☐ Do you usually eat fruit, vegetables or other carbohydrates without protein foods at the same time?
☐ Do you sometimes skip meals, especially breakfast?
☐ Do you wake unrefreshed or need something to get you going in the morning like tea, coffee, or a cigarette?
☐ Do you often feel drowsy during the day?
☐ Do you sometimes lose concentration?
☐ Do you get dizzy or irritable if you don’t eat often?
☐ Do you avoid exercise because you don’t have the energy?
❔ FAT CHECK
☐ Do you eat oily fish (salmon, trout, sardines, herring, mackerel or fresh tuna) less than once a week?
☐ Do you eat seeds or their cold-pressed oils less than three times a week?
☐ Do you eat meat or dairy most days?
☐ Do you eat processed or fried foods (such as ready meals, chips, crisps, etc.) three or more times a week?
☐ Do you have dry rough skin or a tendency to eczema?
☐ Do you have a poor memory or difficulty concentring?
☐ Do you suffer from PMS or breast tenderness?
☐ Do you suffer from water retention?
☐ Do you suffer from dry, watery or itchy eyes?
☐ Do you have inflammatory health problems such as arthritis?
❔ PHOSPHOLIPID CHECK
☐ Do you eat fish (especially sardines) less than once a week?
☐ Do you eat fewer than three eggs per week?
☐ Do you eat liver, soya/tofu or nuts less than three times per week?
☐ Do you take less than 5g of lecithin each day?
☐ Is your memory declining?
☐ Do you sometimes go looking for something and forget what it was you were looking for?
☐ Do you find it hard to do calculations in your head?
☐ Do you sometimes have difficulty concentrating?
☐ Do you have a tendency towards depression?
☐ Are you a ‘slow learner’?
❔ AMINO ACID CHECK
☐ Do you eat less than one portion of protein-rich foods (meat, dairy, fish, eggs, tofu) each day?
☐ Do you eat fewer than two servings of vegetable sources of protein (beans, lentils, quinoa, seeds, nuts,
wholegrains and so on) each day?
☐ If you’re vegetarian, do you rarely combine different protein foods such as those mentioned above?
☐ Are you very physically active or do you work out a lot?
☐ Do you suffer from anxiety, depression or irritability?
☐ Are you frequently tired or do you lack motivation?
☐ Do you sometimes lose concentration or have poor memory?
☐ Do you have very low blood pressure?
☐ Do your hair and nails grow slowly?
☐ Are you constantly hungry and do you frequently get indigestion?
❔ INTELLIGENT NUTRIENT CHECK
☐ Do you eat fewer than five servings of fresh fruits and vegetables (excluding potato) every day?
☐ Do you eat fewer than one portion of dark green vegetables a day?
☐ Do you eat fewer than three portions of fresh dried tropical fruit a week?
☐ Do you eat seeds (such as pumpkin, sunflower, tahini) or unroasted nuts less than three times a week?
☐ Are you currently not taking multivitamin/mineral supplement every day?
☐ Do you usually eat white bread, rice or pasta instead of brown/wholegrain?
☐ Do you consume more than one unit of alcohol most days?
☐ Do you suffer from anxiety, depression or irritability?
☐ Do you suffer from muscle cramps?
☐ Do you have white marks on more than two fingernails?
The gut-brain connection:
It used to be thought that all our thinking is done by neurons in the brain. We now know that the digestive system contains 100 million neurons, and produces as many neurotransmitters as the brain. The gut, for example, produces two-thirds of the body’s serotonin, the ‘happy’ neurotransmitter. So, in essence, you’re feeding two brains. Every time you eat something it sends signals to the brain because the gut and the brain are in permanent communication. This is why the right foods can make you happy and the wrong foods can make you feel anxious or depressed.
Learn more on how to feed your brain the right food to make you sing by reaching out to our Holistic Nutritionist today!
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