Food Medicine
As you all know, our goal at Mannabliss is to help you connect/stay connected and to assist you in knowing and experiencing the incredible energy, consciousness and spirit that you are. In order to have that experience the body, mind and spirit must be prepared and at optimal functioning.
What we eat is of particular importance to our biological vehicle and to our energy field. This article will focus on how food impacts the body and will particularly focus on food and its relationship to mood. In our next issue we will address food and its impact on the energy field.
By now it is well known and accepted that food does have an impact on various chemicals in the gut and brain. By taking good care of your body, you also take good care of your mind.
The first thing you need to know about the food-mood connection is that there are five brain signaling chemicals which are most closely linked to what you eat and drink. These chemicals, called neurotransmitters, are (1) serotonin, (2) dopamine, (3) norepinephrine, (4) histamine, and (5) acetylcholine. Of those, most is known about how serotonin directly affects emotional health.
So how does food affect your mood? Amino acids, which we obtain from foods or supplements, are the building blocks of neurotransmitters. The right vitamins, minerals and supplements can aid in the
production and enhancement of the activity of the brain’s signaling chemicals, and can protect them
brain’s signaling chemicals, and can protect them from injury. But our standard American diet typically doesn’t give us all that we need. As our diets have declined, so has our mental health. In fact, depression has doubled in the United States in the last decade — as has obesity. Many studies have demonstrated the link between diet and mood. One shows that people who follow the Mediterranean or Japanese diet compared to the American diet have a 25-35% lower risk of depression. That is a significant difference! Especially in light of the information published by the World Health Organization (WHO). According to WHO, 350 million people globally suffer from depression, it is the leading cause of disability worldwide, and it is a major contributor to the overall global burden of
disease.
In addition to the brain, gut health is also directly linked to emotions. You may have heard of serotonin. Many types of antidepressant medications help your body hold on longer to the serotonin it makes, because the right amount of serotonin can increase a sense of well-being and lower anxiety. Did you know that about 95% of our serotonin is produced in our gastrointestinal tract? Neurons aren’t just in our brain. Our gut is actually lined with 100 million neurons. Our gut is connected to our brain and major organs by an extensive neural superhighway called the Vagus nerve, so the serotonin made in our gut can travel throughout our body.
In addition to the food and drink we consume, our gut neurons are highly influenced by billions of bacteria that live in our intestines. The good bacteria can help us digest our food and draw more nutrition from what we eat. Unfortunately, these good bacteria don’t thrive in the highly processed, high-sugar standard American diet. Instead, bad, disease-causing bacteria are promoted.
The Impact of Food on Your Mood
Since diet can reduce risk by 25-35%, we could potentially have a positive impact on approximately 100 million people if we all ate in a manner that supported brain health.
MANNABLISS MEDICINE FOR THE SOUL
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