The Gut-Brain Connection: How Food Impacts Your Mood
Did you know that your gut and brain are intimately connected? The food that you eat plays a significant role in shaping your emotional and mental state. Let’s dive into the fascinating world of gut-brain connection!
The Gut-Brain Axis
Your gut is often referred to as the “second brain” because it produces neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine, which influence your mood, cognitive function and emotional well-being.
By understanding the intricate relationship between your gut and brain, you can harness the power of nutrition to transform your mental and emotional well-being.
Gut dwellers
Every adult carries up to 1.5kg of bacteria in the gut – the good and the bad ones, parasites, worms, single-cell organisms. The all have their function in our body, and we should treat them as a team. In fact, because of the amount of microorganisms we carry in and on us, if we count all the cells, including those vital microbes, they would account for 90% of a human being, which makes us only 10% human – isn’t that a shocking fact?!
All those microorganisms help us produce neurotransmitters (the currency the brain uses to deal with the rest of the body), vitamins, metabolise other nutrients.
We know that certain nutrient deficiencies cause emotional and mental instability, weaking our physical, mental and emotional resilience in life. It is only logical that if we miss some bacteria which are involved in the nutrients’ metabolism and neurotransmitters production, that we are not going to feel fantastic.
That brings me to my point – you MUST look after your tribe, that lives in you, which form your gut microbiome, the bacteria in your intestines. How do you do that? You feed them the right foods, exclude substances which affect their viability.
Most cases of “depression” can be helped not with medication, but with the right nutrition. The rest – with the addition of implementing the mindset work.
The foods that help your gut microbiome:
ALL wholefoods, probiotic foods, such as kefir, yoghurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha (not store-bought!).
The foods which damage your gut microbiome:
Packaged foods, refined oils (unless it says “extra virgin” and “cold pressed” on the bottle, it is refined – bleached, deodorised, altered in one way or another), food additives (preservatives, flavour enhancers, thickeners, acidity stabilisers and colours), refined sugars, hydrogenated oils (margarine, spreadable butters and substitutes)
Disclaimer: you change your body (the symptoms, discomforts, aches and pains) by changing your life. All of it, not only nutrition, but also how you move through life (masterclass is coming up), think about it and yourself (join our private fb group), how you are connected to light on Earth (watch the webinar here) , how you are connected with your breath, which is your connection to your psyche, your spirit, the universe (read more about it here)