Nutrition & Broad-Spectrum Micronutrients for Mental Health-5/4/24

         An excellent multivitamin can help stabilize bipolar disorder, depression, a myriad of anxiety disorders including PTSD and OCD, ADD/ADHD, addictions, and can help prevent dementia.  I’ve been a practicing psychotherapist for 24 years, focusing on nutrition for mental health.  I am a Certified Nutritional Counselor. My research recognizes that nutrition is one of the most important steps we can take to improve our mental health.

         We can start by making sure we are eating frequently enough.  Any food is better than no food at all as missed meals will worsen your moods or anxiety, increase the likelihood that you’ll use drugs or alcohol, eat the wrong things, and make it harder to sleep.  So, please try to eat three times a day and eat the meals close enough together (4-5 hours apart).  Breakfast should be eaten within 30-60 minutes of waking up or our stomach acids start churning and make us feel sick.

         After you have developed a good routine of eating regular meals, the next step is to improve the quality of the food you eat.  If you can, eat organic.  The research shows that if you eat an organic diet, it will reduce the levels of glyphosate (Roundup) in your body by 70%.  Glyphosate has been shown to cross the blood-brain barrier, negatively impacting our neurotransmitters. Eating organic food reduces this risk.

         Next, it is important to eat as healthily as possible.  One important component of this is eating animal protein because we absorb more of the protein, vitamins, and minerals in animal protein than in plant-based proteins. 

Eat whole grains, avoiding white grains.  White grains literally steal an electron from your cells while whole grains add an electron to your cells.  So, eat whole grain breads, pastas, and crackers as much as possible and when you want white bread, eat sourdough.  Sourdough is a probiotic and a fermented food that delivers nutrients to your system more quickly.

White potatoes and white rice when eaten cold act as a prebiotic, so these can be a positive addition, but it doesn’t work if you eat them hot.  Choose the most colorful vegetables, the darkest greens.  Cabbage and cauliflower are the exceptions to the rule.  They are healthy despite their light color.  They are cruciferous vegetables, offering variety to your greens and collard greens, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, bok choy, and arugula.  They reduce cancer risk and encourage a healthy gut.

         After creating a healthy diet, the next step is to add excellent micronutrients.  Broad-spectrum micronutrients have lots of different vitamins and minerals in the same capsule.  My research shows the two best vitamins available are from Canada.  These are Truehope’s Empower Advanced with 36 micronutrients at $71.99 for 120 capsules.  Hardy Nutritionals has another option: Daily Essential Nutrients which has 39 micronutrients and costs $138 for 360 capsules.  If it isn’t affordable, remember to ask them about discounts because they do offer those for low-income people.  These two micronutrients have been in 50 research studies with excellent results (better than medication) for bipolar, depression, many anxiety disorders, addictions, and dementia.  Hardy’s wellness advisors will help you figure out what your dosage is depending on what your diagnoses are.  They can even help you gradually reduce your medication if you prefer to give your body a natural approach.

         I encourage people to consider treating their mental health conditions naturally.  All posts about mood and anxiety stability offer tools to help you do this.  Broad-spectrum micronutrients are an important component.  In the short-term medication can help tremendously but in the long term, they cause many horrible side effects that become disabling for many people.  Since the invention of medications for mental illness, the number of people with disability in the US has sky-rocketed.  Broad-spectrum micronutrients work for most people, and in the long run, these people have better mood stability than the people who stay on medication.

         So, I hope you will take some steps to improve your nutrition and thereby improve the way you feel.  You’ll find that your mood improves or stabilizes and your anxiety decreases if you take these steps.  Blessings!

         Feel free to write to me with questions.  I’m happy to answer them.