Eat your feelings: mood and your microbiome
I’ve been wanting to write this article on depression and the micro-biome for a while. Honestly, it has been a lot of information to aggregate. Putting together the pieces for myself and the people I love who experience depression has been a huge part of my research for the last several years. I’m not implying that I’ve finally figured it all out but I’m ready to share some of what I know with you.
BEFORE WE GO ANY FURTHER I need to say that modern pharmacology has worked a lot of wonderful magic with medications and treatments for depression of all kinds. It has saved people I love from taking their own lives. Nothing I’m about to say in any way is meant to dispute the importance of medication for people who need it and choose it. The information I have here is only to offer you a few things to consider when thinking about your own physical and mental health. I am not a doctor and do not pretend to be one.
FIRST. Statistics: Depression is an epidemic in the USA. Chronic depression affects 1.5% of the adult population . That’s over 3 Million people. And 8.5% of the adult population of the USA has experienced a major depressive event in the last year…that’s 21 million people.. I am sure you know someone with one of these conditions and you might even be this person. (You can go ahead on your own to find out the clinical difference between chronic and major depression.) Honestly I thought that chronic depression would be more widespread…but it looks like major depression is the winner. This whole paragraph is upsetting.
CONNECT TO THE PHYSICAL
Have you heard that the gut is sometimes called the second brain, and also the emotional brain? You may have experienced its power before going onstage, or when falling in love, or sensing an uncomfortable situation. There is an entire, incredibly powerful nervous system that lines your gastrointestinal tract and communicates directly back and forth with the brain. The vagus nerve (Vagus, baby!) connects the brain to all the abdominal organs and is the primary relay for this gut-brain connection. It is also a major part of the parasympathetic nervous system- our source of rest and digest chill out feelings. 90% of the information the vagus nerve transmits goes FROM gut TO brain. So “gut to brain” accounts for MOST OF the conversation. Ongoing research question: Why would our brains need so much information about our digestion? Maybe it’s getting other information too…
Fascinating, right? So what else do we know about the gut? Well, 95% of the serotonin in the body is found in the gastrointestinal system. And Serotonin is one of the primary chemical messengers responsible for mood stabilization. That fact alone encourages consideration that the gut has a lot to do with mental health and emotional stability. And now we are beginning to learn about the microbiome; it acts like another organ. We are also starting to learn about its importance for mental health. There are an increasing number of scientific studies about the mircobiome influencing depression and mood (and here). We also know that what we eat greatly influences the microbiome.
We are literally feeding our microbiome; what we eat is eaten by the things inside us and either fosters beneficial microbiome flora or fosters strains of bacteria and fungi that cause us to lose vibrancy. The health of the microbiome is relayed through the vagus nerve to the brain and mood is established.
I know it can feel overwhelming to keep track of all this- especially when you add in probiotics, pre-biotics not to mention the whole “there is a universe living inside me” concept. It’s a lot. But I don’t have to know EVERYTHING about the process in order to make small beneficial changes or at least check in with my food choices. I’m willing to make these changes because I want to foster good mental and emotional health for myself. Because I am in charge of my health. Nobody is going to do it for me. I am the main actor in my life and I must act like I want to be in it with maximum vibrancy and health.
Ok so another thing I wanted to say before we’re done here is that - in my experience- feeding this super intelligent system inside of me with good foods has also increased my access to my intuition. Of course I also have to make sure I have enough rest and digest time in my life. and as always your mileage may vary but you won’t know unless you try.
You want a list of stuff that fosters an awesome and healthy and diverse micro biome? okay…Prebiotics: fiber, beans, dandelion greens, bananas, seaweed, vegetables, garlic, onions. Lots of stuff. Probiotics: live and active cultures like those found in yogurt, kefir, kimchi, sauerkraut, miso, & kombucha. Yeah, there are supplements you can take too but, like, food is delicious.
Remember, most medicine in the world is herbal medicine made with local plants. Because plants and people evolved together.