5. How foods affect your brain: what foods to eat and avoid for anxiety, depression, dementia. A review of This is Your Brain On Food.

Maeva goes through the book This Is Your Brain On Food by Uma Taidoo, MD, which covers how food affects your mental health. She cites several peer-reviewed studies:

• Major phenolic compounds in olive oil: metabolism and health effect

• Extra-virgin olive oil and the gut-brain axis: influence on gut microbiota, mucosal immunity, and cardiometabolic and cognitive health

• Effects of Olive Oil and Its Minor Components on Cardiovascular Diseases, Inflammation, and Gut Microbiota

• Mediterranean diet improves cognition: the PREDIMED-NAVARRA randomised trial

• Consumption of Olive Oil and Risk of Total and Cause-Specific Mortality Among U.S. Adults

Follow Maeva on Instagram for more content: https://instagram.com/purposefulliving.co

Want some 1:1 coaching with Maeva? Fill out this form: https://forms.gle/RfBKV8MpCiZu7vBy8

Transcript

0:17

Welcome to Purposeful Living, the podcast that empowers you to live your life with intention and purpose. I'm your host, Mave Sifuentes, a business owner and investor marketer, psychology graduate, certified confidence coach, cat, mom, and improviser. I'm here to break down the woowoo into practical strategies that make. Actual sense for those that love the idea of leading with their heart, spirit, and universal guidance, but struggle to make any logical sense of it. I'm here to talk it through in practical terms and help you put it into action. In this podcast, I talk about communication and confidence. How to communicate effectively with your body, your mind, lovers, partners, coworkers, clients and friends through science, anecdotes, personal experiences, and practical exercises. We'll explore how your lifestyle and habits contribute to living your best life. So I'm recording this splayed out on my sofa, fan on. I'm in such a weird position to be recording a podcast. But to be frank, I am recording my third podcast of the day. Um, cuz I'm trying to prepare in advance for vacation coming up. So I think I deserve to be in this position It is comfy though. I'm just hoping the mic is gonna be able to stay in this position as I chill out. So, to, for this episode, I'm really excited. I'm gonna go over this book. This is Your Brain on Food by Uma Nadu. A nutritional psychiatrist, uh, that I read. I wanna say I read it in 2021 when I was having think in 2020. I. At the end of 2020, I was having some pretty bad anxiety and I was trying to see what actions I could take to try to improve it. So I heard about this book that talks about like a mental health diet. So it covers, um, what kinds of food worsen and improve symptoms for depression, anxiety, ptsd, O C D, adhd, um, what else does it cover? I think it's also. Um, bipolar disease, it talks about improving your libido with food. It's, it's really quite, uh, comprehensive. Um, so I did really enjoy this book and I just want to walk, talk through it and talk about the things that I learned. Got some other scientific studies as well that I'm gonna mention. And it's just really powerful what food can, um, do for your life and, and how it can affect you even really badly or really positively. Um, so a little bit about the author. Um, Nadu MD is a Harvard trained psychiatrist. She's a professional chef, um, who has graduated with her culinary school's most coveted award, and she is a trained nutrition specialist. Um, So putting all of this together, she is a nutritional psychiatrist. So basically when her patients come, instead of giving them meds, most of the time she tries to work through their diet first to see how it can be improved. Um, she founded and directs the first hospital-based nutritional psychiatry service in the United States. She's the director of Nutritional and Lifestyle Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and director of Nutritional Psychiatry at MGH Academy, and she serves on the ca on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. So she's pretty legit. Um, I love, I love this book. It makes it really easy to understand a lot of stuff and she also talks through, I think at one point, um, in the intro she got cancer and then used her own food, um, to help her through like the mental health part of that, which can be very taxing. Um, and she's changed a lot of people's lives, so I'm really excited. I'm not gonna go into. The ptsd, D and o c d and bipolar and probably not the libido part. I'm just gonna cover, or the adhd. I'm just gonna cover the depression and anxiety part. And maybe if you guys really like this, let me know. You can either get the book or I'll just record another episode covering the other ones. Um, there's a lot of overlap anyway cause it's really, it talks a lot about the connection to, of the brain and the gut, so, um, Basically she always says like the pa, the thing that her patients ask her the most is why they're always, why is she always talking about the gut when they're trying to fix something in their mind? And she said, her patient thinks it's irrelevant and it's like they're not even next to each other. Um, but actually they are not only historic, they're not only connected, you know, in spirit and in language. You know, we say something like, you think with your gut or you. Sorry, you don't say you think you're the gut, but like you have a gut feeling. Um, or, um, there's other expressions that you use to talk about your gut and it's actually physically connected. So there is a nerve, um, called the vagus nerve that starts in the brainstem and goes all the way down to the gut and it connects the gut to the central nervous system and the nervous system. Well, we know what that is, but it's really, um, A stressed out nervous system can completely change your life and the way you think and the way you react to things and the way you feel and live. So when the, when the vagus nerves reaches the gut, it untags itself and it wraps the entire gut in like this knitted mesh sort of thing. Uh, and it actually penetrates the gut wall and. It plays a part in digesting food, but what it's supposed to do, even though it's there in the gut, um, is actually send signals back and forth between the gut and the brain. Um, and these signals go in both directions and they are lifelong partners, so they are actually connected to each other. Um, And this is really like if you listen to podcasts about, or read about, you know, Um, just everything that affects your gut. It actually totally has to do it all. It completely affects your mood, your life, your behavior. Um, and that's why it's so important to, you know, eat things like probiotics or try to avoid things that destroy your gut bacteria or when you're taking a lot of antibiotics, while you might feel depressed at the same time. Um, that happens to me when I take antibiotics. It really affects my mood the whole time I'm on it because it's, it's messing up my, my gut bacteria. Um, and so in the same way, so she was also mentioning like, for example, if you have a headache, you take a pill and the pill goes into your stomach and it gets dissolved there, and then your headache goes away. So the same way as the chemicals in the pill, um, reach your brain. Chemicals produced in the gut. Also reach your brain and the chemicals produced in your brain. Go to your gut so it's all connected and what you're eating then. A, like what you're eating will affect your gut bacteria and that'll affect your. Brain activity and then also your brain activity. If you're super stressed, that'll switch it up and, uh, affect the gut bacteria. Um, like your gut biome will change if you're really stressed. So these chemicals come from different parts of your nervous system. Uh, through the endocrine system or with the help, help of it, I guess. Um, the central nervous system is the brain and the spinal cord, and then there's the autonomic nervous system, which is the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. And the hypothalmic, pituitary adrenal axis has the hypothalamus, pituitary gland and the adrenal gland. So all of this is all connected and it all goes into your gut. Um, so the central nervous system, which again, is connected to your gut, feeds off your gut is. The system that produces dopamine, serotonin. Um, and these, as you probably know, are what make you have a good mood and make you feel good. And these are the chemicals that technically are missing or lacking in the brains of people with depression or people who have anxiety or they have, you know, issues with serotonin. And, um, the central nervous system is what regulates the gut and brain axis. Um, Serotonin, for example, did you know that more than 90% of serotonin receptors are actually in the gut and not in the brain? Uh, so when you're thinking about what you're eating and how it's changing the gut bacteria, um, when you look at it from this perspective, you're like, oh man, wow. No wonder I've been eating junk food for a week. I'm not saying I have not, but if you have, or like been binge drinking one weekend and then you binge drink another weekend, You are gonna feel more anxiety, it's gonna cause more anxiety because it affects your gut biome. Um, so as, as I mentioned, she was saying that, Um, the gut brain connection works two ways so the gut bacteria can influence the brain, and the brain can also change the gut bacteria. So you could be stressed out, you could be in traffic or have a, an awkward conversation at work for like two hours, and then it can upset the balance of your, of your microbiome. So that's also something pretty interesting. Um, so. In this book, she looks at like, a lot of it is focused on the gut bacteria. Um, I was just fixing the sound on this. I think that's probably better. Uh, a lot of it is focused on the gut bacteria and how to manage your gut biome and those kind of things, and how the gut bacteria can cause mental health issues. Um, And, but she also talks about ways to improve, get a healthy brain, a healthy gut, and, uh, all of all of the kind of things like food can do for you. And I find this really interesting cause I feel like the normal, the, the narrative around food and nutrition is just about like being fit. Um, being healthy physically. But this is all about the brain. So she's going to, she talks about, um, You know when food gets broken down in your stomach and it directly influence neurotransmitters, serotonin, dopamine, gaba, uh, and then travel into the brain and they change the way you act, the way you feel, your emotions, it completely affects it. Um, so if you have any kind of anxiety, any kind of. Just emotional discomfort that you don't know where it's stemming from. I highly recommend you look into your diet, maybe read this book. I mean, you can listen to this episode. I am obviously not a medical doctor or a nutritional psychiatrist, um, but I'm just recounting what I have read in this book, and I recommend you do also read this book. Hey guys, just wanted to quickly interrupt this episode to pop in here and say I'm opening up slots in my calendar for one-on-one coaching in September of 2023. I'm only going to be taking on about two clients at the time because my time is super limited between running the business. I'm also, um, doing a bit of marketing for another business I've invested in plus working on this podcast, so I can only take on two at the moment, but it's going to be extremely. Powerful. If you are looking for ways to feel more confident at work, speaking to your boss or colleagues, or if you're frustrated because things just don't go your way and you wanna be able to change that and take responsibility for it, or you wanna be able to speak your needs more comfortably in dating, in the relationship with your partner or even just, you know, be that person that can receive instead of everyone always taking things from you. Um, this is gonna be super valuable for you. Um, so I recommend that you jump on it as quickly as possible. You can either fill out the form and the link in my bio or just send me a DM and we can get that on the calendar, uh, booked and ready to go. So, okay, let's talk about, um, some of the foods. Um, so some of the foods I'm gonna go through, like the bad foods. No, you know what, it's kind of obvious. Honestly, this is good foods that are more interesting. The bad foods are generally sugar. Uh, we all know the bad effects of sugar. Um, I don't really know what to say that people might not know a already, already. There's so many scientific studies that say there's like a high correlation of people who eat sugar and eat more, too much sugar and are more prone to depression. Um, and there's a lot of studies on this. Um, Even, for example, in 2019, there was a meta-analysis of, uh, they, they looked at 10 other observational studies that covered about 37,000 people who that had depression. And it found that it was way more likely, um, to be at risk for depression if you drink soda. Um, so if you drink just one can of soda a day, you would have 5% higher risk of. Getting depression, which is crazy, like in the American diet. I have friends who drink sodas every day, or some people just drink it casually. I will, I do have to say I will always have a Coke Zero when I go to the movies. Um, but that's not every day. It's not even once a month. Um, so yeah, they say basically sugar causes depression because the brain relies on glucose. Um, To survive and to function and over the entire day, over 24 hours, the brain only needs like 62 grams of glucose. Um, And you can meet that through regular food. So when you add on BA processed food, like baked goods, well I guess unhealthy baked goods cause there's some, can be some healthy ones, um, and soda and things with high fructose corn syrup. Then the brain gets flooded with too much glucose and it gets inflamed, which leads to oppression. Um, then we have high glycemic load carbohydrates. Uh, so like bread pasta. If they are made from refined flour, I don't think this is the case. If it's like. Whole flour. Um, so even though they don't taste sweet, your body just process it in the same way as sugar. Um, so it's not like I think carbs are good for you. I mean, I don't think, I know like if you do the research, carbs are good for you, but it's just the right kind of carbs that are good for you. Um, so there's a lot of studies there. So high glycemic, um, Load carbohydrates can include potatoes, which is sad cause I do love a potato. But I guess for you, the skin is probably okay. But then it includes white bread, white rice, honey, orange juice. Sorry I'm wrong, honey. Orange juice and whole meal breads are medium glycemic index foods. And then, um, low glycemic index foods are green vegetables, fruits, carrots, beans, chickpeas, lentils, those kind of things. And I'm assuming also whole grain stuff, but don't quote me on that. Um, So, yeah, she says, focus on low glycemic index foods like brown rice, quinoa, steel cut oatmeal, chia seeds, blueberries, et cetera. Um, but basically don't overload on carbs because it w it will increase the glycemic load on your body. So then we also have artificial sweeteners, which goes back to my wonderful Coke Zero, which I love. So aspartame, sweet and low truvia, these kind of things. Um, Actually worse for you than sugar. Um, they're even, yeah, they're even more depressed than people who don't consume them. Like these people are more, way more likely to get depressed and they can be toxic to the brain and they, they actually alter the brain concentrations of your mood regulating neurotransmitters. So that's something to think about as well. Now we also have fried foods. Which makes a lot of us sad. Um, we all love our fried foods. I do love a french fry, um, huge fan of french fries, but apparently it does. I. Make people more likely to develop depression in their lifetime. And all of these have some cited studies behind them. There's one study in Japan that looked like 715 Japanese factory workers and measured their levels of depression and resilience. And then, um, they tracked how much fried food they were eating and the people who ate more fried food were more depressed and less resilient. Um, so. Again, it's not really about being obsessive about it, it's just reducing and being mindful. So don't eat fried foods every day. Uh, maybe have it once a month or something like that. And then we have fats. So, um, not all fats. There's actually really healthy fat. I'm gonna go on a tangent about olive oil, which is amazing. Olive oil is so good for you. Um, but there's bad fats like margarine, shortening, hydrogenated oils. And these, um, Are known that actually that, you know, it's quite widely known that this causes cardiovascular disease and heart attacks. Um, but actually there's, they, they did, uh, release a study in Spain, um, 12,000 Spanish students who did not have depression at the start of the study. And they each had make, made them take, take like this long questionnaire telling them about their, the way that they ate. Um, and then they had follow up visits basically, and they followed them for six years and. Um, I, they kept having them take these exam or these tests to just, Follow what they were eating. And, um, there were 657 new cases of depression that were identified, and these were the ones who were eating a lot more fried foods and trans fats in the diet. On the other hand, the people who were eating a lot more olive oil significantly lowered the risk of depression. Um, Anna have, um, and I have, I'm gonna mention a study later that olive oil has ap also been found to help with dementia, brain fog, Alzheimer's, and just, it's such a good oil for your brain. But a lot of the other oils are really bad, so vegetable oils are horrible for you. Um, you know, sunflower seed oil, you just wanna stay away from that and just eat olive oil or avocado oil is also good for you. Alright, so now we're gonna talk about, oh, you know what, I'm just gonna go on my olive oil Ran. How about that? How about that? Cause I'm already on it. So olive oil. Um, It serves as a protective, fast factor against cardiovascular disease. It reduces the bad cholesterol, raises the good cholesterol. It's anti-inflammatory, it helps intestinal health. Um, it's really like a miracle food, so it has 30. Phonic pH noli compounds. I have to tell you, I learned so much preparing for this episode, um, cause I have to Google a lot of stuff. So the full, but I, I'm citing all of these studies that are all gonna be in the show notes, so you can go and read them yourself. They're peer reviewed studies. Um, I'm not just Googling shit, it's peer reviewed. I'm linking to it. But, um, so olive oil has 30 different. Phenolic compounds. And these compounds are things that help you in, um, defense responses like ant, it has anti-aging properties, anti-inflammatory properties, antioxidant and anti-proliferative activities, and has a super high level of nutrients like vitamin E five sterols and antioxidants. I don't know if I pronounce any of that right, but anyway, um, And it has a positive effect on gut microbiota, intestinal immunity. Um, and of course, I'm not talking about just regular olive oil. This has to be extra virgin olive oil. So that's not processed at all. They basically just squeeze the olive oils and it comes out. So the other kind of, if it's just virgin olive oil or regular olive oil that's processed, it's not as good. So you have to get the extra. All of these studies are just on extra, I mean, the, these benefits are from extra virgin olive oil. It's not any kind. Um, and so back to the mental health benefits, it's been linked to, um, reducing stress, improved mood and reduced risk of neurodegenerative disease, largely due to its high polyphenol content, which reduces inflammation and fights the damaging effects of oxidative. Stress. And according to some research, which again I have linked to this below, can extend your life. So if you're not convinced about olive oil, just do the reading. It's amazing. Have a few teaspoons of olive oil every day, and that's gonna make you feel good. So other foods for good moods. This is again in the depression section. You have omega-3 fatty acids. So these are crucial to mental health and she talks about them in every single section. Um, they're normal. They're important for normal body metabolism. Um, And their starting point for making hormones that regulate blood clotting, uh, and relaxation of the artery walls and inflammation. But you have to get them from your diet cuz your body does not produce them by yourself. So you have to get them from foods. Um, so I'm not gonna get too much into the details here, but they basically promote brain health. Um, they lower inflammatory markers and they protect neurons from excessive inflammation. So where do you get your omega threes from? Um. Oh, actually she mentions, yeah, most western diets are eating really high in omega sixes. Um, and so you have a ratio of omega six to omega three, which is 15 to one when you should get four to one. So most Western people should cut down on omega six. Okay, so what does this all mean? You're like, okay, Myra, this means nothing to me. Um, So you, so foods that are high in Omega six are foods like full fat cheese, red meat, corn oil, palm oil, et cetera. You need to cut those. Those will increase your chances of depression, of course, obviously of like cancer and all those other diseases, but we're not talking about that right now. But foods that are high in omega threes is walnuts, olive oils or avocado oils. Um, she also mentions canola oil is okay. She said it's not great. Um, but it's better than the other vegetable oils, which are basically poison. The other ones. Um, but so you have, uh, yeah, dark leafy vegetables. These are all, um, high in omega threes. Um, and if you eat fish, then also there is, um, a lot of cold water fatty fish, like salmon is pretty high in these. Um, Uh, but it's not cuz they actually make the fish, they make the omega three s, they actually eat it themselves. So you could, it has like algae so you can also just eat that yourself instead of eating it through the animal. Um, so. Other things that are helpful is obviously vitamins, so you have vitamin b12. I would be careful taking vitamin b12. So I've been following people who say take vitamin b12, especially as if you're plant-based, but um, you should not take supplements of it unless you are deficient, unless you've taken a test. I started taking supplements and I got horrible. Cystic acne for a while that took like months to, um, get rid of. And then I was reading on some Reddit forms, and this is actually like a common thing. Like it just will destroy your skin, even though it's supposed to be good for your skin, but you can't have excess of it. So just make sure you're not deficient before you start trying to take supplements. At least just get it through your food. Um, but it does also help with depression and brain function. Um, And these you can get from like soybeans and whole grains. And then you should also get vitamin A, which helps your proper brain function. Um, and vitamin C, which you can get from citrus, fruits, cantaloupe, strawberries, and like broccoli and cauliflower. All right, so I'm gonna move over to the anxiety part cause there's a lot of overlapping. Um, Overlapping foods there, so things that are bad for anxiety. So you have an anxious gut. Uh, so me, when I feel anxiety, I actually get it. A lot of my chest. Um, I get, I usually get it a lot more in, in my chest than my gut, and it would feel like a crushing, like a pressure on my chest when I used to have anxiety. I used to have really bad anxiety before I switched my diet. Um, following this book. Um, and it would feel like a crushing sensation on my, on my chest. So here talks a lot about the stomach and how it feels when you're nervous, but I didn't really have like a nervous anxiety. Um, it wasn't, I don't know how to explain it. It wasn't so much like a worried thing. It was, it was more just a feeling in my chest. But she does talk about, you know, the language. You have butterflies in your stomach or pit in your stomach. Her feelings of dread. And it's not just coincidence, but it's because we have this bidirectional relationship between the gut and the brain. Um, so. Anxiety can cause bowel disorders, it can cause disease, it causes all of these things and it can really be, um, greatly reduced by just changing up your diet. So obviously what's really bad for the, um, Anxious person is the Western diet. Fried food, vegetable oils other than olive oil, of course sweetened drinks, lots of red meat. Um, that has, it wreaks havoc on your mental health and your physical health. But again, we're just talking about mental health here. Um, And they, they've done a lot of animal studies saying that high fat and high carbohydrate diets promote anxiety. In 2016, neuroscientist Sophie Duo and her colleagues demonstrated that rats on a high fat diet, so probably trans fat, were more prone to diabetes and anxiety. Um, and diets rich and saturated fight fats and fructose increased anxiety like behavior in rats. So, um, Limit the fried foods, limit the red meats. Uh, if you have a, a lot of anxiety, try to eat more vegetables. it seems obvious but actually has such an, such an impact. So I'm gonna go, um, I'm gonna cover a couple more things. Maybe something a little bit less obvious caffeine. Sorry, I didn't mean that. This was less obvious. This is like the most obvious one I meant after the, the couple more Um, so caffeine overstimulates your brain that processes a threat, so you can, I mean it, you know, you get the caffeinated jitters. Um, a lot of people are really aware that caffeine affects their anxiety because it feels quite instant. All the other ones like alcohol, which is the next one. Um, The high fat, that's kind of like a longer term thing that you kind of get used to it even though it's still there. But you don't, you don't actually make the association, um, with your anxious feeling and the food you ate cause it's not as immediate, but it is the same effect. Um. But yeah, this helped me a lot. I used to drink like four or five cups of coffee a day. I drink about one now and it's really made a difference in my anxiety. So she says basically that less than a hundred milligrams of caffeine has little to no effects on anxiety, um, for between a hundred to 400 milligrams a day. The results are mixed. Some show no effect. And, um, most of them have showed a significant increase in anxiety. So just don't go over 400 a day. So, Um, you need a smaller coffee cuz she's like, just for context, one Starbucks, like 20 ounce coffee is 475 milligrams. But if you get like one capsule of ne Nespresso coffee, then that's 50 to 80. So that should be good. And then we have alcohol. So a lot of people use alcohol to try to reduce anxiety because, um, you know, initially it kind of inhibits you and it makes you. Feel less stressed in the moment, but it actually increases anxiety. Um, al alcohol use can cause new onset anxiety and worsen preexisting anxiety symptoms. Um, a lot of people who use it think it actually reduces symptoms of anxiety, but it actually makes it way worse over time, especially if you, um, keep binge drinking. I think for women it's like up to four. Drinks in one sitting has binge drinking, or more than four drinks in one sitting has been drinking. For guys it's like seven, or maybe it's less than that, but it's, it's a lot less than what it would seem like. So yeah, of course it's normal to have a dr a drink or two after a hard day to alleviate stress. But if you already have some underlying anxiety, that drink easily turns into three or five and it's self medication. And, um, and you will, you're. Symptoms of anxiety get worse. Um, because the effects of drinking like that, it's just, it's actually withdrawal. Um, and it, it, alcohol really messes up your gut bacteria, as we know, will increase your symptoms of anxiety. So a lot of people don't really know if it was the alcohol abuse that came first or the anxiety, uh, but that'll help. And alcohol abuse is any binge drinking. So like, um, If you have more than four drinks in one sitting, for example, or I think it's like more than seven drinks in a week cumulative. So even if you have like more than one drink a day or, uh, as a woman, or 14, two drinks a day as a man that's binge drinking. Um, yeah. Men who consume more than 14 drinks per week, if four of them are more, if four of them are in a single day, at least once a month. That is a heavy drinker. Um, and it's alcohol abuse and so it actually increases your anxiety. Um, and you will, you do also get more anxiety if you try to stop, but you'll have to, you know, overcome that bridge to feel way better. And it really will makes a huge difference in anxiety if you learn to drink less. Um, Okay, so foods that help relieve anxiety, we have dietary fiber. So dietary fiber is basically foods that's not digestible by your gut and enzymes. Um, but since our, our guts themselves can't break down the fiber, but the b gut bacteria can break down the fiber and it has a positive effect on the mood, um, because it's broken down to certain smaller sugar molecules and the good bacteria increase. So, Um, and it activates brain pathways and nerve signaling that alleviate anxiety. Um, give me one second guys. I just realized I left a stove on. Alright. Um, that was dangerous. Okay, so where was I? So I was talking about dietary fiber. Um, so it also helps you with anxiety by keeping it helps you keep your weight down, um, helps you so it helps you understand when you're full better If you're eating these and you can eat up, eat slower. So if you feel full for longer, that generally helps you feel better and it dietary fiber decreases inflammation throughout the body. Uh, and there's a lot of evidence that brain and body inflammation. that the people with anxiety have higher inflammation. So if you can reduce the inflammation, most likely you're going to reduce, uh, that anxiety. So if you want to eat, um, dietary fiber, you can focus on the five bees, which is beans, brown rice, berries, bran, and baked potato with the skin. On. Um, but she does mention that the b you wanna eat spring leaves is the baked potato cuz they're high in carbs, which are, which we talked about before. They're the high glycemic index kind of carbs. Um, Other high fiber foods are pears, apples, bananas, broccoli, brussel sprouts, carrots, artichokes, almonds, walnuts, amaranth, oats, buckwheat and pearl barley. And then one that I found was really interesting was fermented foods. So yogurt. And you can also get plant-based yogurt, which is fermented. We have yogurt. You have kimchi, you have miso. Um, what else is there that's fermented. Oh, kombucha is fermented. And fermented foods give a lot of, um, advantages for people who have anxiety. Uh, so a recent review of 45 studies said that fermented foods could protect the brain in animals improving memory and slowing cognitive decline. Um, and I find this really interesting. I did start introducing a lot of, uh, fermented foods into my diet. Since I read this, I try to have them a few times a week. Um, So she talks about this, um, this study in 2015, Matthew Hillier, um, interviewed 700 people about their fermented food consumptions and social anxiety and neurotic traits. Uh, so in, in this case, she's talking about neuroticism as, um, People who are ang angry or more anxious, self-conscious, irritable, emotionally unstable and depressed than the average person. And according to this study, people who ate fermented foods frequently had, um, correlated to having way fewer symptoms of social anxiety in neurotic patients. Um, and then if you look at, if you compare that or cross-reference that with other studies, um, Foods that contain probiotics have a protective effect against social anxiety. Um, so throw some yogurt. Throw some yogurt onto your breakfast. Uh, have a little bit of kimchi. Have some kombuchas. Um, what else is there? Beer doesn't count. that's fermented. Um, All right. And then we have, uh, tryptophan, which is an amino acid, and people always talk about this, that it's in Turkey. I actually need to see what else, where else you can find tryptophan. Um, I think it's probably, it's the least abundant amino acid in protein. Um, And it's carried into the brain by transport symptom that prioritizes other amino acids. So it gets a little bit crowded out when you're, when you're trying to eat it. Um, so it. It helps when you're eating it with carbohydrates. Um, cuz they, they say that's why at Thanksgiving you get tired after you eat the Turkey. But basically if you eat like the mashed potatoes with it, your body produces more insulin and it diverts the other amino acids to your muscles and doesn't touch the tryptophan, so then it can go to the brain. Um, if you, uh, don't eat Turkey like me, then you can get tryptophan through chickpeas. Um, Chickpeas are actually the ancestors of Prozac. Um, cuz you can get more tryptophan for them and they're quite healthy. So eat that hummus girl. Uh, and then we have magnesium. I started taking magnesium every night. It helps me sleep naturally. And, um, magnesium deficiency is associated with high anxiety levels. Um, so when people are anxious, like if you're about to take a test, um, or you know, do a job interview, um, they're more magnesium than usual in their urine end. So when ag magnesium levels are low, it worsens anxiety. So take that magnesium. Um, I do actually just take it as a supplement. Uh, but you can also get it in almonds, spinach, cashews and peanuts cooked black beans and aami peanut butter and avocado have high levels of magnesium. Apparently in Western populations it's very poor. So 68% of Americans and 72% of middle-aged French adults consume inadequate amounts of magnesium in their diets. Um, so a little bit of a cheat sheet. We have eat the olive oil, put more olive oil in your diet. Eat high fiber foods. Um, eat. Pr, your probiotics and some prebiotics to feed them, get them trip tryptophan, control your alcohol and caffeine consumption and try to eat less fried foods. Again, don't get obsessed with it because that's not any way to live. Um, if you're getting obsessed with food, there actually is a section in this book that I thought was pretty interesting. Um, it's actually in the O C D section. Which I'm trying to find right now. Um, where she talks about orthorexia. So she says it's really easy when you are, um, for the OCD ones, she was concerned about people getting, uh, orthorexia because, you know, they get really obsessive and compulsive about things. So it's orthorexia nervosa, which sounds quite similar to anorexia nervosa. Um, And so these people get really, really obsessed with something. So Orthorexia and nervosa is people that have super restrictive diets. They're like obsessed with proper nutrition. They have super restrictive diets and obsessional focus on food preparation, ritualized patterns of eating. They're probably talking about food all the time. Um, and people suffering from orthorexia nervosa, health food junkies, like to the extreme. Um, so you know, Don't get obsessed with it because that's going to make you more nervous. And, um, it's just, it's not healthy either. It causes more stress to you to be obsessed with it and to be super rigid. Um, uh, it's just not good. So, for example, she, it gives us example of, of, uh, This guy who traveled really far to come see her, and he wanted to fix something that was going on, so he wanted to be given blood tests. As soon as he entered the door, he was demanding an intricate medical solution and sh what she realized was you actually have overly strict food choices and you're nutritionally deficient. Um, so she said, how about we just talk about some healthy building block recipes? He scoffed at her and said, you are very pedestrian. Um, so finally she says he probably didn't really follow the diet. He could not, he could not deal with the idea that this woman who knows a lot more about nutrition than him, he was probably reading about it obsessively, but she's a lot more qualified than him. So that probably the thing that you should address, um, if you are, I think he was like fatigued or something, is just loosen your grip on being super strict and try to eat a wide variety of healthy foods. Um, so she says his orthorexia probably prevented him from getting a healthier weight and improving his mood. Well, that's something that happens with some people when they get a little bit too obsessed with it. Um, so that's what I'm saying. Like I try to practice all of this. I've been following this diet since I read this book. I call it my mental health diet. I don't get obsessed with it. Like I'll still eat some fried foods sometimes. Um, I, I'll still drink. I went out on Saturday and I drank probably too much alcohol. I tried to be good about it. Uh, I did cut down my caffeine. Um, generally I'm okay with alcohol. I can stop after one or two and I don't really drink during the week. Um, And, uh, I, I added things to my diet more than removed them. Cause I already had kind of a healthy diet, but I started adding a lot more protein. I wish they talked more about protein in this book because I feel like it has such, had such a huge impact on my life to increase my protein intake. Um, so I eat a plant-based diet. I eat about 130 grams of protein a day. And oh man, has it changed my life? Uh, first of all, I look way better. Like I didn't have to, I used to wanna try to cut calories or like eliminate foods, and now I've just increased protein, added these foods for my mental health. And I look so much better. I'm so much more fit. My hair is better, my mys skin is better, everything is just better. And I wish there was a section about that, so I might have to look for some other resources and, um, talk about that in another episode. But just some food for thought Uh, and I hope this was a, an interesting and useful episode for you and that you learned some. And if you did, please leave a review. It really helps me if you leave a review, um, and let people know and share this episode. Get the message out far and wide. Uh, again, I've linked to all the studies, uh, in, in the show notes. And, um, I'll see you next time.