It’s all in your head! Right?? Wrong!
ANXIETY
… DEPRESSION
…..STRESS
…. ANGER
…. OVERWHELMED
…. WORN OUT
… MENTAL 
right??? It’s all in your head and YOU just NEED to think POSITIVE!!?? RIGHT???
WRONG!!!!
More and more research is finding mental health isn’t just a decision you make and thoughts you decide to have… more and more research is showing it’s not just some imaginative energy floating in the air inside your skull…. but actually very PHYSICAL things going on in the body that is causing such “feelings”….. though “feelings” seem abstract and not really real… They are very real and really caused by very real things going on in the body and brain! Even things not “in the brain” effects our mental wellness….
I’m sure most of us have been hearing about the gut and brain connections and how important gut health is for just about everything!!!!And hearing words like probiotics, microbiome, prebiotics, and gut-brain axis…. but what does all this really mean… AXIS??? I’ll break all that down in my next post but for now…..
Did you know???
90% of the nerves between the brain and gut deliver information FROM the gut to the brain.
That means far more communication between gut and brain is the gut telling the brain info and only 10% of the brain telling the gut what to do.
Bacteria in your gut break down food particles that release compounds, called short chain fatty acids, and chemicals that are sensed by the vagus nerve. The gut is informing the brain on what is going on in the digestive track…
Everything from the quality of food to how the immune system is responding to these things. This tells the brain how it should react.
When there is a stressful situation, the brain might notify the gut to lower its workload to save your body’s energy for dealing with the stress you’re going through.
Have you ever experienced diarrhea or vomiting when upset/stressed/ nervous??? That’s your body trying to get rid of food so it doesn’t have to take the energy to digest it!
Bacteria in your gut produce neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and GABA.
95% of serotonin in the body is produced IN THE GUT!!!!
Serotonin is a happiness hormone! That’s a big deal!!! 95% of your happy hormone IS NOT MADE IN THE BRAIN but by good bacteria in your G.I. track!!! Happiness is VERY PHYSICAL!!!
Can a car 
run with no fuel???
Can your blood sugar stay balanced with no fuel 
???
Can we live and our bodies operate 
with out fuel 
???
Of course not!!
And our brains can’t operate without fuel either no matter how we try to think positive!
It is very physical! If your gut is happy, it can provide the support for your brain to help your mental health through the production of neurotransmitters that regulate mood, anxiety, and happiness.
It is very physical! If your gut is happy, it can provide the support for your brain to help your mental health through the production of neurotransmitters that regulate mood, anxiety, and happiness.
Also in order for the gut to be healthy and happy, it needs to be able to block harmful bacteria from causing unhappiness in the intestines.
A gut with high diversity contains a variety of bacteria, which helps the odds that the gut will be resilient to any bad guy intruding. And a high amount of good bacteria present also increases the amount of metabolites, short-chain fatty acids, that are produced.
These metabolites help communicate the problem going on to the brain and also strengthening the lining of the intestines.
Short-chain fatty acids are the compounds that bacteria produce from prebiotics (THERE’S ONE OF THOSE WORDS AGAIN). This strengthening of the barrier lining between our gut and our intestines helps prevent any toxins and undigested food particles from entering the intestines and into the blood stream.
That is such a HUGE job!!
And If this barrier is weakened and doesn’t prevent that from happening it can cause inflammation in the gut (happy gut happy brain…. inflamed gut inflamed brain) and also the entire body as the immune system starts FIGHTING these toxins and food pieces like they’re bad guy infections because they are not suppose to be there so they are intruders.. which can go on to cause food sensitives and autoimmune disorders.
This inflammation, if not prevented, would go on to negatively affect the nervous system, triggering symptoms of depression and anxiety and much more. Your mental condition and wellbeing is very real!
Now there definitely can be thought pathways and traumas and infections and other things that affect mental health but just because it can happen inside your brain and not a hurt you can see like when you cut your skin doesn’t make it “just in your head” ya know what I mean?!
Want to see how your mental health is doing??
Check out this quiz and see? http://ltl.is/tvcsqnh
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