The link between your mental health, hormones, and your gut health

In today's episode, we're going to cover the link between your mental health, your hormones, and your gut health.

So little bit of a recap as to why your gut health is so important for your hormones. Your gut health, specifically your liver is in charge of processing the used-up estrogen in your body. Especially in the second half of your cycle, from pre-ovulation up until your period. Your body is hard at work processing the estrogen that is rising at that point in your cycle. Now your gut microbiome is the bacteria that live in your gut. There are beneficial bacteria and bad bacteria. The beneficial bacteria help you absorb nutrients from your food and help produce most of your serotonin. But having too much bad bacteria can lead to inflammation in your digestive system as well as nutrient deficiencies. If you want to know more about these then check out my previous episode on “What you need to know about your gut health”.

Having too much bad bacteria can cause widespread inflammation throughout the body. This inflammation can be triggered by things like stress, insomnia, and your diet. All of which heavily affect your gut. Inflammation can also make most preexisting conditions worse. Things like PCOS and endometriosis are just some of them. This inflammation can negatively impact your immune system as well. That's because at least 70% of your immune system is housed in your gut.

So I'm sure by now you realize just how big of an impact your gut is on your overall well being. So let's go ahead and take a closer look at how your mental health is affected by your gut health. So your brain and your gut are connected through your vagus nerve. It connects your gut to your central nervous system. That's why when you get nervous, you feel butterflies in your stomach. This connection goes both ways. So for example, if you're feeling depressed, you are more likely to choose inflammatory comfort foods like ice cream. Then that bad bacteria also cause inflammation, which will lead to more feelings of depression. Leading to a vicious cycle. I wanted to go ahead and cover what other foods can affect your mood. One of the big key ones is sugar. Too much sugar can lead to inflammation in the brain and it can also result in depression. Your body just needs about 62 grams of glucose a day to function. Rat studies have found that high blood sugar levels can lead to lower levels of brain-derived nootropic factor. Which is a protein that is critical for brain development and growth. Plus it also helps your brain better adapt to stressors.

Going hand in hand with sugar is the high glycemic carbs. Those are carbs that are most likely to be broken down into simple sugars quickly. So think of things like pasta, bread, rice, they all have a similar effect to excess sugar. The same goes for fried foods. Which speaking of fried foods, be careful of what types of fat you eat. Cooking oils like corn, sunflower, and saffron oil can lead to an imbalance between your Omega 3 and your mega 6. You need a good balance between both of these. Sometimes referred to as the "good and bad" cholesterol. Ideally, you want to have more Omega 3s than Omega 6. Both of these impact your emotional regulation. So if you have too much Omega 6, it can lead to depression. High fat and high carb foods can also cause anxiety in some people. High fat and high carb foods are prevalent in our western diet. Lots of junk food, fast food, pasta, carbs, and things like that. This is considered an unhealthy diet because it is causing brain serotonin to be reduced in some brain regions. Which would increase the possibility of anxiety. Not only that, but the high fat, and carbs can also lead to obesity. Now, there hasn't been an official link between obesity and increased anxiety in people, but what can happen is that it changes gut bacteria. The type of bad bacteria in the gut has been shown to increase levels of anxiety.

Now if you combine how negatively some food can affect your mental health, along with how it affects your hormones, you can see how they can compound on each other. For instance, while I was going for my psychology degree when I was in my early 20s, I was working two part-time jobs serving. I had only about an hour and a half in between jobs, so I just ate whatever was at the restaurant. That restaurant being Olive Garden. If you know Olive Garden, it's mostly pasta, heavy salty foods, and sugar. My mental health started to go down fast and not only that, but my cycles had become irregular. This was also the time when my cystic acne was at its worst. So no amount of topical creams or detox teas were going to fix it because it was a combination of diet, stress, lack of rest, and nutrient deficiencies that were causing the storm. But the good news is that I now see food differently. So instead of it being something like “I had to eat to basically just keep myself alive”. I now see it as fuel for my body. So this new change in thought process is what helps me decide if something is beneficial for me and if it will help my body or if it will hinder it.

Now, when it comes to your connection between your health and your brain, it's a very broad topic and I'm just scratching the surface. But a really good book that got me looking into this type of research is ”This is your brain on food” by Uma Naidoo, which is a board-certified psychiatrist. What’s so interesting about this book is that she doesn't just dive into anxiety and depression. But she also talks about how different foods will affect people with ADHD, bipolar disorder, and other mental health issues. What’s really cool is that she doesn't believe in just prescribing medication. Which of course, medication has its own time and place. But it should always be combined with having a healthier diet. She also goes into different research that shows just how important your gut health is to your mental well being and what's crazy is that this is still considered a “new age” type of therapy. Combining both a healthy diet and if needed prescription medication, which is crazy to me. Because you’d think that your gut health would be the first thing that they would try to assess since it is so connected to our mental well being. I mean, if 90% of the serotonin is made in your gut, then you would think that would be the first place that they would check. So I'm happy to see that there is starting to be a shift now into a more holistic approach when it comes to not only hormone health, but also mental health as well.