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Why nutrition is so important for your mental health

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Why nutrition is so important for your mental health

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Desperation can drive us to extraordinary places. My dad was laying in the foetal position in a psychiatric hospital bed, suffering from suicidal depression for the 7th time in his life. Psychiatry had run out of ideas.

Watching him suffer was too much to bear, so I took it upon myself to find an answer to his distress. After many years of studying the fine intricacies of the brain and nervous system, I discovered how:

Nutrition.

Given that you're not going to learn this information from your GP, or a psychiatrist, (they don't teach nutrition in medical school), I'm going to break it down for you here, in this article.

The 2 Key Components of Nutrition

When it comes to nutrition and mental health, there are two vital components you need to know about:

Let's begin with energy.

Imagine your brain as a car. Bring an image of this car into your mind. What type of car do you see? Is it a Ford, or is it a Ferrari? I imagine that if it's a £160,000 Ferrari, you're going to make sure that you fill it with the best possible fuel. High octane, premium unleaded.

Now, what about your brain and body? How are you fuelling those? Nutrient-dense, or nutrient-starved food? In the western world, we often treat our cars better than our bodies.

To achieve good mental health, you need to power your brain and nervous system with the correct, and sufficient amounts of, nutrients. Some of these can only be provided through diet, because the body can't produce them itself. These are known as essential nutrients. One of the main reasons why we have a mental health crisis is down to insufficient amounts of the following nutrients in our diet:

This is due to the fact that the typical western diet, or SAD (Standard American Diet), includes a high percentage of carbohydrates, sugars and nutrient-starved food. This isn't your fault. You've been told to eat this way.

Ever since Ancel Keys fabricated a story about fats causing cardiovascular disease, greatly influencing government nutritional guidelines, the western diet has been high in carbohydrates and sugars. During this time, mental illness has become an epidemic:
Source: World Health Organisation, 2017 figures. Global population = 7.6 billion (slide courtesy of Georgia Ede)
The Big Fat Lie

Your brain needs fat. It is made up of 60% fat. And whilst it represents only 2% of the body's mass, it uses 25% of the body's cholesterol. So it needs to be fed with fat.

But not any old fat. Feed it with the type of fats that you've been wrongly told are healthy, like omega-6 'vegetable' oils (which aren't even made from vegetables!), and you'll inflame your gut, then your brain, increasing the risk of inflammatory depression.

Instead, your brain is hungry for two different kinds of fats;
Photo credit: Homemade ghee, courtesy of Megumi Nachev
Yes, saturated fats, those which you've been told will make your fat and give you a heart attack are some of the best fats for you. If you're skeptical, here's some hard data for you. Tests on 75,655 men and women, mostly in-patients (therefore highly controlled), in experiments lasting 1 to 12 years, showed that saturated fats had NO EFFECT on cardiovascular mortality or total mortality.

The quickest way to get essential fats from food is from animal products. Sorry to upset any vegetarians or vegans, which I undoubtedly just have, but animals are far more abundant in omega 3 and saturated fats. Yes, you can get ALA fats from vegetable sources, but only up to 9% of these fatty acids convert into the omega-3 fats you need to sustainably fuel your mitochondria, the power generators of your body's cells.
Source: Rosell MS et al. Long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in British meat-eating, vegetarian and vegan men.
Clearly, everybody has the right to choose whatever they want to eat, or not eat, and there most definitely is not one diet to suit everyone, the work of Dr. Weston Price proved that beyond doubt. However, the levels of Omega-3s found in the blood plasma of vegetarians and vegans compared to meat eaters were as follows:

Anti-inflammatory EPA omega-3 levels were 53% lower in vegans

Anti-inflammatory EPA omega-3 levels were 28% lower in vegetarians

Levels of DHA omega-3, which fuels neuron function (including mitochondria fuelling, plus myelin and synapse formation) were 59% lower in vegans

Levels of DHA omega-3, which fuels neuron function (including mitochondria fuelling, plus myelin and synapse formation) were 31% lower in vegans

So what should vegans and vegetarians do?

Seaweed is one of the few plants that contain EPA and DHA (it's also a great detoxifier), and whilst they don't provide as much EPA and DHA as animal products, non-meat and fish eaters can load up on flaxseed, either grounded or better still in oil form, plus chia seeds, hemp and walnuts. These ALA fatty acid laden foods will at least provide a proportion of the fuelling your brain and nervous system demands.

Which fats should you use for cooking?

When it comes to choosing what to cook your food in, choose saturated fats over polyunsaturated fats. Saturated fats, which are solid at room temperature due to their single carbon bond and being saturated with hydrogen molecules, are much more stable.

Unlike unsaturated fats, they haven't been hydrogenated, a process which involves being heated, pressured, having a solvent added, as well as a metal catalyst, then steamed to remove the bad odour, bleached to remove the grey colour, and 'winterised' for stability, then enhanced with artificial colours and synthetic vitamins.

Photo credit: Fresh coconut, courtesy of Diana Kulenyuk

When it comes to choosing a saturated fat for cooking, both meat eaters and vegetarians can't go wrong with coconut oil. It's healthy and gives food a lovely taste. If your kids won't eat their veg, try cooking them in coconut oil.

People who eat animal products have more choice, extending to ghee (clarified butter) which also has the added benefit of not containing any of the inflammatory casein found in regular butter, tallow (beef) or lard (pig).

Critical role of fats

The final characteristic of fats is perhaps the most important. Fatty acids activate the sympathetic nerves, the 'get up and go' branch of your autonomic nervous system, providing you with energy and alertness. This brings us neatly on to nutrition and the autonomic nervous system.

Nutrition and the Autonomic Nervous System

I studied autonomic neuroscience for many years and have come to understand that, not only does it get insufficient attention in medical school, but this series of nerves is the key to achieving good mental health.

I'll write more about the intricacies of this system in future articles, but for now, you need to know that keeping the autonomic nervous system in balance, or homeostasis, is critical to staying healthy, both physically and mentally.

The great news is that, whilst this system needs no conscious input from you to function, you do have influence over it, and therefore can help to bring it into balance. Dr. Ernst Gellhorn coined this as 'reflex tuning'.

Reflex Tuning

There are a few things you can do to perform reflex tuning, including manipulating your breath, thoughts and beliefs. If you want to learn exactly how to do this, take my online course, Thrive.

The other significant means of tuning your autonomic nervous system is through diet.

The critical role of vitamins, minerals and trace elements

Over and above the nutritional value of every vitamin, mineral and trace element you derive from food, the most important role of nutrients is their effect upon the autonomic nervous system.

Different nutrients either activate or suppress the two branches of this system, which are the;

Sympathetic nervous system, and

Parasympathetic nervous system

Dr. Francis Pottenger Sr. was the first person to discover the critical influence of nutrients upon the autonomic nervous system. In 1936, he discovered that potassium stimulated the parasympathetic nerves. His work, and position as a pioneer in understanding the autonomic nervous system, was confirmed by scientists 70 years later.

Not only did they demonstrate that potassium does indeed activate the parasympathetic nerves, but also that magnesium blocks, and calcium activates, the sympathetic nerves.

Bringing about balance through diet first requires you to know the genetically pre-determined balance in your autonomic nervous system. The early work of Dr. Pottenger was later confirmed by Drs. Funkenstein, Gellhorn, Kelley and Gonzalez, who all demonstrated that people naturally fall into one of three autonomic groups;

Sympathetic dominant (Group 1)

Balanced metaboliser (Group 2)

Parasympathetic dominant (Group 3)

Which group you belong to determines which foods you should eat, and nutrients your body needs, to achieve optimum health, both physically and mentally.

Not only does your autonomic grouping influence your psychological and physiological profile, but also your health profile. The relative strength and weakness of the different organs and biological systems of Group 1s means that they rarely get some illnesses, but frequently get others.

The same goes for Group 3s. They have strong digestive systems, which means that they rarely suffer from illnesses such as IBS and constipation, but their relatively weak respiratory system and leaky cell membranes means that they are much more susceptible to asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia.

Individual Biochemistry

Everybody has a unique biochemical profile, which demands varying amounts of nutrients to achieve autonomic balance.
Source: You Are Extraordinary, Roger J. Williams
One of the most dramatic ways to demonstrate this need is through examining the physical variation between different people's organs. Dr. Barry Anson, author of An Atlas of Human Anatomy, states that "the so called normal features of the human anatomy do not apply to more than 15% of the population."

Look at the dramatic variation in shape and size of twelve real stomachs, compared to a 'textbook' stomach, in the picture below:

Imagine the difference in enzyme and acid production in these differently shaped and sized organs, and their subsequent efficiency in digesting food.

Typically, people don't have any insight into their autonomic balance, individual biochemistry and nutritional needs, so using my years of expert knowledge and experience in autonomic neuroscience, I've created an online, autonomic test.

If you'd like me to identify your autonomic group and provide you with personalised dietary advice, so that you can achieve optimum mental and physical health, visit my shop.

Why much of your food is starved of nutrients

During the 1930s, when Dr. Weston Price travelled the world, to live with 14 different tribes from 14 different countries, over a period of 8 years he observed that people who followed their traditional diet were absent of chronic disease, including mental illness.

This compares with the landscape today, where an estimated 81% of the western population suffer from chronic disease. The reason? The western diet.

As well as creating health problems through its inflammatory effect on the gut, modern food contains a fraction of the nutrients of traditional diets. Why is this?

Soil quality

To eliminate pests and to promote rapidly growing and plentiful crops, non-organic farmers spray herbicides and pesticides over their crops and soil. This strips soil of its nutrients, which in turn strips your food of vitamins and minerals.

These products contain chemicals which interfere with the brain's neuronal signalling, and which has been shown to cause autism, ADHD and other mental illnesses.

For a fascinating insight into the health problems which these chemicals cause, and how they can be resolved (quick tip - eat organic), I highly recommend that you watch the documentary, Secret Ingredients.

Animal feed

Just like lions have evolved to eat meat, cows thrive on grass.

Much of the beef you find in supermarkets comes from grain-fed, not grass-fed cows. The saturated fat and omega-3 content of grass-fed beef is double that of grain-fed beef 1.

Grass-fed beef also contains more protein, so by sourcing it from your butcher, you'll enjoy not only better tasting beef, but meat that is better for your mental health.

Finally, grain affects the PH value of a cow's stomach, which promotes bacterial growth and can cause E. coli. Best avoided.

All wheat is the same, right? Wrong. As you can see from the photo below, the wheat of days gone by stood tall, sometimes to over four feet. Modern wheat however, sometimes referred to as 'dwarf wheat', grows to only half that height.

Why? Firstly, to prevent it from being blown over so easily in the wind, which would make it unharvestable, and secondly, to yield a greater crop. Modern wheat has a larger seed head sitting upon its broader stem.

This transformation is the result of intense cross-breeding programs, which have turned the crop into something neither physically, nor genetically, like its old self. How? The result of germinating wheat with non-wheat grasses, and inducing genetic mutations through irradiation and exposure to toxins.

As a result of these genetic changes, the proteins of modern wheat can cause receptors in the intestine to ignite the immune system, creating inflammation both locally and systemically.

Not only does this lead to celiac disease, but can also lead to a host of other inflammatory diseases, such as depression, arthritis, MS, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Communication let you down?

As well as performing a critical role in the supply of energy, the foods you choose to eat greatly affect the ability of your brain's neurons to communicate with each other. Given that literally everything you do, from thinking and speaking, to moving and breathing requires this neuronal signalling, it's a good idea to get it right.

When neurons are insulated with something called myelin, they can communicate with each other both faster and more readily. Guess what myelin is made from? Fat! (and water). It's this fat which give parts of the brain its white colour. Unmyelinated areas of the brain give rise to the term 'grey matter', due to their grey appearance.

It's a particular type of omega-3 fatty acid, the DHA that I mentioned earlier, which provides the insulation for your brain's neurons. Another reason to stock up on fatty fish and meat.

Another fat which comes in for plenty of criticism is cholesterol. You might like to know that cholesterol is essential to the synthesis of myelin.

If you want a deeper dive into the true role of cholesterol and its relationship with fat consumption, check out this brilliant video by Dave Feldman. It will change everything you thought you knew about fat.

After reading this article, do you wonder whether everything you've been told about fat is wrong? Since it is now coming to a close, I hope that you've learned something new about the critical role which nutrition plays in your mental health.

If you'd like to learn more, watch the video of my keynote speech at the 2020 Mental Health Summit; Nutrition & Mental Health - Insights You Won't Hear Anywhere Else.

If you think that any of your friends or connections would benefit from reading this article, please share it using the 'Share this post' button below.

Finally, if you'd like to read the story of how I resolved my father's chronic depression by using nutrition in the manner I've described here, buy my book, Saving Dad.

Saving Dad charts the true story of his 40 year battle with depression, during which time traditional psychiatry repeatedly failed to resolve his illness, despite prescribing dozens of different psychiatric medications and administering hundreds of courses of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

My book proves that there is alternative way to resolve mental illness, even in extremely severe cases.

All the best,

Matt

Reference

Van Elswyk ME, McNeill SH. Impact of grass/forage feeding versus grain finishing on beef nutrients and sensory quality: the U.S. experience. Meat Sci. 2014 Jan;96(1):535-40.7

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Why Nutrition is so Important for your Mental Health

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Desperation can drive us to extraordinary places. My dad was laying in the foetal position in a psychiatric hospital bed, suffering from suicidal depression for the 7th time in his life. Psychiatry had run out of ideas. Watching him suffer was too much to bear, so I took it upon myself to find an answer to his distress.

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As children are missing family contact during this stay at home period, and trying to give them all the attention they need whilst working from home and trying to do zoom calls can be difficult it can be good to schedule some regular virtual play dates with family members where they can chat/play and be entertained whilst you are on calls. Set them up with toys / activities that they can show grandparents/aunties/uncles etc

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https://www.mind.org.uk/

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Matt Janes - Mental Health and Wellbeing Presentation

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Regularly getting a good night's sleep is very important to ensuring we enjoy good mental health.

When we don't get good sleep, it can contribute to a range of problems including depression and anxiety. But it can sometimes feel hard to achieve amid the pressures of daily life. To help, we have come up with these top ten tips on how to get a good night's sleep.

1. Tech-free bedtime

The bedroom should be somewhere that we associate with sleep. Where possible, you should try to remove distractions from you bedroom. It is better to watch TV, check social media and eat in another room. This will allow you to relax with no distractions in your bedroom.

Be mindful of the presence of gadgets and electronics, such as computers, phones, tablets and TVs. The backlit 'blue light' displays suppress melatonin production - the hormone that helps you sleep; the suppression of melatonin causes sleep disruption. You should stop using these devices two hours before you go to sleep to reduce their impact on your sleeping.

2. Prioritise managing physical symptoms

As anyone who has tried to get to sleep with a blocked nose or headache knows, physical health problems can stop you from getting a good night's sleep. It can be easy to forget with minor symptoms, but you will thank yourself when night falls if you prioritise speaking to a pharmacist about appropriate medication for symptom management.

3. Light, sound and temperature

It may sound common sense but too much light and background noise can prevent you from falling asleep or staying asleep. For light and noise sources that you can't control, eye masks or ear plugs are wonderful investments.

Temperature is also important, and if you share a bed with a partner with different temperature preferences, consider separate blankets or other solutions that make less of a sleep-compromise.

4. Dealing with worry

Thinking about sleep too much or trying to force yourself to sleep will only keep you awake. Learning how to relax both your body and mind instead will help you to get to sleep much more easily.

Progressive relaxation techniques can help you to relax and unwind at these times.

6. Alcohol alert

Although it can make you feel tired and can help you get to sleep, alcohol often impairs the quality of your sleep and makes you more likely to wake up during the night as the effects wear off, and you may need to go to the toilet frequently or wake up dehydrated to drink water.

8. No napping!

If you have trouble sleeping, you may feel tempted to catch up on sleep by taking naps. However, unless you're feeling dangerously sleepy (while driving or operating machinery, for instance), this usually does more harm than good as it makes it more difficult to sleep at night.

If you feel tired during the day, get up and take a walk around, get some fresh air, or do something challenging for a short while, like a crossword or a sudoku.
We also have a How to sleep better guide, which can be downloaded for free.
We need your help

We want to see a world with good mental health for all. This means compiling resources like this one to help people manage, protect and sustain their mental health. We can't do this without your help. If you found this guide useful, please consider a donation today.

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Regularly getting a good night's sleep is very important to ensuring we enjoy good mental health. When we don't get good sleep, it can contribute to a range of problems including depression and anxiety. But it can sometimes feel hard to achieve amid the pressures of daily life.

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Part 1

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Use of pepper and water to teach children to wash hands 

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Teacher uses creativity and pepper to explain the importance of washing hands properly

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As supplies of nuts and berries dwindle, visiting and resident birds alike need good weather to generate fresh food in the form of insects and other small animals.

If you live near woodland, you might spot flycatchers, which arrive in May and leave in September. They perch in trees and fly upwards to catch insects in flight. If you have fruit trees, you might see a bullfinch that has been tempted in by the fruit buds.

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Gardening in May | Wildlife in May - The RSPB

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As supplies of nuts and berries dwindle, visiting and resident birds alike need good weather to generate fresh food in the form of insects and other small animals. If you live near woodland, you might spot flycatchers, which arrive in May and leave in September.

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Simple steps to get gardening

Our How-to guides give you fantastic ideas to develop your garden

Learn how to create attractive and productive container displays, for all-year-round interest.

Glossary

Don't be put off by strange vocabulary - check out common gardening terms.

Jargon explained

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A beginner's guide to gardening / RHS Gardening

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Our How-to guides give you fantastic ideas to develop your garden Learn how to create attractive and productive container displays, for all-year-round interest. Don't be put off by strange vocabulary - check out common gardening terms. Jargon explained

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May is one of the most exciting months in the garden. It brings an abundance of new flowers, with fresh blooms opening almost every time you step outside. Bluebells and the first flush of roses are among the most obvious signs of this time of year. The garden is now at its freshest and most lush, the air beginning to buzz with birds and insects. This makes May the perfect time to get outside and tackle those gardening tasks that make early summer so very special.

May focus: Summer bedding

Now's the time to plant out summer bedding plants. Bedding plants are brilliantly versatile, they work in beds, borders, containers or hanging baskets which can be displayed in even the smallest of spaces, so just because you don't have a flower bed, don't be put off.

Geraniums, busy lizzies, petunias and cosmos are just a few of our favourite summer bedding plants. They are a brilliant way of injecting colour into your garden, and can also be used in hanging pots or baskets if you have a smaller space such as a balcony.

Grow your own: Tomatoes

Late May is the time for planting out your tomatoes, if you have an upright variety tie the main stem on to a tall cane for support whilst it grows. Remember to tie in the new stem as it grows upwards each week and pinch out any side shoots. For bush varieties, tie the tomatoes on to a shorter cane and allow all the shoots to grow.

For more tips and advice on growing your own tomatoes, read our how to guide.

Garden jobs for May

General garden jobs

Watch out for late frosts - protect tender bedding plants with horticultural fleece

From the middle of the month onwards, plant tender exotics, frost-tender vegetables and sweet pea plants started off under glass

Keep on top of weeding and hoeing

Watch out for and deal with pests

Trim hedges

Lightly trim topiary, box hedges and other formal hedging; this will keep them tidy through most of the summer, until they're pruned properly later in the season. Give Leyland cypress hedges their first trim of the year. And clip fast-growing hedges, such as hawthorn, and remember to water and mulch newly planted hedges. For more advice on trimming a hedge, check out our how to guide.

Vegetables and herbs

Water the vegetable patch regularly in dry weather

Sow swede, beetroot, main crop carrots, autumn cabbage, autumn / winter cauliflowers, broccoli, peas, radish, lettuce and spring onions

Sow frost-tender vegetables e.g. French and runner beans, sweetcorn, courgettes and pumpkins

Plant frost-tender vegetables once the danger of frost has passed, but harden them off first

Continue earthing up potatoes

Harvest lettuce, radishes, rocket and over-wintering onions

Make regular sowings of things you need little and often such as lettuce, and this month sow all your mainstream vegetables that only go in once and then take the rest of the season to reach maturity, such as swede, main crop beetroots and carrots, autumn cabbage and autumn and winter cauliflowers.

Caring for your vegetables

During May, it's a question of keeping your head above water as planting and sowing is at its seasonal peak, and the more space you fill, the more watering, weeding, hoeing and thinning out there is to be done. Watering will need doing almost daily when the weather is dry, as most vegetables are very shallow rooted and a lot will have problems if they dry out. Watering needs to be consistent so they grow steadily from start to finish otherwise they may become woody and tasteless or else run to seed. If you are looking for an efficient and flexible watering system for your veg patch, consider installing a drip irrigation system.

Fruit

Water soft fruit bushes with swelling fruit and newly planted fruit trees

Blueberries and cranberries prefer rainwater, but use tap water when water butts empty

Protect strawberries from birds by using netting

Find out more on growing your own delicious strawberries with our simple how to guide.

Under cover

Ventilate the greenhouse by day and water plants more frequently

Continue to prick out and pot on seedlings, cuttings and young plants

Continue hardening off frost-tender plants

Plant tomatoes in early May and sweet peppers, chillies, aubergines, melons and cucumbers in late May

Lawns

Feed established lawns if not done in April

Remove weeds

If you have an established lawn, it will need mowing every week now to keep it healthy and looking good

The beginning of this month is your last chance to sow a new lawn, otherwise wait until the autumn

Ponds

Add new floating plants

Divide overgrown water lilies or put new water lilies in the pond

Introduce new fish to the water garden and continue to feed fish

Trees, shrubs and climbers

Tie in new growth of climbers and wall shrubs

Water in new plants and make sure they don't dry out

In mild climates, move tender conservatory shrubs in pots outside

Flowers

Divide polyanthus and primroses after flowering

Continue deadheading spring-flowering bulbs

Once spring-flowering bulbs have finished, let the foliage die back naturally. The energy gained will help provide a better display next spring

Patios and containers

Bring out frost-tender trees and shrubs from the conservatory once the danger of frost has passed

Plant up outdoor tubs, troughs, window-boxes and hanging baskets in the middle of this month at the earliest. Watch the weather and protect them from late frost under cover

Top-dress permanent pot plants with fresh compost and mulch

Feed and water container plants

Nature and wildlife

Build your own bug hotel. Stack bricks and deck tiles and fill the spaces with sticks, pots and natural items like leaves and pine cones. Watch the video for how to make one.

Continue to feed garden birds and clean bird baths regularly so that the water stays fresh

Encourage pollinating insects with fast-growing annual and biennial plants like salvia and sweet peas. Great for wildlife, they also look amazing in your garden too

Help give solitary bees a home and build your own bee B&B. Find out how with our step-by-step guide.

May garden project: Plant a hanging basket

Summer wouldn't be complete without dazzling displays of flowers in hanging baskets. So, from around the middle of May when the risk of frost has passed - or maybe a few weeks later if you live in the north of the country - start planting up and displaying your summer hanging baskets.

To help you create a stunning display, read our step-by-step guide on how to plant a hanging basket.

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May gardening jobs | Ideas & Advice | DIY at B&Q

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May is one of the most exciting months in the garden. It brings an abundance of new flowers, with fresh blooms opening almost every time you step outside. Bluebells and the first flush of roses are among the most obvious signs of this time of year.

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Sleep

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Matt Janes - Thrive

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Mental Health and Wellbeing Summary 2019