Today I'd like to talk about "Mental Health" Awareness. We spoke yesterday about a spice that can aid in brain function . . . so let's continue today.
Mental health includes our emotional, psychological and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel and act. And it helps us determine how we handle stress, relating to others and making choices.
Mental health is important at every stage of life. And if we feel our mental health is not what we'd like it to be . . . with things such as difficulty managing how we think, feel or act with respect to daily stresses . . . this could be a sign of poor mental health.
Now . . . mental "illness" is different from mental "health". Mental illness includes a range of condition such as depression, anxiety and substance use disorders.
And 1 in 4 people in the world will be affected by mental or neurological disorders at some point in their lives. Around 450 million people currently suffer from conditions like:
Mood disorders (such as depression or bipolar disorder)
Anxiety disorders
Personality disorders
Psychotic disorders (such as schizophrenia)
Eating disorders
Trauma-related disorders (such as post-traumatic stress disorders)
Substance abuse disorders
And some signs that this may be an issue are:
Long-lasting sadness or irritability
Extremely high and low moods
Excessive fear, worry or anxiety
Social withdrawal
Dramatic changes in eating or sleeping habits
With that being said . . . Emotional and "mental health" are so very important because it's a vital part of your life and impacts your thoughts, behaviors and emotions. And being healthy emotionally can promote productivity and effectiveness in activities like work, school, relationships or social environments.
So how do we better our "mental health"???
Simply said . . . there's a natural occuring amino acid in the human brain that works as a neurotransmitter. Now, these neurotransmitters function as a chemical "messenger" and their job is to block or inhibit certain brain signals and "decrease" activity in the nervous system. This in turn helps us to be "calm" and "think clearly". It helps to put our emotions in check.
You see . . . the brain naturally releases this amino acid at the "end" of the day to promote sleepiness and allow the body to rest to be better prepared emotionally for the next day.
But , , , the older we get . . . the more the production of this amino acid declines. And then add to that the other factors that decrease production like "chronic stress", "lack of certain nutrition" and "NOT exercising" . . . we are in trouble. We spoke of this life changing combination the other day.
Now . . . a key element to keeping the production of this amino acid functioning properly . . . especially as we get older . . . is including foods rich in "probiotics". I've spoken about them in many other Health tips.
And the kind of foods we find these probiotics in would be . . . fermented pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, plain kefir and coconut water kefir.
Elements that include a probiotics called "Lactobacillus rhamnosus", have been shown to boost the role of this essential amino acid to obtain good "mental health".
As always, feel free to contact me here.