Like most standard clinical doctors, most psychiatrists are often not provided with any education on the role of nutrition and the brain.
But thanks to open-eyed pioneers in their field, researchers and doctors, notable health and science journalists are finally getting the word out there to health our broken brains.
Dr. Nicole Avena famously taught us how sugar can stimulate the brain similar to street drugs with her research giving rodents the choice to feed from sugar water or cocaine, showing similarities between sugar consumption and addiction.
Dr. Uma Naidoo helped us understand how common symptoms of depression and anxiety can be influenced by the bugs that live in our guts and all things food and mood.
Dr. Daniel Amen used technology to scan our brains and show us colorful SPECTreports that highlight various regions of the brain with detailed images of brain function (and dysfunction).
Dr. Bonnie Kaplan told us about how supplementing nutrition, specifically micronutrients, can help kids and adults mentally and emotionally recover through traumatic events in life.
Dr. Julia Rucklidge reminded us about the history behind the notorious Minnesota starvation studies and how malnourished brains start to display signs of mental illness, irritability, schizophrenia, and more.
Dr. Felice Jacka spoke with ambition as she outlined the ways in which diet could be considered a preventative tool in the world of mental health psychiatry.
Dr. James Greenblatt helps connect the dots between healthcare, standard care protocols and the difficult paths to provide optimal integrative care options to both clinicians and patients in hopes to redefine psychiatry overall.
Dr. Drew Ramsey helped us remember how to eat healthy whole foods like avocado, kale, beans bell peppers and more to fuel our brains and nourish the gut-brain connections that impact our mental health, beating depression and anxiety.
Health and science journalist and author, Max Lugavere, scripted several strategies for feeding our brains even more superfoods for focus, energy, and to help prevent cognitive decline.
Shawn Stevenson, a celebrated podcaster and author, showed us that we truly can eat smarter and transform our health from junk food to developing health behaviors worthy to model and lead the next generation to better health.
Clear Evidence
The evidence for highlighting nutrition in mental health is abundant. In fact, it has been for quite some time, such as the early interventions for vitamin B IVs used to support people with alcoholism and addiction in the early 1900s.
Over a century later, standard practice still seems to struggle to provide people with the plethora of opportunities for health and healing made available to them through centuries old philosophies, theories, and actualized, authentic medicine in practice.
The fact remains, conversations of psychiatry without conversations of nutrition in the sphere of mental health is absolute negligence if not maleficence.
In this case, ignorance is certainly not bliss.
We have plenty of room for improvement in this field, but we must first focus on the basic fundamentals of human physiology, biochemistry, and provide each person with the foundations of health to nourish the soils beneath their feet to help them grow.
Focusing on nutrition, our brains and bodily biology were designed for a world of food vastly different than what we have today.
For example, the United States continues to allow substances, chemicals, additives, and artificial ingredients in much of its processed food supply that are banned in other countries around the world.
Furthermore, we are one of the very few countries that allow such extensive and pervasive junk food marketing to kids on television and in popular movies and media coverage promoted by colorful cartoons and celebrity athletes.
VAPE PSA - 30 sec
This must be the ABSOLUTE BEST VIDEO I'VE EVER SEEN to help inform the public about something that is super complex and deserves years of education to fully understand but DANG... THEY DID SUCH A GOOD JOB!!
We allow CHEMISTRY to run our world.
We’ve sold our sovereignty for the corporatists’ capital gains and facades that chemistry can solve us of our deep-rooted problems.
We’ve granted giant food companies to craft chemical laden cereals, sweets, snacks, and soft drinks – just to name a few.
Synthetic ingredients designed in a chemistry lab line our grocery shelves – not the food our ancestors (or the longest-lived people around the world have access to or decide to partake.
We’ve allowed chemistry to lead our blind fanaticism in pharmaceuticals –funded by public taxes, donors, and public research grants, with extensive tax breaks – accompanied by long lists of side effects, void of adequately provided informed consents, targeted marketing to the young, weak, and most-vulnerable, along with criminal fraud, greed, price gouging in order to increase profits and salaries of the most powerful elite who sit at the top.
I could go on, but I won’t share with you any more dreaded details with which I still believe every single consumer should have the rightful chance to know.
Despite the begrudging difficulty I find in pushing for an idealist’s vision for a better world…. I do want you to know that you can make a difference.
You Can.
You can speak up.
You can share the knowledge with others.
You can stand up for what you believe in and stand against the status quo in order to lead your life and your family’s life in a healthier, more sovereign direction.
Vote with your dollars.
Plant seeds for the young and the voiceless by taking action for the chance they can have a chance at a healthier, more wholesome journey going forward too.
Plant seeds by having those difficult conversations with others – your friends, family, schools, and neighborhoods – as you wield love, grace, relentless kindness and sincere compassion.
“Hey what do you think about _______” is an easy place to start.
Plant seeds by being an example to increase rates of exposure and awareness to enlighten and embolden others that they too can do the same and stand up for what is right in this world.
And remember, you know what they say.. what comes around goes around.. so do your best to increase the positive energy in the world around you.
You’ll be glad you did – I guarantee it.
🦋
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