Anxiety
Pay attention to your thoughts: see if they are changeable
throughout the day. If they are, probably you are suffering from anxiety, which
often results from nutrient deficiency, toxins, and food allergies, according
to Dr. Abram Hoffer, an expert in
orthomolecular psychiatry. Dr. Abram Hoffer recommends the following:
Eliminate processed foods loaded with additives,
artificial flavorings, artificial sweeteners, and food colorings and
preservatives. These chemicals may be responsible for food allergies in certain
individuals. A healthy diet should eliminate these toxic chemicals.
Eat whole foods, such as brown rice, green vegetables,
which seldom cause food allergies. Your healthy diet should be made up of whole
foods, not artificial or processed ones.
Avoid all the sugar: blood-sugar disorder (hypoglycemia)
is the basis of most anxiety disorders, such as panic attacks, and food
allergies.
Check your food allergies. Yeast infection may lead to
food intolerances and food allergies.
Over the years, your body may have accumulated heavy metal
toxicity: lead, cadmium, and arsenic put in animal feed to remove germs;
aluminum in baking powder, table salt, vanilla powder, and emulsifiers in
processed foods; and mercury in dental filings.
Perform simple hair test to determine the level of
toxicity in your body.
Other metal toxicity from foods and the environment may
result in depression, headaches, lack of concentration, and forgetfulness.
Water has pesticides and heavy metals. Drink only filtered
tap water or distilled water from glass bottles, not plastic ones.
Keep your body allergy free.
Antioxidant vitamins
Get all antioxidant vitamins from your healthy diet,
preferably not their supplement counterparts.
Vitamin B complex
The vitamin B complex consists of eight water-soluble
vitamins. The B vitamins work together to boost your body’s metabolism, enhance
your immune system and improve your nervous system. Brewer's yeast is one of
the best sources of the B vitamins.
B1 enhances your mental functioning. Rich food sources
high in B1 include liver, heart, and kidney meats, eggs, leafy green
vegetables, nuts, legumes, berries, wheat germs, and enriched cereal. Include
them in your healthy diet.
B2 is abundant in mushrooms, milk, meat, liver, dark green
vegetables, and enriched cereals, pasta, and bread.
B3 may help avoid irritability and mental confusion, which
are often symptoms of mental depression. Food sources rich in B3 are chicken,
salmon, tuna, liver, nuts, dried peas, enriched cereals, and dried beans.
B5 deficiency may result in allergies, fatigue, and
nausea, which are often associated with mental depression. B5 is most abundant
in eggs, whole grain cereals, legumes, and meat.
B6 helps your body absorb and metabolize amino acids and
omega 3 fatty acids. Whole grains, bread, liver, green beans, spinach,
avocados, and bananas are rich food sources of B6.
B7 (biotin) helps your body release energy from carbohydrates.
Generally, your body has no deficiency in B7.
B9 (folic acid) deficiency may lead to mental depression.
Studies have shown that more than 30 percent of depressed patients have folic
acid deficiency. Good food sources of folic acid include leafy green
vegetables, nuts, whole grains, legumes, and organ meets.
B12 is critical to the optimum functioning of your nervous
system. B12 can be found only in animal sources, such as eggs, milk, fish,
meat, and liver. Therefore, vegetarians are strongly encouraged to take B12
supplement if they cannot obtain it from their healthy diet.
Vitamin E
Vitamin E,
according to a previous scientific study, had been implicated in depression:
patients suffering from major depression had lower levels of antioxidant
vitamins, such as vitamin E. However, it was not known whether it was due to
inadequate antioxidant vitamins, or a result of the depression itself.
Other scientific studies found that the lower vitamin E in
blood not only increases physiological stress as well as oxidative stress
during mental depression, but also protects your brain against damage caused by
free radicals and other reactive oxygen species produced during basic cellular
metabolism. Antioxidant vitamins are potent against free radicals for optimum
mental health
Good sources of vitamin E include egg yolk, green leafy
vegetables, whole grains, and vegetable oils.
Remember, it is often difficult to obtain sufficient
vitamin E from foods even in a healthy diet. A daily supplement containing
400IU is highly recommended.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C,
another one of the important antioxidant vitamins, plays an important role in
the synthesis of neurotransmitters, which enable efficient nerve impulse
transmission between nerve axons. Vitamin C is important and necessary for the
synthesis of the neurotransmitters, norepinephrine and serotonin. It catalyzes
the conversion of dopamine to norepinephrine and the conversion of tryptophan
to serotonin.
Vitamin C can be found in many fruits and vegetables.
Remember, vitamin C cannot be stored in your body, and is easily destroyed in
cooking.
Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau
