The Mood Cure: Take Charge of Your Emotions in 24 Hours Using Food and Supplements. Julia Ross

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СКАЧАТЬ is a factor in many seemingly unrelated psychological and physical symptoms, ranging from panic and irritability to insomnia, PMS, and muscle pain. Some “dark cloud” types have only a few of the possible deficiency symptoms, but many have almost all of them. Yet they tend to function well, typically getting more done, because of their tendency toward perfectionism, than other, less mood-impaired people. As a result, they often assume that they’re just stuck with some unfortunate but indelible personality quirks and try to work around them. Some try serotonin-boosting drugs, like Prozac, with mixed results, and resign themselves to a somewhat better, but still limited emotional life.

      Let’s take a close look at the mechanics of this mood type. You already know from the questionnaire in chapter 1 that your brain contains four different emotional zones. Its serotonin quadrant needs to be brimming with molecules at all times. When it is, your brain can cheerfully fire away with this ready fuel supply, transmitting positive feelings and thoughts. If not, these happy reactions are blocked. But that does not simply leave you feeling emotionally blank. A decrease in serotonin can produce the reverse of every warm, happy feeling that adequate serotonin would normally allow you to experience: instead of seeing your glass as half-full, you see it as half-empty. Instead of feeling proud of your accomplishments, all you can think of is what you haven’t accomplished. Instead of a sound sleep, you get insomnia. Instead of enjoying your family members, you’re irritated by them. Instead of peace, you have anxiety. Instead of looking forward to life, you may regard it with dread and even have thoughts of suicide.

      Precious serotonin is synthesized in your body from tryptophan, an amino acid (protein building block) found in foods like turkey, beef, and cheese. Tryptophan first converts into a substance called 5-HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan), which then converts directly into serotonin. This crucial three-step process can be short-circuited by a number of things. For example, if there isn’t enough tryptophan in your diet—a problem for many of us—your body can’t manufacture enough 5-HTP or serotonin to keep you happy. Or your natural production of serotonin may be inhibited by chemicals in your food such as caffeine, alcohol, or the artificial sweetener aspartame. Your serotonin production can even be disrupted if you are pregnant or not getting enough sunlight or exercise. Bouts of extreme stress can also dry up your pool of this emotionally vital brain chemical. Finally, you may have inherited a genetic tendency to underproduce serotonin, one that can be aggravated by all of the above.

      No matter what the cause of your drop in serotonin, it does not mean that you are doomed to languish in this particular mood pit for the rest of your life. Even the saggiest serotonin levels can be quickly elevated, allowing you to experience the full range of emotion that nature intended for you. Later in the chapter I’ll be telling you all about the nutrient repair strategies that can lift your dark cloud and bring out your emotional sun in less than a day. First, though, I’d like to tell you more about why your cloud is dark and about how it feels to live under the influence of serotonin deficiency.

      WHY ARE YOU SEROTONIN STARVED?

      Are You Eating a Pro-Serotonin Diet?

      Serotonin, like everything else in your body, is made out of the foods you eat. You really can’t feel “right” if you don’t provide your emotion-producing sites with plenty of the specific fuels they need. Low-calorie diets and skipped meals, for example, can quickly reduce vital serotonin-making supplies.

       Where You Might Have Lost Your Serotonin

      

In your diet—if you’re not eating pro-serotonin foods like protein and healthy fat or if you are eating antiserotonin foods such as caffeinated sodas, coffee, or “diet sweetened” drinks or foods.

      

Under stress—as your brain struggles with overwhelming or chronic demands.

      

In your genes—if you inherited “false mood” brain programming.

      

In the evening or in winter—when there’s not enough bright light to signal your brain to make serotonin.

      

By lack of exercise—when you’ve underestimated the brain-enhancing effect of physical activity.

      Few foods contain 5-HTP or serotonin themselves, so everything depends on your getting enough tryptophan from your diet. Where do we get tryptophan? From high-protein food. Unfortunately, tryptophan has been diminishing from our food supply for the past one hundred years, about as long as our rate of depression has been climbing!

      Tryptophan is still found in foods like turkey, beef, pork, dairy products, chicken, and eggs; but, in proportion to the other twenty-one aminos that compose protein foods, it is the runt. These foods have three times more of many of the other amino acids than they do of tryptophan. But this wasn’t always so.

      Wild game, like the venison our forebears ate, was higher in tryptophan than the meat we eat today. The difference is largely the result of how the animals we eat now are fed themselves. Rather than the grasses and other plants that wild animals grazed on, our modern stockyard animals are fed low-tryptophan grains like corn. This fattens up the animals in record time, but as a result, the meat from these animals is much lower in tryptophan. To compound the problem, we humans have also increased our consumption of low-tryptophan, grain-based carbohydrates like bread, pasta, bagels, cookies, and so on, which has further diminished our access to tryptophan.

      If you are a vegetarian, you’re at a greater risk of developing tryptophan malnutrition. Even if you never touch a piece of meat, you do get some tryptophan from foods like nutritional yeast, milk products, nuts, seeds, bananas, and pumpkin. But other than the milk products and yeast (which many vegetarians don’t eat), most vegetarian foods contain much less tryptophan than animal-derived foods do. And that’s important to remember, because decreases in the amount of tryptophan you consume can so easily prevent your brain’s serotonin stores from increasing.

      Numerous studies have shown how easy it is to create a serotonin deficiency in depressed people within a few hours simply by feeding them protein shakes that contain the other amino acids but no tryptophan. That’s why skipping meals or eating meals without protein is almost guaranteed to reduce your serotonin-derived happiness. Our clinic recommends a minimum of 4 ounces of a protein food per meal (that is, at least a chicken-breast-size portion three times a day).

      Unfortunately, though eating more protein will help, it is no guarantee that you’ll get enough tryptophan into your brain. That’s because of the blood-brain barrier, which protects your brain against the mayhem of nutrients in the bloodstream. It’s a selective filter that allows only so many amino acids to get into the brain at any given time. Because there’s so much less of it to begin with, tryptophan can easily get lost in the shuffle—no matter how badly it’s needed—leaving you serotonin deficient.

      You may also have been put at risk of serotonin deficiency from the start by being fed infant formula that did not contain the high human breast milk ratio of tryptophan to other aminos. Breast milk has a higher proportion of tryptophan than either cow’s milk or soy milk. The net result is reduced serotonin in formula-fed babies. Were you one? One study, reported in a book that I recommend to you, The Crazy Makers: How the Food Industry Is Destroying Our Brains and Harming Our Children, focused on sleep and found СКАЧАТЬ