The Link Between Serotonin and Anxiety - Video Transcript

Hey everyone. I'm Kristen the anxiety therapist and today I'm going to be talking about serotonin um and how that is linked to anxiety. So if you're not familiar with what serotonin is, it's a neurotransmitter which basically just means that it's a chemical in our brain that transmits signals from one part of our brain to another and it sort of acts as this um natural mood stabilizer.

So there are a lot of different neurotransmitters in our brain that contribute to mental health. And serotonin is one of the big ones. So if we have low levels of serotonin we might be more inclined to experience depressive symptoms, we might have more anxiety and we may experience insomnia.

So it's really important to um make sure that our serotonin levels are are naturally as high as they can be. Um and then if we're still kind of running into issues there are psychotropic medications such as prozac or Zoloft um that can help stabilize the serotonin and but if we can do it naturally then that's even better. And um something I learned recently I was speaking to a functional nutritionist and she kind of blew my mind um and informed me that about 95% of the serotonin our body makes is is created in our gut which means that there's such a strong connection, strong mind body connection and the connection between what we eat and our mental health.

So in order to keep our serotonin levels stabilized. Um it's important that we are just cognizant of a lot of the inflammatory foods that can really disrupt the creation of that serotonin. So those would include foods with a lot of refined sugar. Um it includes gluten and it also includes dairy and I know you know it's just not feasible for most of us to cut all of these things out of our diet.

But the goal is just to to be more cognizant of when, how our body feels, how, how we feel emotionally and mentally when we eat those types of foods. And if you notice that you're having you know a particularly crummy reaction to dairy for example, maybe just trying to cut back on that a little bit in your diet and potentially eliminate it completely.

Um because when we do have higher serotonin levels were just naturally happier were calmer. Um we're more focused and less anxious. Um we're more emotionally stable and it also helps to promote healthy sleep cycles. So it's really important to just be aware of the impact that our diet has on mental health and especially it contributing to anxiety and um so I just thought this was useful information to share. I've started kind of tracking um my own reactions to foods and I was just talking with a client yesterday about his high refined sugar intake and how that might actually be contributing to a lot of his mood dis regulation and whatnot. So I hope you found this helpful.

Um please feel free to subscribe to my youtube channel. Um check out my website for more information and leave a comment or a question if you have one. Alright, I hope you all have a great weekend. Bye bye.