Diet Affects Mental Health
Written by dariandudrick on April 29, 2021
There’s no doubt that diet is important when it comes to your physical health.
But many people don’t realize what you eat and drink can affect your mental health as well.
Thursday morning on KODI’s “Speak Your Piece with Darian Dudrick,” a panel discussed nutrition and mental health. Dudrick’s guests were Lorraine Steppe, The Pines Counseling mental health therapist; Dr. Shaun Balch, Yellowstone Behavioral Health Center clinical director; and Porter Koury, Frontier Neurohealth clinical nutritionist.
“You actually send more information from your gut to your brain than you do from your brain to your gut,” Koury said, explaining how diet has an impact on mental health.
Many people connect serotonin to the brain. According to the website hormone.org, “serotonin is the key hormone that stabilizes our mood, feelings of well-being, and happiness.”
“All three levels of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine regulate our brain,” Balch said. “They help us with thoughts, sleep, memory, … just the executive functioning.”
So what’s the connection to our diet?
“95 percent of the serotonin in our body is created in our gut,” Steppe said.
Listen to the show here: here
