Archives for August 2012

How to get a great night’s sleep

August 31, 2012 By Trudy Scott 26 Comments

“A 2009 poll by the National Sleep Foundation found that only 28 percent of those surveyed regularly got eight hours or more of sleep a night. The average was around six and a half hours on weekdays and seven on weekends. Those who slept less than eight hours a night typically had mood problems, including worry and anxiety, ate more sugar and unhealthy food and drank more caffeinated beverages!”

~ Trudy Scott, The Antianxiety Food Solution

It’s amazing how many people don’t get enough sleep and there is so much we can do from a nutritional point of view to change this. Here are six things to consider:

One of the first things I think about when a client can’t sleep is low serotonin. Low serotonin symptoms include insomnia, depression, negativity, worry and anxiety, irritability, PMS and afternoon and evening cravings. And low serotonin can be boosted with tryptophan, taken as a supplement and/or in food sources.
Research has actually shown that a medical or functional food made with pumpkin seeds improved sleep, due to the good sources of tryptophan and zinc. In another study this same functional food was also shown to reduce anxiety and social phobia.Pumpkin seeds can be soaked in water overnight and then lightly roasted with olive oil, sea salt, pepper, turmeric and ginger. Food-wise, pumpkin seeds are a favorite of mine for a healthy snack and my clients love them. Here is an blog post that discusses the benefits of soaked nuts and a roasted pumpkin seed recipe
When tryptophan is taken as a supplement, some is converted to serotonin and some to melatonin. Melatonin is fabulous for resetting your circadian rhythm so your sleep cycle gets back to normal. If taking tryptophan doesn’t quite get you sleeping through the night then taking additional melatonin may help. Sublingual melatonin helps you fall asleep and the timed-release form helps you stay asleep.
Other factors that should be considered when sleep is an issue: low blood sugar, addressing low serotonin levels, addressing low GABA levels, checking for parasites and dysbiosis, and making sure you don’t have high cortisol.
Other nutrients that may be helpful: vitamin B6 (which helps improve mood and reduce anxiety too), zinc (which is also important for skin health, reducing anxiety, improving mood, helping with blood sugar balance and PMS), and magnesium (which is also calming).
Of course, it also helps to use a comfortable soft eye patch to keep the room dark and to use earplugs to keep things quiet. Also, keep clock radios and cell phones away from your head and don’t use an electric blanket! Having a warm bath with essential oil of lavender is also a great help to help you wind down at the end of a hectic day.

Try some of the above tips and get those eight hours of sleep and you’ll have less mood problems, experience less worry and anxiety, eat less (or no) sugar and unhealthy food and drink less (or no) caffeinated beverages! Sweet dreams!

Roasted eggplant pate recipe

August 21, 2012 By Trudy Scott 16 Comments

1 eggplant, chopped into cubes
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped (or more if you like a stronger flavor)
3 small sweet peppers or 1 large green/red/yellow pepper, chopped
Olive oil
Sea salt and pepper
Cayenne or chili pepper (optional to spice it up)
Tomato, chopped (optional to add during blending)
2 T tahini (sesame paste)

Add chopped vegetables, seas salt and pepper to a casserole dish and add olive oil. Stir well to make sure everything is covered in olive oil. Bake/roast covered at 350F for 45 minutes, stirring at least every 15 minutes.

Remove from heat and add to a blender with the tahini. Blend to a fine paste and spoon into a loaf pan and leave to set in the fridge. Serve as a pate with crackers or chopped fresh veggies (like carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, mushrooms and celery) or as a side-serving for a main meal.

Option: serve warm immediately after you’ve removed it from the oven and blended it. It makes a nice “sauce” for serving over baked potatoes or other vegetables.

This recipe was inspired by the produce box we get each week. Right now eggplants, tomatoes and peppers are in season!

We are a member of the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Farm Fresh to You. As stated on their site, CSA’s are a great way to get organic produce and support local farmers.

As people are becoming increasingly interested about where their food comes from and how it was grown, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is becoming a popular alternative for getting high quality food from a trusted local farm, Farm Fresh To You. By joining our CSA, families are connecting directly to our farm, Capay Organic, and are receiving regular deliveries of nutrient rich, mouth watering, organic produce delivered directly to their home or office.

If you’re in Northern California, contact Farm Fresh to You with promo code 6164 and you’ll get $10 off your delivery. If you’re elsewhere, use the Local Harvest site to find CSAs and farmer’s markets in your area.

Note: Please do keep in mind that eggplants, tomatoes, bell peppers, chili peppers, paprika, cayenne pepper and potatoes (just white potatoes, not sweet potatoes) are in the nightshade family, together with tomatillos, garden huckleberry, tamarillos, pepinos and pimentos. Tobacco and withania are also in the nightshade family. Some people are affected adversely by nightshades, so if you suffer from joint pain or arthritis, you may find that nightshade removal may reduce your symptoms.

Food does improve mood: 2012 research

August 21, 2012 By Trudy Scott 19 Comments

A recent blog post on the GoodTherapy.org site featured this article: “Can Social Anxiety Be Caused by a Nutritional Deficiency?”. I was thrilled to have been quoted and to have shared my experience with pyroluria, a form of social anxiety, shyness and inner tension, that responds very well to the supplements vitamin B6, zinc and evening primrose oil. It was also a wonderful opportunity to get folks thinking about the role that food and nutrients play in mental health.

I was rather surprised by this comment from Nerina Garcia-Arcement, a licensed clinical psychologist and clinical assistant professor at the NYU School of Medicine: “Having a healthy and balanced diet is overall beneficial, but it won’t cure social anxiety or a mood disorder. I am more likely to recommend my clients get enough sun exposure to improve their moods (seasonal affective disorder) than recommend diet changes.”

I certainly support the recommendation for sun exposure and write this blog post to provide additional resources for those who may be unfamiliar with the recent food mood research. And I will address pyroluria, zinc and vitamin B6 in a separate post.

Here is just some of the 2012 food mood research:

Dias GP, Cavegn N et al. 2012. The role of dietary polyphenols on adult hippocampal neurogenesis: molecular mechanisms and behavioural effects on depression and anxiety. 2012. Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity Epub 2012 Jun 28

“Studies on the effects of dietary polyphenols” (such as those found in green tea and turmeric), “on behaviour and AHN” (adult hippocampal neurogenesis), “may play an important role in the approach to use diet as part of the therapeutic interventions for mental-health-related conditions.”

Michalak J, Zhang XC et al. 2012 Vegetarian diet and mental disorders: results from a representative community survey. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. Jun 7;9(1):67. [Epub ahead of print]

“Vegetarians displayed elevated prevalence rates for depressive disorders, anxiety disorders and somatoform disorders.” The authors also state that because “vegetarians exhibit a wide diversity of dietary practices, future research should more carefully define vegetarian diet to enable closer examination of the associations between diet and risk of mental disorders.” Since this was an epidemiological study, it shows association only. But it’s a great start.

Davison KM, Kaplan BJ. 2012. Nutrient Intakes Are Correlated With Overall Psychiatric Functioning in Adults With Mood Disorders. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 57:85-92

This study looked at Canadian adults with mood disorders. Intake of carbs, fiber, total fat, linoleic acid, riboflavin, niacin, folate, vitamin B6, B12, pantothenic acid, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, iron, magnesium and zinc were measured and “higher levels of nutrients equated to better mental health.” (This study was included on my poster presentation at the 2012 Anxiety Disorders Association of America conference)

One of the study authors, Dr Kaplan, PhD was quoted as saying: “Doctors should consider counseling their patients to eat unprocessed, natural, healthy foods and refer them to a nutrition professional if specialized dietary consultation is needed.”

Torres SJ, Nowson CA. 2012. A moderate-sodium DASH-type diet improves mood in postmenopausal women. Nutrition. Sep;28(9):896-900. Epub 2012 Apr 4.

“In addition to the health benefits of a moderate-sodium Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension diet on blood pressure and bone health, this diet had a positive effect on improving mood in postmenopausal women.” This diet did include lean red meat, which “was associated with a decrease in depression.”

Dr Felice Jacka, an Australian researcher, has a number of papers that I’ve blogged about in the past. A more recent one from 2011 looked at Norwegian adult men and women, and found that “those with better quality diets were less likely to be depressed” and that a “higher intake of processed and unhealthy foods was associated with increased anxiety.”

In a recent bipolar post, I also mention some of the research around eating a real food traditional diet and a lower risk of bipolar disorder, and the relationship between gluten and bipolar disorder.

All in all, there is much recent evidence pointing to some very real benefits for making dietary changes in order to improve mental health outcomes. Clearly, more research is needed, but we have growing evidence that the food mood connection is NOT “just a bunch of hooey” (as one of the readers stated) and we need to keep our minds open if we are to help those in need of our services!