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Food, Mood and Women's Health – Be your healthiest, look and feel great!

Trudy Scott

I suffer from severe anxiety, have social anxiety and am afraid of everything

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For the first time I have come across your blogs about amino acids and anxiety. I’ve suffered from severe anxiety since 2011, and have tried the SSRIs and hate them. I refused to take them, as they caused me to gain so much weight and [have] withdrawals. I’ve also read how bad they are for you.

In order to work, I am relying heavily on 0.5mg of Clonazepam up to 3-4 times a day. It makes me so drowsy in the mornings. I try for the most part to make sure to get 7-8 hours of sleep because I can tell how when not having enough rest can trigger my anxiety. But I’m in desperate need of a solution. Not sure if the clonazepam is something I can continue to take long term, as I also know it’s bad for you.

I suffer from social anxiety (on a level 1-10, I would be 20!) and also some agoraphobia symptoms [an abnormal fear of being in crowds, public places, or open areas, sometimes accompanied by anxiety attacks.]. I am not able to go to stores alone, and I am afraid of everything.

I suffer at work the most, because I’m constantly busy and stressed and dealing with customers all day. Please help

The above question was recently posted on my blog and I’m sharing my response to her in case you are new to using the amino acids for neurotransmitter imbalances and may be able to relate to any of the above. This is my response to her:

Welcome to the community! I use the amino acids with clients and do a trial to find out if they are needed and how much to use. This blog post Anxiety and the amino acids: an overview has links to the amino acid questionnaire, the precautions and how to do a trial. When someone has fear and phobias I immediately think we need to be looking at low serotonin and a trial of tryptophan. It’s not uncommon to also see low GABA and blood sugar imbalances being an issue too.

Once you address low GABA, low serotonin and low blood sugar I would expect the work stresses to feel less overwhelming. In an ideal world it would be wonderful to be able to remove this stress so I encourage you to consider this too.

For social anxiety I start with the pyroluria questionnaire. The great aspect of this is the nutrients for pyroluria – zinc, vitamin B6 and evening primrose oil – help the social anxiety and help to make the neurotransmitters. They also happen to help with PMS and other hormonal imbalances too.

Keep in mind it’s a comprehensive nutritional approach that I use with clients so we are also looking at diet, blood sugar control, the gut, adrenals and thyroid health, quitting sugar and caffeine and so much more. My book The Antianxiety Food Solution (on Amazon here) covers everything in detail, including the amino acids and pyroluria.

I’m sure you’re aware that Clonazepam (or Klonopin) is a benzodiazepine and should be prescribed a maximum of 2 weeks and even then they can be problematic. It may likely be contributing to your anxiety. Here is one blog post to get you started with some information about benzodiazepines: World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day – say NO to Benzodiazepines for anxiety! It covers tolerance issues and resources for tapering. I encourage you to search the blog to find plenty of additional information about the benzodiazepines.

Be very careful with the morning drowsiness as there is an increased risk of being involved in a road accident as driver when on a benzodiazepine prescription.

I speak on selected online summits that I know will be of value to my community so do keep reading the newsletter. The summits are a great way to start learning about my work and other nutritional and functional medicine approaches for anxiety and other chronic health conditions so be sure to sign up and tune in. There is also a wealth of information on this blog.

New testing approach for Lyme disease: ultrasound and PCR urine testing

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Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt’s interview with Dr Jay Davidson, host The Chronic Lyme Disease Summit 2 is one of the most interesting and encouraging Lyme disease interviews I’ve heard for a long time! He covers the Latest on Lyme Testing and Treatments. The reason it’s so encouraging is that chronic Lyme disease is notoriously difficult to test for.

Dr. Klinghardt starts by sharing why Lyme disease goes undiagnosed in many instances:

Lyme is highly compartmentalized. That means it sets up sanctuaries in different body compartments, and chronic Lyme is not living in the blood. Lyme may be in the blood in acute Lyme but not in chronic Lyme.

In chronic Lyme it may be in the right hippocampus but not in the entire brain, maybe in the brain stem but not the liver. It may be in your disk of L4-L5 but not in other disks and so on and so forth.

It lives in biofilm. We know that. It lives in the cell, but it doesn’t stray.

He goes on to share that the common immune system-based Lyme disease tests that use blood testing are misleading because with chronic Lyme

the blood or the white blood cells are not in contact with the actual microbes and you do not get the immune activation…So many cases go undiagnosed.

Dr. Klinghardt shares a wonderful technique that he and one of the world’s most renowned ultrasound radiologists, Dr. Marco Ruggiero, have developed for both testing and to improve treatment:

We know that when you put ultrasound …on a group of cells, it squeezes and relaxes the cells at a very high speed and squeezes out things from the cell that shouldn’t be in there. And so, we had the theory if you apply ultrasound to an area where we suspect Lyme spirochetes or Bartonella or Babesia or Ehrlichia, then those microbes are forced into the connective tissue. And some of them will stray from there into the blood, and some of them will be excreted through the kidneys into the urine.

With that principle, we found an incredible increase in our findings that most of the people that were suspected of having chronic Lyme disease didn’t just have Borrelia burgdorferi, but they had also Borrelia miyamotoi. They had Babesia duncani, Babesia microti. They had Bartonella henselae.

So what we do, we have set up a certain sequence of using ultrasound on the brain, on the thymus, on the spleen, on the vagus nerve, and on the brain stem. We drive out the microbes, and then we collect the urine and find the microbes. This is by far the best test we use – the PCR testing – looking for whole strands of DNA of the bugs in the urine.

That testing has been the most rewarding test in my whole lifetime. We are publishing a paper that comes out later this month in the American Journal of Immunology where we lay out the details of this technique. That’s what we do at the Sophia Health Institute.

The whole treatment takes less than 10 minutes, and then it’s the first urine that naturally occurs after that that’s collected. And then we send it to the lab for PCR testing, and insurance pays if you do it with Lab Corp. There’s other labs that offer this test now. And it can cost up to $500 to test for 14 of the coinfections.

Here is the title of that paper: The Ruggiero-Klinghardt (RK) Protocol for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Chronic Conditions with Particular Focus on Lyme Disease and the lab DNA Connexions is mentioned in this paper. 

He goes on to explain how they also use the therapeutic ultrasound as an instrument to optimize drug uptake and utilization in specific areas of the body order to eliminate the bacteria.

Later on in the interview Dr. Klinghardt makes this bold and rather concerning statement:

Most of my patients with severe, persistent Lyme disease have never had a tick bite. They had a spider bite or a flea bite or a bite from a stinging fly. So these are insect-borne diseases but not tick-borne diseases.

Dr. Klinghardt has been at the forefront of Lyme disease treatment for years and now bringing even further wisdom to this very challenging condition. I really look forward to learning more about all this from this amazing practitioner.

The Chronic Lyme Disease Summit 2 runs June 19-26, 2017 and Dr. Klinghardt’s interview airs on day 2 of the summit.

Be sure to also listen to:

  • Leslie Douglas: DNA Connexions PCR Assay (the testing Dr. Klinghardt uses) and
  • Jonathan Streit: Testing for Functional Neurological Issues

This summit will help you understand symptoms (common and rare), diagnosis and testing, practical at-home health tips, healing protocol explanations and more!

And it will hopefully give you some insights to any ongoing health issues you may have that may actually be due to Lyme disease (even if you have not yet been diagnosed). It’s something I consider with all my clients that are not seeing symptom resolution.

Register here for The Chronic Lyme Disease Summit 2

Last year I was interviewed on Lyme anxiety and how to use GABA and other amino acids to ease the anxiety while you are working on addressing the Lyme disease. I’m not speaking this year but that interview and some of my other Lyme anxiety resources are available to summit purchasers. I actually mention Dr Klinghardt in that interview because he finds that his Lyme patients don’t get well until they have addressed pyroluria.

If you live in Sydney, Australia, you can hear Dr. Kinghardt present live this weekend during his 1 day event: Core Protocols for Chronic Illness. If you’re not a practitioner be sure to let your healthcare provider know about this event.

Feel free to post questions or feedback below.

Anxiety in autism, ADHD and sensory processing disorders

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I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Tara Hunkin on the upcoming Autism, ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder Summit and share my expertise on anxiety since we so often see anxiety in this population. My topic is: Anxiety’s Role in ASD, ADHD and SPD and how nutrient therapy can help.

I start out sharing some of the research on the incidence and connections.

This 2009 paper Sensory Overresponsivity and Anxiety in Children With ADHD in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy, reports that:

Approximately 25% of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have a comorbid anxiety disorder.

The purpose of this particular study was to determine whether sensory overresponsivity (SOR) or sensory processing disorders are related to increased anxiety in children with ADHD. There were twenty-four children between the age of 6 to 10 with ADHD and 24 children without ADHD.

The study concluded that:

Children in the ADHD + SOR [sensory over responsivity] group were significantly more anxious than both the ADHD-only and non-ADHD (control) groups.

Occupational therapists treating children with ADHD and SOR should be aware that these children may also have anxiety and discuss options with families for prevention or treatment.

I would add that anyone working with these children should be aware of the connections: doctors, nutritionists, psychologists and anyone else on the health team.

We also discuss this 2012 paper, also from the American Journal of Occupational Therapy – Sensory Overresponsivity and Anxiety in Typically Developing Children and Children With Autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Cause or Coexistence?

Reviews of the coexistence of ASD [autism spectrum disorder] and anxiety disorders have concluded that among children and youth with ASD, anxiety disorders are highly prevalent, clinically significant, and varied as to specific type of anxiety disorder

Approximately 25% of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) also have anxiety disorder, a rate that is elevated when ADHD is seen in conjunction with conduct or oppositional defiant disorders

The paper mentions these 3 factors as models worthy of further study in order to understand the relationship between anxiety, sensory overresponsivity, autism and ADHD:

(1) anxiety caused by, or a symptom of, SOR (primary anxiety model);
(2) SOR caused by, or a symptom of, anxiety (primary SOR model); and
(3) the presence of both anxiety and SOR, linked by way of another factor

Based on what I know about anxiety I feel it could be a combination of all of the above.

My interview also covers the following around how to address the anxiety in these children and their moms (who also often have anxiety):

  • Low serotonin anxiety, symptoms, using tryptophan and 5-HTP and precautions with using them with an SSRI
  • A young girl with RAD (reactive attachment disorder) with rage/anger, anxiety, insomnia, and sugar cravings and the successful use of chewable tryptophan, addressing low iron and a gluten-free diet
  • A young boy with OCD and the successful use of both tryptophan and inositol
  • Low GABA anxiety, the use of GABA and not phenibut, and cautions about using too much
  • A young girl with ADHD and irritability and the successful use of GABA
  • Pyroluria incidence and symptoms and how it ties back to neurotransmitter imbalances

Sensory processing disorders, ADHD and autism are not my expertise and I don’t work much with children so I’m really pleased to be bringing you this information via the other amazing speakers AND listening and learning myself!

Here are some speakers and topics I’m particularly interested in

  • Brandon Brock, RN, DC: Understanding PANS and PANDAS role in ASD, ADHD and SPD.
  • Elizabeth Mumper, MD: Mitochondrial Dysfunction: What it is and how to address the underlying causes.
  • Richard Frye, MD, Ph.D.: Cerebral Folate Deficiency: and how it impairs neurological health.
  • Nancy O’Hara, MD: What you need to know about cell danger response in ASD & other neurodevelopmental disorders.
  • John Tjenos, NTP: The importance of the vagus nerve and how to build vagal tone with essential oils.

We have so much to learn from practitioners and researchers working in this area. And children affected by these conditions do recover!

The Autism, ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder Summit, hosted by Tara Hunkin, NTP, runs from June 19-28, 2017.

It will be 10 days of eye opening information into the root causes of your child’s neurological dysfunction. Imagine learning about what may have caused their symptoms and how to address them with nutrition and biomedical approaches and leverage the power of positive neuroplasticity to improve function, health and their lives.

Do also keep in mind that these topics may have relevance for you even if you don’t have a child with a sensory processing disorder, ADHD and/or autism. These children are the canaries in the coal mine and many of my clients with anxiety can benefit from the biomedical support that many of these speakers are addressing. Simply replace sensory processing disorder, ADHD and/or autism with anxiety and listen and learn.

You can register for The Autism, ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder Summit here

Feel free to ask questions or provide feedback and your experiences in the comment section below.

Anxiety is a common symptom of IBS/SIBO: breath and antibody testing at MINDD 2017

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I attended Dr. Nirala Jacobi’s presentation on at MINDD 2017 practitioner training and here are some highlights from her presentation on SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth) which is the leading cause of IBS and a major cause of leaky gut syndrome. It is the presence of an overgrowth of beneficial bacteria in the small intestine i.e. good bacteria in the wrong place.

She shares that:

Bacterial overgrowth has also been implicated in a host of other conditions such as developmental delay, fibromyalgia, interstitial cystitis, malabsorption syndromes and many more [such as anxiety and depression and even insomnia]. SIBO requires a methodical approach to testing and treatment in order to successfully re-establish a healthy digestive tract.

And some of the typical symptoms SIBO patients experience:

I was not familiar with all these prior surgical procedures being a possible cause but this makes sense. I’ve added gastric bypass, appendix removal, endometrial surgeries, C-section and gallbladder removal (cholecystectomy) to my SIBO questionnaire.

Other possible causes include certain medications, stress and anxiety (which affects how much HCl or stomach acid you produce and gut motility) and overconsumption of simple carbohydrates.

Going back to the #1 possible cause i.e. post-infectious due to a stomach bug, the gastroenteritis and autoimmunity connection was presented. Bacteria which cause food poisoning produce a toxin called CdtB which is similar to human vinculin which is important for nerve function.

Due to the similarity between CdtB and vinculin, the body produces anti-vinculin and anti- CdtB antibodies which lead to an auto-immune attack on the enteric nervous system. This causes damage to the MMC/migrating motor complex and contributes to SIBO.

A press release from Cedars-Sinai and Dr. Pimental: Definitive Tests for Irritable Bowel Syndrome Developed at Cedars-Sinai announce the multicenter study validating the accuracy of the new blood tests:

Dr. Pimentel and fellow researchers studied nearly 3,000 people, comparing IBS patients to those diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease, celiac disease and those with no GI disease. The blood tests identified the two antibodies associated with IBS – anti-Cdtb and anti-vinculin – with greater than 90 percent certainty.

The tests are marketed under the name IBSchek™ and are produced by Commonwealth Laboratories Inc., in Salem, Massachusetts.

This paper reports this autoimmunity connection: Autoimmunity Links Vinculin to the Pathophysiology of Chronic Functional Bowel Changes Following Campylobacter jejuni Infection in a Rat Model and this paper discusses the two tests: Development and Validation of a Biomarker for Diarrhea-Predominant Irritable Bowel Syndrome in Human Subjects

These blood tests are available in the USA but are not yet available in Australia where Dr. Nirala Jacobi now lives and practices.

Dr. Nirala Jacobi, BHSc, ND (USA) graduated from Bastyr University in 1998 with a doctorate in naturopathic medicine. She practiced as a primary care physician in Montana for 7 years before arriving in Australia. Nirala is considered one of Australia’s leading experts in the natural treatment of small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), a common cause of IBS. In 2014, she designed the SIBO Bi-Phasic Diet to aid practitioners in simplifying their treatment approach with their SIBO patients. She is the Chief Medical Officer and Director of SIBOtest.com, an online breath testing service and educational portal for practitioners. She frequently lectures to national and international professional audiences on the topic of SIBO and founded the first Australian SIBO Summit in 2016 Nirala has had a busy private practice in Brisbane since 2008 and recently moved her clinic to Wilsons Creek in the beautiful northern rivers region of NSW, Australia.

For SIBO breath testing services in all countries check out the testing page on Dr. Siebecker’s SIBOinfo site

Keep in mind that most SIBO studies are on IBS. According to Dr. Siebecker

Drs. Pimentel and Lin originated the theory that SIBO is the underlying cause of IBS.  As with all theories, there is debate and controversy about this idea, with many who agree and many who do not.  One thing is certainly clear, the symptoms of SIBO overlap with those of IBS and a large percentage of IBS sufferers test positive for SIBO.  One study by Dr Pimentel and team, showed SIBO in up to 84% of IBS patients, though the percentage has been lower in other studies, with an average of 60%.

Here is the most recent study showing the mental health effects of IBS (which we could presumably extrapolate to SIBO and confirm with the testing discussed above) – Neuroendocrine Dysregulation in Irritable Bowel Syndrome Patients: A Pilot Study

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a multifactorial disorder, involving dysregulation of brain-gut axis

Prevalent psychological symptoms in IBS were maladjustment (60%), trait (40%) and state (17%) anxiety, obsessive compulsive-disorders (23%), and depressive symptoms (23%).

If you are not getting anxiety symptom resolution with dietary changes, the use of targeted individual amino acid, adrenal support, addressing dysbiosis and other biochemical approaches it’s time to work with a practitioner to rule out or address SIBO as a causal factor.

Depression as a black dog that comes in and lays down beside you at night

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Trevor King’s interview about his journey with depression – on That Vitamin Summit – is not to be missed if you are depressed, have ever suffered with depression or if you have a loved one or friend with depression. He shares how he feels a sense of complete hopelessness at times:

It descends like a black cloud that makes me almost sort of retreat into myself. And my eyes will know and I don’t want to take the world in. I don’t want to get out of bed at times. Actually, that’s one of the things that … one of the only things that actually helps me, is going to bed and lying down.

Winston Churchill famously described it as this black dog who’d come in and lay beside him at night.

“From the moment my eyes opened in the morning, I am engaged in a battle. I must protect myself with armor against ongoing, negative, intrusive thoughts that flood into my brain, while sending my prefrontal cortex, which is the home of logical thought, the green light to make decisions and take charge of my brain’s limbic system. That is, before the fear center completely spazzes out. I spend more time and energy chasing and maintaining good health than I do in any other aspect of my life. My marriage, family or work. Because I know that everything meaningful and good around me depends on a stable base. And I hope and pray that one day, I don’t have to fight so hard for my sanity.”

He talks about how he is affected by sugar and low blood sugar, and how he’s found some benefits with niacin, chromium, magnesium and tryptophan (when he’s consistent with taking them!).

Trevor actually talks about the GABA interview I did with him a few days earlier and how he’s very interested in what he learned. He is planning to do a trial of GABA to see if it can help him further.

Here is a snippet from my interview on GABA (so do tune in to this interview if you’re new to my work and the targeted amino acids):

GABA is really quite profound. When I had my anxiety, GABA was my lifesaver. It completely turned my life around. Within three days of using GABA, the panic attacks stopped and the anxiety started to go down, and then I had to look for all the other root causes. It worked immediately so I’m a complete believer, just because I’ve experienced it myself. You’ll hear a lot of people say GABA won’t work. It doesn’t cross the blood/brain barrier so it’s not going to have an impact.

We’ve now got research showing that there may be ways that it crosses the blood/brain barrier. We’ve also got research showing that we have GABA receptors in various parts of our body. We’ve got a lot in our muscles, and with low GABA symptoms you’ll have physical tension.

The beautiful thing is it works. It works quickly, and if you have these low GABA symptoms, which is the physical anxiety, which could be panic attacks. It could be stress eating, it could be drinking to calm down. If you are the kind of person who needs wine to wind down at the end of the day, that’s a big sign that you may need GABA. You take the GABA and you just feel this physical tension release from you, you know you’re onto something good.

I just wish I’d known about his struggles with depression at the time of our interview – I would have talked more about tyrosine for dopamine support (for curl up in bed depression) and DPA for endorphin boosting (for low endorphins weepy depression). 

I did discuss gluten and would consider this especially since his daughter has issues with it. I talked about low serotonin and mentioned Lidtke tryptophan.  If someone doesn’t do well on another brand I’d have them trial the Lidtke brand.  I’d also look into SIBO – I have SIBO and rice and grains make me feel flat and low and I see this often with clients.  Finally I’d look into lithium orotate for keeping an even mood. 

Trevor shares these wise words at the end of his interview:

You do find that when you actually bite the bullet and share it with people,

people are very, very understanding. And actually, you’re amazed that many people have been there themselves.

I could not agree more which is why I’ve always shared my journey with anxiety. I appreciate him for being willing to share his story with depression!

If you’re not already registered here is the registration link for That Vitamin Summit

Feel free to post questions or feedback below – and share your story with anxiety or depression if you feel drawn to do so

Children who garden have fun, eat more vegetables, and have less anxiety, depression and ADHD symptoms

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Little hands gathering fennel for juicing with apples and cucumber (photo: Anne Binder)

I’m sure you’d agree that children who garden have fun and that it may motivate them to actually eat more vegetables but would you expect gardening to reduce anxiety, depression and ADHD symptoms? Read on to learn more and be inspired.

My friend Anne Binder has the children at her school, Sunrise Montessori School of Roseville, participate in gardening and juicing and I just love it! She told me that the kids love gardening and that she’s been doing it with her pupils for 31 years now. They are constantly in the garden, weeding, raking, planting and reaping the benefits of their hard work.

They recently harvested some fennel that they had been growing and seeing the pictures she shared on Facebook just made my day! She kindly gave me permission to share them via a blog so here goes:

We grew the fennel and then the children picked it and we made juice with the fennel, apples and cucumber. 

This is one of my favorite pictures – the newly picked fennel with all their little feet showing! (photo: Anne Binder)

Here are just some of the things she overheard the children saying on harvest day:  

  • This is so much fun. I love fennel.
  • The leaves are beautiful.
  • Gardening is my favorite thing to do.  We have a garden at home.
  • I love tomatoes. 
  • Look at the bees

And this is some of what she heard the day they released butterflies into the garden

  • Look he’s flying into the tree.
  • Are they going to come back?
  • Oh look it wants to stay at our school!

And then it was time to juice the fennel with apples and cucumbers and they all got stuck in

They loved it. They also loved the lovely licorice smell of the leaves and fennel was new to all of them. None of them had seen it or eaten it before – but they were good sports and tried it. I also cut up slivers of fennel to taste by itself and most of them tried it too.

Anne shows them how to use the juicer (photo: Anne Binder)
Enthusiastic little hands working the juicer (photos: Anne Binder)

What fun! What joy! And what a wonderful learning opportunity for these kids!

Other than the fun factor, this type of activity has far-reaching impacts in terms of their future vegetable and fruit consumption, and even their mental health and focus.

Gardening has an impact on vegetable preference and consumption as reported in this 2016 paper – Previous Gardening Experience and Gardening Enjoyment Is Related to Vegetable Preferences and Consumption Among Low-Income Elementary School Children.

Children with more gardening experience had greater vegetable exposure and higher vegetable preference and consumed more vegetables compared with children who reported less gardening experience.

And this paper – Involving children in cooking activities: A potential strategy for directing food choices toward novel foods containing vegetables concludes that these cooking activities.

can increase their willingness to taste novel foods and direct food choices towards foods containing vegetables.

As always I like to make the connection to anxiety, mental health, ADHD and overall well-being. There is actually research that supports how good you feel after spending time outdoors and in the garden.

In this 2016 paper – Gardening is beneficial for health: A meta-analysis the authors report:

a wide range of health outcomes, such as reductions in depression, anxiety, and body mass index, as well as increases in life satisfaction, quality of life, and sense of community.

In a recent blog I write about how Most children with anxiety relapse, regardless of treatment: Now is the time for Nutritional Psychiatry! Let us also add gardening to the mix!

In this paper – A Potential Natural Treatment for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Evidence From a National Study

Green outdoor settings appear to reduce ADHD symptoms in children across a wide range of individual, residential, and case characteristics.

And in this paper Home Gardening and the Health and Well-Being of Adolescents, the authors report that gardening was

positively associated with physical activity and improved mental health and well-being. Students who participate in gardening report slightly lower levels of depressive symptoms and enhanced emotional well-being and experience higher family connection than students who do not participate in gardening.

They conclude that we should be including gardening in future interventions for young people and I couldn’t agree more.

I hope these pictures and the research has inspired you to get out and do some gardening with the children in your life, either at home or at school or in a community setting.

If you are already doing some form of gardening or food activity with children please feel free to share so we can inspire more of this.

Finally, a thank you to Anne and your pupils for making my day and inspiring this blog post!