This is day 6 of the Anxiety Summit. Dr. Hyla Cass, M.D. board-certified in psychiatry and integrative medicine and the author of Natural Highs and The Addicted Brain and How to Break Free, is interviewed by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.
The Addicted Brain and How to Break Free
- how to recognize the signs of addiction
- why do we become addicted and what is the connection to anxiety
- food/carbs/sugar, caffeine, alcohol and drug addictions
- how can we end addiction without suffering/withdrawal
Here are some great gems from my interview with Hyla:
in order to make neurotransmitters/brain chemicals that send messages around in our brain, we need the right raw materials
I think the personality becomes addictive because of this imbalanced neurochemistry
I’ve had people sent to me, for example, with anxiety, and it turned out that what was really going on was they were consuming aspartame in their soft drinks
If someone has anxiety, it’s not a Valium or a Xanax deficiency. It could be a GABA deficiency
Low serotonin leads to increased appetite, really craving carbs, feeling depressed, anxious and irritable, and having trouble sleeping
the food industry feeds off us as we’re feeding off of all that junk
This whole idea of a pill for every pill is just wrong
Hyla shared how Dr. Davidson, a conventional psychiatrist from Duke University, discovered that with atypical depression, there were people who were totally unresponsive to the drugs i.e. – nothing worked. He found that those patients did really well with chromium. Here is an article on the Psychology Today blog on chromium for depression.
And here is Hyla’s Huffpo blog post on Is it drugs not guns
Here are two of Hyla’s great books:
Natural Highs: Supplements, Nutrition, and Mind-Body Techniques to Help You Feel Good All the Time
Get your free gifts from Dr. Hyla Cass: “Outsmart Your Addiction Quiz” and “Reclaim Your Brain” e-report
If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here www.theAnxietySummit.com
UPDATE: the summit concluded on Tues 6/24 – season 2 of The Anxiety Summit will be in November 2014. If you’d like to be on the notification list just sign up here www.theAnxietySummit.com
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