GUT Solution BEATS Anxiety and Depression?!

Are you suffering from mood issues or anxiety?

Do you find that the older you get, the less you can cope with stressful situations?

Does life sometimes feel overwhelming?

If so, you probably take one of two approaches to address it.

You…

• ignore it, or you
• try all sorts of treatments, like pharmaceutical drugs, meditation, or even exercise.

Thing is, either route you take could ultimately leave you in the same position—right back where you started.

That’s because, most of the time, folks who try to tackle mood issues, such as anxiety, focus on what’s happening in their brain.

But often, a BETTER solution is to fix what’s going on in your gut.

Your gut and your brain are two different systems that function independently of one another. But they’re still closely connected.

You see, there’s essentially a superhighway between your gut and your brain called the gut-brain axis. This highway allows for the exchange of hormonal, immune, and nervous signals.

That’s why studies show that decreases in microbial diversity (different kinds of gut bugs) can contribute to mental illness. Or that having an abundance of bad bacteria can have the same effect.

But remember the “highway” goes both ways. So on the flip side, anxiety-like behavior can CAUSE chronic gastrointestinal inflammation.

One way to get OFF this merry-go-round is to increase your intake of prebiotics. Prebiotics are basically probiotic chow. They’re literally food for the microorganisms in your gut.

Getting MORE of them doesn’t only boost your gut health. It has some surprising benefits for your mental health as well.

One study found that supplementing with prebiotics lowered anxiety in people with the highest anxiety levels. The participants also experienced an increase in a beneficial gut bacterium called Bifidobacterium.

In another, giving prebiotics called GOS (galactooligosaccharides) to young adults caused anxiety levels to plummet in the volunteers who had higher anxiety levels to begin with.

They ALSO started to respond better to positive stimuli (as opposed to negative). And, as with other studies, they had significantly greater increases in Bifidobacterium in their gut than the folks on the placebo.

And something incredible happened when researchers recruited adults with moderate psychological distress who ate few prebiotic foods and fed them a high-prebiotic diet. The participant’s anxiety, depression, sleep, stress, and well-being levels ALL significantly improved.

At this point it’s obvious that what’s going on in your gut DOES impact what’s going on in your brain. And boosting your intake of prebiotics can help both of them function better.

Foods high in prebiotics include apples, oats, bananas, onions, and yogurt. You can also take a prebiotic supplement.

P.S. A recent review highlighted a shocking connection between your mental health and one of the most important muscles in your body. CLICK HERE for the details.

SOURCES:

“Prebiotic intake reduces the waking cortisol response and alters emotional bias in healthy volunteers.” Psychopharmacology 232, 1793–1801 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-014-3810-0

“Probiotics and the Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis: Focus on Psychiatry.” Curr Nutr Rep 9, 171–182 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13668-020-00313-5