Managing anxiety can become as challenging as ever. If you manage anxiety, depression, and both, you have certainly been prescribed medications and therapies to deal with the underlying condition. The treatment, however, largely varied on the intensity and severity of your condition.
A few conditions, stressors and triggers are responsible for making you experience anxiety. Many times we are usually not stressed. However, we still tend to experience anxiety. This is usually when we need to cross-check the causes and take our analysis a step further.
Did you know that nutrient deficiency, too, can cause you anxiety? Yes, what you eat certainly has an impact on your anxiety level, and it is no myth. The nervous system needs several important nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids, to keep functioning.
In this article, we shall discuss the list of nutrients and what deficiency causes anxiety. Stay hooked to provide your body exactly what it needs!
1. B Vitamins:
Low levels of B vitamins are directly correlated with fatigue, depression, and irritability. An increase in your intake of the B vitamin-rich foods is directly related to causing improvements in energy and mood. Some of the most important vitamins for your mental health are B6, B12, and B9.
The vitamins are significant nutrients that play a pivotal role in regulating chemicals such as serotonin, affecting mood, and other functionalities in the brain. These are moreover, essential to helping you detoxify and keep body hormones well balanced.
Furthermore, it is the right kind of vitamins that determine the methylation and detox process in the body. Apart from B12, your body cannot store the vitamins for a longer period; hence you are required to replenish them daily and through food intake.
Some common examples of B vitamins rich food are sardines, yeast, feta cheese, cottage cheese, eggs, lamb, mackerel, beef liver, and more.
2. Iron:
As learned in our school Biology textbooks, iron is largely helpful for the red blood cells that carry oxygen to the organs, brains, and every corner of the body. The health of your nervous system and your brain ideally depends on the healthy level of iron present.
Low iron can further result in regulating less oxygen to the cells. As a result, it might lead to causing the iron deficiency, including several symptoms such as fatigue, depression, weakness, reduced energy, and irritability.
This stands essentially true for pregnant or women menstruating every month. They are at a higher risk of iron efficiency and hence need to incorporate diet accordingly. A low level of iron can be extremely serious a concern and can indicate a source of blood loss, hidden or occult.
However, there is not much need to worry or freak out. Instead, make sure you seek some important medical care. Few of the iron-rich food items are chicken, eggs, pumpkin, spinach, cashews, liver of beef or chicken, mussels, sunflower seeds, legumes, clams, oysters, banana, and more.
3. Vitamin D:
Vitamin D does not only offer a strong association with strengthening your body bones, joints, and teeth but also can help you stay covered. Individuals with depression and anxiety are often seen as having a lower level of vitamin D.
This is a fat-soluble vitamin that helps regulate sleep and mood while inducing a healthy synthesis of neurons. These receptors are present throughout the brain, and the body and are largely responsible for influencing motivation, mood, memory, alertness, and pleasure.
This usually occurs due to a lack of exposure to the sunlight and may cause seasonal affective disorder, usually referred to as SAD. Some of the commons symptoms experienced include insomnia, irritability, reduced sex drive, weight loss, decreased appetite, and more.
All of the symptoms can contribute to, resulting in a higher level of anxiety, affecting the serotonin levels in the brain, connected to regulating healthy depression and mood. Similar to solar energy, there are several sources of food which helps keep the deficiency at bay. Some of the most common food sources offering Vitamin D are wild mushrooms and spirulina.
4. Magnesium:
In the realm of mental health, magnesium is a nutrient that is responsible for regulating stress response and is also considered a mood stabilizer. Although it is quite uncommon to stay deficient in magnesium, however, it is still possible. Some of the major symptoms of magnesium deficiency include nausea, fatigue, mood changes, loss of appetite, and more.
It is often referred to as the ‘chill pill' which helps to keep anxiety at bay. The new lifestyle changes, such as increased alcohol, sugar, coffee, salt, and stress, are responsible for depleting magnesium levels and how.
As a result, it also reduces the ability of the body to cope with the physical effects caused by stress and anxiety. Through proper binding to the GABA stimulation receptors, it helps to support healthy brain functioning.
Furthermore, GABA is also responsible for relaxing the brain by reducing excessive neutral activities, helping to soothe down insomnia and anxiety. The nutrient is also believed to be beneficial for chronic stress and largely reduces the HPA axis's overactivity. Some of the most common foods having magnesium are dark chocolate, spinach, bananas, fish, and almonds.
5. Zinc:
Zinc is one of the major nutrients playing a crucial role in neurotransmission, healthy functioning of the nervous system, and further producing neurotransmitters. The imbalance caused can lead to individuals experiencing anxiety, and hence we can prevent this by a proper balance of serotonin, GABA, norepinephrine, and dopamine.
Most individuals get enough zinc through diets. However, deficiency still can occur among pregnant and breastfeeding women. Some of the most common food items are beef, oysters, tofu, nuts, pork, lentils, mushrooms, yogurt, and more.
How to Cure Anxiety?
Curing Anxiety might be easier said than done. However there are some options that can be helpful in lowering the levels of anxiety that you might be suffering from.
Try CBD Gummies
CBD is probably one of the most popular options out there. In fact CBD Gummies are probably the number one product for lowering anxiety. CBD is all natural, 100% safe to take, & has very little to no side effects.
Stop Smoking
There are no prizes for guessing that smoking is bad for you. However little do people know that the sudden spurt in your nicotine levels cause anxiety.
Take Supplements
There seems to be a lot of controversy associated with taking supplements. Supplements however have a purpose in today’s world. You see back in the day we as humans received a lot more sunlight, ate different kinds of foods and drank unfiltered fluids.
Final Thoughts:
Important nutrient deficiency thus is largely responsible for causing the complex condition of anxiety. It is hence important to identify the possible deficiencies caused by visiting a doctor and get yourself checked. Remember to have a balanced diet comprising the best of nutrients, minerals, and vitamins to maintain your physical well-being and your mental well-being.
