Is What I'm Eating Contributing to My Anxiety?
Do you struggle with getting up in the morning? Are you not hungry right after you wake up?Do you rely on coffee multiple times a day to pick you up? Do you wish the whole world would go on pause and let you take a nap after lunch?
These are signs that you might be riding the blood sugar roller coaster. This undoubtedly contributes to your anxiety along with probably some other conditions you may have.
Now first, a short neurological pit stop to make you sound really smart with your friends:
What the heck is anxiety?
Think of a car trip with your fam... In the front of the car, the parents have to hold it together. There are all these impulses, questions, and nags coming from the back of the car.
"Are we there yet?" "I have to go pee!" "Charlie isn't sharing the tablet with me!"
Been there, done that... yeesh. The parents are able to decrease the stress and meltdowns that happen in the back... well, at least some of the time. So, it's the same for your brain. The front of your brain, the Frontal Cortex, gets the final word with most of the decisions made in your body, like mom and pops for their fam. Your Frontal Cortex needs to be in tip top shape to regulate all the impulses coming to it from all other places in your brain- the emotions, compulsive thoughts, etc.
The four things the Frontal Cortex needs to be healthy are good sleep, good oxygen, good activation (which is what we do here at Inside Out Health), and good nutrition. All these topics we will get into at different points. Today, we're talking about nutrition...
Back to the roller coaster...
The highs of the blood sugar ride...
come from having too much sugar like starting off the day with pastries, oatmeal or a banana. What this does to the body is a huge rush of sugar enters into the blood which can be dangerous for you because your brain cells can't control it. They get flooded with sugar.
Imagine dousing your brain with melted caramel.
Now take away the analogy... because that's literally what's happening!
This is why Alzheimer's is sometimes referred to as Diabetes type 3. The carmelization blows up the brain cells and they die. Chronic high blood sugar is a fast track to brain degeneration. Insulin is the defense mechanism...
Now, the lows of the ride...
After sugar overload, insulin's job is to get sugar out of the blood stream and into the cells. Now, after the huge rush of sugar into the blood, the HIGH of the coaster, insulin goes into HYPERDRIVE.
The surplus sugar gets turned into fat.