Mental health can be attributed to many things, and one of those things is diet. This has warranted the most attention from the mental health community than perhaps any other form of therapy. Nutritional awareness and increased popularity of non-pharmaceutical solutions to health problems has led to a great deal of press and some pretty strong claims on both sides of the mental health argument.

1. Eating patterns

It’s no secret that eating habits are related to mood – people tend to eat when they are sad or depressed for example. Things like poor nutrition, a failure to eat on an appropriate schedule and other factors are common to both.

2. Low carbohydrate diet

Certain diets have a discernible impact on mood and mental health. The popular low carbohydrate diets that are often vaunted as a great means of promoting weight loss, for instance, may increase the risk of depression. This is because foods rich in carbohydrates tell the body to produce chemicals including tryptophan and serotonin. These substances create a sense of well being in a person and their absence can have a dramatic impact on mood.

3. You are what you eat
As with most oft-repeated phrases, its popularity is largely based on its accuracy. What we take into our body does have a profound impact on how well it functions. Although we often tend to think of mental health problems as being divorced from the physical realm, they do originate in the body. It only makes sense to consider how various nutrients and dietary habits may affect depression and other mental health concerns.

4. Vitamins

Certain vitamins also seem to be linked with depression. The B vitamin group, in particular, is often mentioned alongside depression. This is because B vitamins are key to the functioning of our nervous systems. Vitamin B6 is one example. Research has demonstrated that those suffering from depression often have very low levels of Vitamin B6 in their systems (as well as low levels of the aforementioned seratonin). Although most citizens living in industrialized nations generally to manage sufficient dietary impact of B6, certain medications (including birth control pills and hormone replacement therapy drugs) actually interfere with B6 ingestion.

5.Overhaul your diet

Far too many people eat out. It might shock you to actually discover how many calories are in a single hamburger these days. Eating a healthy and well-rounded diet consistent with recognized nutritional recommendations may be a good way of battling depression. A failure to restrict your diet to healthy choices may make you fat, and being fat might make you more depressed – being depressed makes you eat, and the vicious cycle continues.

Mental health issues can be caused by a lot of factors such biochemical imbalances in the brain, nutrient deficiencies, as well as toxins. It can also be genetics, inability to cope, poor social skills, or a reaction to a negative experience. The anxiety and depression being felt are signs of deeper psychological issues.

Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof used the term “Spiritual emergency” in describing the state of mental illness while psychiatrist Peter Breggin coined the term “psychospiritual overwhelm”. Both phrases take the mystery out of the diagnosis by describing a process. It connotes an experience, not a stigmatized label that can last a lifetime.
If psychosis is not a life-long condition but a temporary response similar to a runny nose when we have a cold, then there is something we can do to empower those people who are undergoing mental distress.

If we can learn to read the warning signs of an impending cold, then we can learn to interpret the deeper cause and meaning of psychological overwhelm. By taking time to explore our feelings instead of reacting to them, we can definitely make some headway.

There is nothing to be afraid of emotions. Feelings shouldn’t be denied. There’s a reason why such feelings or emotions exist. By deciphering them early on we have the chance to negate their snowballing effect.

The body and the mind will always try to find balance or regain equilibrium no matter how filled with emotion a person is. But often we need prodding to grapple with uncomfortable feelings, to get to their root. Deep emotion is not something we understand well in this society. It is reserved for poets and artists.

Parents of mentally ill patients often say that “she was too sensitive” or “he gets so emotional”, implying as if either of these qualities was a bad thing. However, the human mind thrives on rhythm, imagination and metaphors. The subconscious feeds on dreams to create, to solve problems, and to come to terms with what is in the waking world.
In order to unravel the meaning of your emotions, an extraordinary yet relatively simple process known as Tracking is developed by psychologist Dr Vern Woolf which makes use of the imagination and senses (sight, sound, colour, texture and smell) to understand the positive intent of uncomfortable feelings. It can be used to make decipher the “voices” heard in episodes of schizophrenia.

When we are feeling down, or we had a bad day, creative approaches, such as music, art, visualization or tracking can help channel emotion and the senses into a realm we can easily understand. Not only do they take the pressure off of a potentially explosive and disempowering personal experience, but they can also be used to discover our own uniqueness. They enable us to know ourselves in ways we never thought possible and ultimately, to make us stronger in what is often an alienating and stress-inducing world.