Do you have mood swings?
Have you lost motivation to try? Are you depressed?
Are you highly anxious?
Are you so irritable that you snap at your loved ones?
Our moods are largely representative of our organ health. Bitterness is associated with a congested gallbladder, annoyance with urinary tract issues, a drop in blood sugar causes immediate ‘hangry’ symptoms – hungry-angry.
Have you ever seen a person’s mood and personality change due to medication or drugs?
Our environment and what we put into our bodies directly influence our mood, so it makes sense that we can harness natural medicine to assist mood improvement as well, even when the reason we feel off is due to crazy hormone fluctuations!
We love seeing our patients moods and motivation shift within weeks of starting their treatment plan – the results can be amazing!
I’ll share a patient story that makes us tear up, and some science based reasoning as to how natural medicine affects an improvement in our mood.
There are many avenues that affect our mood, from our environment, our close contacts, and our stress history. But today we will talking about how organ health affects our moods, and how we can use natural medicine to enhance our life.
What is our MOOD?
A mood is a general feeling that are not as intense as emotions.
Mood changes often result from hormonal patterns changing — namely, fluctuating estrogen and low progesterone, which is why we see such huge swings in hormonal junctures in our life, such as menses, pregnancy and perimenopause.
Anxiety
Many women mention anxiety as a huge issue that can escalate when hormones get our of range. Learning how to quiet the mind can be a valuable tool. One way to do this is through mindfulness meditation. We also have some amazing natural remedies to calm anxiety by treating the root cause of the issue, which is a reduction in GABA production. GABA production keeps anxiety at bay, and we need good levels of several key nutrients to maintain this pathway. Taurine is an excellent nutritional intervention to support GABA, which must be used with magnesium, B vitamins and zinc.
Herbal medicine to calm anxiety will be required to have an anxiolytic effect in the body. There are many herbs to choose from, and some of our favourites are Withania, Hops, Passionflower, Zizyphus, and Kava.
Depression
If you lean toward feeling of low mood, depression, listlessness, or boredom, we would look to support your natural serotonin production. Serotonin is the neurotransmitter that makes us feel happy and positive! So we want that in a nice healthy range. When it gets low, our feelings and emotions drop, and classic signs are feeling ‘hopeless’, thinking ‘what’s the point’. Serotonin is made from the amino acid 5-Hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) and needs B vitamins, zinc, and vitamin C to optimise. The amino acid is derived from our diet, and salmon, eggs, spinach, and seeds are among some foods that help boost serotonin naturally.
Our favourite herb to boost serotonin as effectively as medication is St Johns Wort! It is pictured at the top of this email – isn’t it a cheerful flower?! This herb does come with a few warnings and does not play well with many medications, so always check with your health care expert before starting a new herb or supplement.
Liver and ANGER!
A sluggish liver can make you feel fatigued, make you irritable, it can make you feel RAGE, and also lead to stubborn weight gain around the middle.
Your liver works best when it has extra support every day. Why? Because we are inundated with SO MANY toxins and nasty chemicals and your liver is working hard to try and clear it all out. If you take medications, or drink or smoke, then that adds another huge job to the liver’s daily workload.
A natural medicine program aims to restore your health and vitality – and then keep it there.
If you have chronic health conditions, genetic risk factors, or want peak performance, then integrating nutritional and herbal medicine into your daily life can can ensure you live the best life possible.
St Mary’s Thistle and its active constituents collectively known as silymarin, are the most studied natural medicines with a proven beneficial effect on the tone of the liver.
When using St Mary’s thistle therapeutically, herbalists need to access pharmaceutical grade herbs that contain standardised flavanolignan silybin. Most over the counter products do not have standardised and batch tested quality control, therefore effectiveness varies.
When the liver starts to clear out in response to detoxification support, there are also emotions that tend to be liberated in the purging process. This is a natural and cathatric response!
Once the liver is working better, then it will start to catch up on its job list and get to work helping you lose belly fat – you may need to give it some time and love though, especially if you have a fatty liver.
Signs that your liver is not converting thyroid hormones well:
- Fatigue – sluggish
- Waking between 1:00 – 3:00 am
- Low libido
- Weaker and flabbier muscles
- Weight gain
- Poor digestion
- Thinning hair, shedding hair, or hair loss
- Headaches
- Puffy eyes, hands, or feet
“Thank You for giving me my wife back”
Our super star practitioner Sandy Barnes said she cried when her clients husband told her this at their appointment.
If THAT’S not changing lives, I don’t know what is.
