Battling stress, anxiety & mental health? Treat the underlying cause and relieve anxiety and stress naturally.

Stressed lady with anxiety

In today's fast paced world, stress has become an inevitable part of our lives.

according to a national study of mental health and wellbeing conducted between 2020 and 2022, 21.5% of people living in Australia have a mental health disorder with Anxiety being the most common, representing 1 in 6 Australians over 16 years of age (ABS, 2023).

Stress is a major contributing factor to these statistics with the 'Stress and Wellbeing in Australia' survey conducted by the Australian Psychological Society found the majority of Australian's feel that stress impacts their physical (72%) and mental health (64%) but very few report seeking progessional help. Interestingly, 12% of Australians reported keeping up with social media contributed to their overall levels of stress.

This highlights the intricate connection between the mind and the body, stress doesn't just affect our mental state; it has profound physiological implications. Stress is a well known trigger or aggravator for many diseases (Yaribeygi et al, 2017). Conversely, illness and a poor state of health can exacerbate stress and mental health conditions, lowering resilience.

The Current Mainstream Solution

The most common pathway taken to manage these situations is anti-depressant therapy and counselling therapies. Counselling therapies are fabulous in providing tools to manage mindset and I'm a big fan of these when coping mechanisms and belief systems require intervention. Anti-depressants can also provide some much needed balance when the neurochemistry is imbalanced however have some fairly challenging side effects. Neither option however address one of the most common underlying causes of mental health issues; nutritional deficiencies and lifestyle imbalances.

Nutrition

Nutrition is the cornerstone of good health, required to fuel every cell of our body. A deficiency in any key nutrient required can result in either disease or illness. This is very true for the chemical pathways of the brain and nervous system, our neurotransmitters.

Lets take an example, the mineral zinc. Zinc is required as a nutrient to support the production of stomach acid, essential for breaking down our food. Proteins are broken down to amino acids and several amino acids act as precursors to our neurotransmitters. Zinc is essential to help convert the amino acid tryptophan to serotonin, our happy neurotransmitter. zinc is also essential to convert the amino acid tyrosine to dopamine, our reward and satisfaction neurotransmitter.

So zinc is a pretty important guy, he is also essential for other systems of the body including our immune system ensuring we have enough natural killer cells and neutrophils to defend our body when exposed to pathogenic bacteria and viruses. The RDI for zinc is 14mg per day for men and 8mg per day for women.

Heres some foods rich in zinc (from the National Institute of Health):

Food	Serve size	Quantity of zinc
Oysters	85g	32g
Beef Sirloin Steak	85g	3.8g
Rolled Oats	1 cup	2.3g
Pumpkin seeds	28g	2.2g
Pork chop	85g	1.9g
Cheddar Cheese	42g	1.5g
Lentils – cooked	½ cup	1.3g
Greek Yoghurt – plain	170g	1g
Egg	1 large	0.6g

So as you can see, if you ate a serve of oysters per day, you’d be fine but for those of us that can’t eat that many oysters, you need to eat an awful lot of other healthy foods everyday to get enough zinc. Understand how crucial adequate zinc and other nutrients are to support healthy levels of our brain chemicals then assessing this example and the state of our heavily processed diets; it is no wonder we see the prevalence of conditions involving chemical imbalances.

There are 36 essential nutrients, zinc is just one of many. As you can see from this example, nutrition is an essential factor in maintaining mental health. As a naturopath that practices nutritional medicine, I am trained in being able to spot different nutritional deficiencies through questionnaires and pathology testing; facilitating guidance on how to correct these nutritional biochemistry based neurotransmitter imbalances.

Herbal Medicine

Nature has provided us with a wealth of medicinal plants that can support mental health and alleviate stress. Herbal remedies, when used judiciously can offer a gentle yet effective approach to managing the symptoms of stress and promoting emotional well-being.

1. Adaptogens - such as Rhodiola and Ashwagandha help the body adapt to stressors, modulating the stress response and promoting balance. These herbs are renowned for their ability to enhance resilience to both physical and emotional stress.

2. Nervines - such as Passionflower and Melissa have a long history of traditional use for their calming properties. They can be particularly helpful in managing anxiety, improving sleep quality - contributing to an overall sense of well-being.

Lifestyle Therapies:

Lifestyle also plays a pivotal role in stress and mental health management; given much of it can be caused by an imbalance here. I provide guidance and coaching around lifestyle changes to nurture the body and mind including:

• Exercise

• Mindfulness

• Sunshine exposure

• Breathwork

• Social Connection

• Down time

• Grounding

I have seen first hand how even small changes with the above tools can have profound effects on an individual's mental wellbeing, regardless of current stressors in life. Nurturing the body and mind requires a personalised approach as we all have a unique physiological make up and behaviours.

If you would like to learn more about how to relieve anxiety and stress naturally, book an introductory session or a discovery call.

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