Mental health is greatly affected by a variety of factors – if you are feeling an abrupt change in your mood during the day; for instance, it might be because you have a disturbed stomach. While you would try to think of the possible psychological reasons behind that disturbed mood, it might be a case that the cause for such mood swings is more physically related. Let’s
see some of the factors that can be causing your moods to alter.
- Gut Health
When your gut is not functioning to its fullest, it can be the case that your nutrients are not sufficiently absorbed in your body. This deficit can disturb your normal physiological and psychological functions, causing an altered state of mood. One example includes the lack of vitamin B6 in the body, which can cause mood swings with agitation and frustration in the person lacking it. So, if you are dealing with diarrhea, stomach ache, or constipation, it can be a high chance that your mood swings are correlated with them.
- Probiotics and Prebiotics
Probiotics are made up of good live bacteria / yeasts that aid with digestion in the body. Probiotics can be derived from food or supplementation. Foods that contain the probiotic properties are usually fermentable food items. Some of these include yoghurts , kefir , kombucha ,fermented pickles, fermented sauerkraut , kimchi .
Prebiotics are a type of indigestible fibre that are necessary for your healthy gut function. An easy way to remember prebiotics is that they serve as food for our probiotics. Foods that contain prebiotics are fiber-rich foods such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
Both probiotics and prebiotics support each other and are equally important in maintaining a healthy colony of bacteria, as well as other microorganisms, which aid in digestion and gut support.
They create healthy homeostasis in your gut helping you to function normally throughout the day. If there is a lack of important bacteria in our gut, it will create a deficit in the normal absorptive capacity for the neural and muscular pathways to digest the food ingested properly.
- Serotonin
Serotonin is regarded as the happy hormone, known for elevating our mood in times of distress, and is released when stimulated by different things. Food can play a vital role in elevating serotonin levels in our body. Milk, bananas, and dark chocolate – all have the capacity to activate this neurotransmitter in our body, which in turn helps us to feel light and happy after consuming these foods. Exercising is also one way to elevate the production of these hormones as they help fight the build-up of tension in our body and calm the nerves.
- Inflammatory Bowel Syndrome
Our GI tract can be prone to inflammation that disturbs the mucosal lining, damaging the tract’s ability to absorb nutrients properly. This inflammation has multiple causes – side effects of medications, taking too much alcohol, eating too many spicy and fatty foods, and taking stress. The increase in inflammation also induces an increased production of HCl in our stomach that affects the overall pH, causing further disruption in the normal digestive process of the body.
- Food Sensitivities
Prolonged gut disturbing conditions such as IBS, as discussed above, can make our gut sensitive to a great range of things – stress, food, and specific medications. Food sensitivity is the commonest of them all that makes our gut unable to tolerate a specific kind of food. For example, a food-sensitive gut might become intolerant of a specific nutrient. This deficiency can get in the way of our normal psychological health leading to a disturbance in mood.
Final Thoughts
Now you know, mood abruptions can come from a variety of physical matters that we might ignore. It is, therefore, highly important to find the right etiology of the condition and act accordingly to remove the causal factor. If you want to know more about health and fitness, you can check out our Instagram page here for beneficial updates and opportunities for you to boost your health to the best scale.