10 Science-Backed Strategies
Mental health is a deeply personal topic for me, witnessing many loved ones battle through anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges impacting their lives as well as those around them. Watching friends and family navigate these turbulent waters, I have learned the power of compassion, understanding, and the unwavering support required to help them with the realities they face every day. Believing in the power of positive change (and even the smallest changes can lead to big improvements in one's well-being) is powerful affirmation to practice for yourself and others.
In this journey, I have learned of many resources that can empower us all in laying the foundation to making a difference. Creating a healthy lifestyle with a nutritious diet that includes important nutrients like vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and essential fatty acids helps keep our brain chemicals balanced and our mental health at ease.*
We can support this even further by embracing a supplement strategy to promote the healthy neurotransmitter response of important catecholamines like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These chemical messengers in the body help us handle stress and keep our mood and emotions balanced.*
10 Factors to Consider
Below, are ten factors to consider as you take steps toward better mood and emotional well-being for yourself or someone you care about.* You’ll find scientifically supported foundational recommendations to promote a healthy neurotransmitter balance* Supplements can help but only after you put these foundational elements in place. Improving these factors in your life could make enough of a difference to transform your enjoyment of life in a big way.
1. Homocysteine:
“It (referring to high homocysteine levels) is a biomarker of impaired cognitive abilities in children, and in adults is a risk marker for stroke and for dementia and Alzheimer’s, but also possibly for depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.” - Dr. David Smith, a Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford
Elevated homocysteine levels can become powerful excitotoxins creating a run-away neurotransmitter response that may escalate stress and anxiety symptoms. Eating a balanced wholefood diet, exercising regularly, and avoiding alcohol consumption and smoking can help support healthy homocysteine levels.
2. Exercise:
"Exercise is the single best thing you can do for your brain in terms of mood, memory, and learning." – Dr. John J Rately, Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Daily exercise directly helps alleviate stress and anxiety by releasing serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine while lowering homocysteine and cortisol levels promoting healthy mood and emotional wellbeing. Physical activity also supports brain health by increasing Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factors (BDNF) to promote cognitive function. It balances our autonomic nervous system, reducing anxiety, improving relaxation and sleep quality, and helping us achieve a better mental health status.
3. Alkalinize:
“Mood is regulated by the brain, and to work properly, the brain needs optimal fuel from nutrients in food” – Kaleigh McMordie, MCN, RDN, LD
Alkalizing your diet with a broad array of mineral rich foods is the perfect way to deliver a solid foundation of critical vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and essential fatty acids (EFAs) necessary to maintain a balanced neurotransmitter response when in times of stress. Free radicals can be devastating to the neurotransmitter process generating an excitotoxic response adversely affecting healthy mood and relaxation. Adequate minerals (especially magnesium), antioxidants and EFAs are baseline requirements to provide the structure to nerve cells helping ensure balanced neurotransmission and communication. This is, a major determinant of mental health and mood.*
4. Pesticides:
Neuropsychiatric disorders, such as anxiety and depression, are observed in patients with acute and long-term poisoning from pesticides. Regular consumption of pesticides, food additives (such as monosodium glutamate [MSG]), food dyes, sugars, and especially fructose are neuronal stressors that can directly target and stress your mental health balance. This combination can produce powerful free radicals, spinning neurotransmitters out of control which negatively affects the mind, mood and emotional well-being.
5. Grounding:
“Earthing typically improves sleep; and for people with anxiety (post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, etc.), better sleep can make a huge difference.” Grounded.com
Grounding, also known as earthing, is putting your body in direct contact with the earth to help balance or “ground” the build-up of static electrical charges (cations) that can accumulate and disrupt the normal functions of the body. This disruption can lead to a runaway neurotransmitter response, where dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine are excessively released and not properly regulated. By absorbing the Earth's abundant supply of negative ions, grounding helps restore this electrical balance, neutralizing free radicals and modulating the neurotransmitter process. This process stabilizes cortisol levels, improves sleep, and activates the parasympathetic nervous system, promoting relaxation and stress reduction.
6. Microbiome:
“Dr. Michael Gershon, professor of Pathology and Cell Biology and father of neurogastroenterology, adamantly believes that we have a second brain in our gut.”
New research demonstrates that the microbiome might be one of the most important factors in promoting healthy mood and emotional well-being. This is in part due to the fact that 90% of the body’s serotonin is produced by the EC (enterochromaffin) cells that line the digestive tract. The interaction of bacteria with these cells has causal and temporal effects on serotonin production. Boosting the microbiome with regular doses of high-quality organic fermented foods that have been “pre-digested” with a host of probiotic bacteria directly supporting the brain. That’s because they are capable of naturally delivering a wide variety of highly beneficial postbiotic metabolites to the intestinal microbiome. Many types of fermented whole foods (such as apples, mushrooms, beets, turmeric, etc.) can all offer a plentiful array of prebiotic, probiotic, and postbiotic metabolites.
7. Sleep:
“Deep sleep seems to be a natural anxiolytic (anxiety inhibitor), so long as we get it each and every night.” - Matthew Walker, neuroscientist
The significance of getting an average of eight hours of restful ZZZs every night affects concentration, memory, immune function as well as mood and emotion. According to research out of UC Berkley, lack of sleep could increase emotional stress levels by 30%. Regardless of our age, sleep provides a restorative power and is paramount at every point in our lives.
8. EMFs:
“Microwave frequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs) produce widespread neuropsychiatric effects including depression.”
Dr. Martin Pall’s research shows that EMF exposure can raise calcium levels inside cells to toxic levels which damages the cells. The resulting free radicals damage the membranes and the mitochondria of neurons creating a run-away neurotransmitter process causing an increase in anxiety.
9. Breathing:
“A study has found evidence to show that there is actually a direct link between nasal breathing and our cognitive functions.”
Scientists have found, breathing through your nose can help your brain stay calm and manage emotions by activating the amygdala and hippocampus of the brain. Slowing down your breath slows down the heart rate which helps you feel more relaxed and less anxious.
10. Sunlight:
“Sunlight exposure helps to increase levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in mood regulation.”
Research has determined that sunlight can help calm your emotions and reduce anxiety by boosting your serotonin production. Being outside and getting enough sunlight will boost your mood while improving cognitive functions like memory and focus.
Achieve Mental Mastery
The above ten factors can play a foundational role in supporting the balance of one’s mental well-being, but sometimes we all need some supplementary support. In addition to this, adopting a well-designed nutritional supplement program can be a powerful strategy when further assistance is necessary.*
The following are 5 AzureWell supplements that can directly target and support your neurobiological network, promoting your emotional and mental well-being.*
 | 1. AzureWell Racing Mind Relief features Saffron extract and L-Theanine. Saffron extract contains naturally occurring compounds, such as safromotivines, that may help modulate 5-HT receptor sites and mediate excitatory neurotransmission, significantly regulating mood and anxiety.* L-Theanine may promote complementary effects by modulating glutamate activity, quieting its excitotoxicity tendencies.* |
 | 2. AzureWell Activated B-Complex, Full-Spectrum contains the biologically active, end-chain forms of B vitamins (including B12 as methylcobalamin, folate as 5-methyl-tetrahydrofolate (5-MTHF), and B6 as pyridoxal- 5-phosphate). These are absolutely critical to homocysteine metabolism, supporting a healthy neurotransmitter response that may otherwise have escalated.* |
 | 3. AzureWell Icelandic Cod Liver Oil provides naturally occurring essential fatty acids, vitamin D, and vitamin A (as retinol), delivering the necessary requirements for the structure and function of nerve cells in the brain, helping ensure proper nerve signaling and normalized communication.* |
 | 4. AzureWell Magnesium G (Glycinate) is an essential macromineral and recognized as a major determinant of mental health modulating neurological transmissions supporting a healthy mood, emotions and sleep.* |
 | 5. AzureWell Next Step Advanced Probiotic directly targets the gut-brain axis by clinically supporting the microbiome and may significantly promote healthy mood and emotional well-being during times of stress.* |
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