Continuing our quick tour through my ALL-TIME FAVORITE BOOK (Brain Energy by Harvard psychiatrist Chris Palmer, MD.), today we’re going to talk about practical tip #2 to boost your mitochondria and metabolic functioning to combat psychological (and, of course, physiological) challenges.
In our last +1 we talked about sleep. Today we’ll talk about fasting. In our next +1, we’ll talk about purpose.
Let’s get straight to work.
Dr. Palmer tells us: “What we eat, when we eat, and how much we eat have direct effects on metabolism and mitochondria. Everyone knows that diet plays a role in obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. What most people might not know is that diet also has profound effects on mental health and the brain.”
He continues by saying: “This field is massive. Tens of thousands of research articles and countless textbooks have explored the effects of diet on metabolism and mitochondria. Most of this research has focused on obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, aging, and longevity. Although these researchers don’t usually see the connection with mental health, by now, I hope you do.”
And: “The connections go far beyond correlations. They overlap at the level of neural circuits in the brain and, of course, the entire network of metabolism and mitochondria within the human body.”
That’s from a chapter called “Food, Fasting, and Your Gut.”
Short story: Food, as we know, plays a HUGE role in optimizing our physical AND mental health.
So does NOT eating—aka intermittent fasting.
And, as we’ve discussed, your GUT has 90% (!) of your serotonin so...
Check out our Notes on The Happiness Diet, The Comfort Crisis and this +1 on The Heroic Food Rules for more.
And, of course, our Notes on The Circadian Code.
For now...
What’s ONE thing you can do to optimize YOUR nutrition TODAY?
Get on that, Hero.
🙌 🚀
P.S. Each of the practical chapters features a success story. The one from this chapter is all about Mildred—a woman who suffered from DEBILITATING mental illnesses from the age of 17 to 70.
Then her doctor encouraged her to go to a weight-loss clinic at Duke where they were using a ketogenic diet. Within two weeks she noticed significant improvement and...
After 53 (!!!) years of struggle, she has been thriving for the last 13 years.
As Palmer says: “Stories like Mildred’s . . . just don’t happen in psychiatry. Even with the best treatments we have to offer, this is unheard of. Mildred’s story and the theory of brain energy say it is possible. It is a new day in the mental health field, one filled with hope for more stories like Mildred’s.”
I asked Chris to share more on this story in our chat. Check it out.
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