Anxiety – Trish Tucker May

Mood Boosting: The Connection Between GABA, Neurotransmitters, and Energy

Written by trish on June 13, 2023. Posted in anti-inflammatory, Anxiety, Blog, Brain Fog, Depression, Energy, Fatigue, inflammation, Mental Health, Mood, Stress.

Neurotransmitters are secreted all through the body, in neurons of both the central and peripheral nervous systems.

I am excited to announce new functional nutrition tests. Functional nutrition tests for neurotransmitters can help support energy, mood and addictions.

This can provide valuable insights for a range of health concerns.

Neurotransmitter tests can determine whether your neurotransmitter levels are too low or too high.

GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that helps regulate GABA, on the other hand, is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that helps regulate anxiety and stress levels in the brain. Foods that are rich in glutamate, such as broccoli and spinach, can help support GABA production

Additionally, consuming foods that are rich in magnesium, such as almonds and spinach, can help support GABA function.

There are also other supporting neurotransmitters that play a role in overall brain health.

Serotonin, for example, is a neurotransmitter that regulates mood and can be supported by consuming foods that are rich in tryptophan, such as bananas and turkey.

If you are struggling with the following symptoms get in touch. It may be due to your neurotransmitters and there is a lot we can achieve with tweaks in your nutrition and lifestyle.

If you are struggling with

Mood concerns, such as depression, anxiety

Diminished energy/fatigue, Insomnia

Cognitive concerns such as forgetfulness, inattention, brain fog, ADHD, addiction, dependency, obsessions and cravings.

Chronic illness, and immune deficiency

Pain – especially chronic pain and inflammation.

Don’t struggle alone.

I have struggled with many of these, and this is why I love being a nutritionist.

Lifestyle and food as medicine is how I can help.

Top Tips To help you with emotional eating.

Written by trish on July 18, 2022. Posted in addiction, Anxiety, Belly Bloating, Eat Clean, Energy, Hormones.

Do you suddenly feel hungry, stressed and overwhelmed?

Do you crave specifically unhealthy foods? Do you feel guilty or ashamed after eating?
Do you feel as though you have to eat immediately? Is your hunger satisfied when you’re full?

Physical hunger won’t make you feel shame about eating food, whereas emotional hunger is often linked with unpleasant emotions.

How to stop eating emotionally?

It can be difficult to stop emotional eating, especially when it’s become a habit over a long period of time. But don’t worry—it’s absolutely possible to address emotional eating and pay attention to your true hunger cues, allowing you to work through your emotions separately.

This will improve your physical and your mental wellbeing, and will be an important step to healing your gut and balancing your hormones.

If you feel hungry, drink water first.

Sometimes you can be dehydrated and confused about hunger sensations.

Wait five minutes before eating when you feel hungry.

Try to identify your emotions before eating. How are you feeling? How do you want to feel? If you are feeling tired, bored, lonely, angry, sad it can be helpful to find another way to sooth other than food.

Have a list of your tools in your toolkit and post it on the fridge. This could be a short walk, legs up the wall, lying down, calling a friend, or listening to your favourite music.

Keep track of your eating habits to identify your triggers.

My clients find it useful to track daily food in the client app – this helps with accountability.

Keep healthy snacks on hand for when you are physically hungry
Things like carrot sticks and hummus or a handful of nuts will help to satisfy true hunger – and if you don’t want to eat them, it’s a sign that you may not be physically hungry,

Incorporate healthy habits into your daily life

Go for walks – anything to get OUT OF THE KITCHEN!

Eat regular well-balanced meals – DON’T SKIP MEALS. This adds to stress.

Get enough sleep and

Connect with friends and family

All these will help to boost your mental health and help you to address your emotional eating.
Triggers such as boredom, sadness and stress can result in overeating—even positive emotions such as excitement and happiness can be a trigger, as well as using food as a reward.

By working to understand why you’re eating emotionally, you’ll be better able to recognise your trigger emotions and be able to actually work through them instead of reaching for food.

If you are struggling with bloating and emotional eating please download the free eBook.

To get started download the free eBook to beat the belly bloat and balance hormones. https://passion4juice.groovepages.com/

How to support your adrenals

Written by trish on April 5, 2022. Posted in adrenal glands, Anxiety, Blog, Blood Sugar, Concentration, Fatigue, Hormones, Libido, Mood, Stress, Tips.

What are adrenal glands and where are they located?

Your adrenal glands play a very important role in maintaining your health. They are incredibly small, about the size and weight of a coin. They are located above your kidneys, just below the muscle tissue of your lower back.

What do adrenal glands do?

Our adrenal glands are responsible for many things that assist in regulating our body and hormones, including thyroid and reproductive hormones. They are also responsible for managing stress, the amount of inflammation in our body, our immune system, our blood sugar levels and the electrolytes in our blood. They influence all the physiological functions processes of the body and help stave off physical fatigue.

Signs your adrenal health needs support

When there is something wrong with our body, it will start to signal us that something needs to be addressed. Here is how your adrenal glands will signal you that something is wrong.

Your blood sugar level will either drop or spike suddenly.
Your hormones will be all over the place. One moment you are happy and the other moment you will find yourself crying over something that does not even bother you that much.
You get sick more often because your immune system will not function properly without healthy adrenal glands.
You will be stressed and it will be hard for you to manage your stress levels.
Your sex drive will decrease.
It will be hard for you to complete your daily tasks because those tasks will require a lot more effort than usual.
You will find it hard to keep yourself awake even if you know that you need to sacrifice sleep for a very important task.
You will constantly crave food, mostly salty and savory foods, and it will be hard you satisfy your cravings. You will find yourself craving them more even if you have just eaten something.
Your body will take longer to heal properly.
You will fail to find happiness or excitement in tasks and hobbies that you enjoyed before.
You may find yourself skipping meals.

How to improve your adrenal health

If you suspect your adrenal glands may need some care and attention, try some of the following tips.

Get your sleep schedule in sync:

Make sure that you get quality sleep for 9 to 10 hours. Sleep and wake up at the same times to get your body in a rhythm. It needs to follow a routine to start to heal.

Daily exercise:

Set aside at least 30 minutes a day for exercise, no matter how busy or tired you may be.

Add these to your diet:

To improve your adrenal health, add proteins, healthy carbs, zinc, calcium, and vitamins (especially C and D) to your diet. Also increase foods like coconuts, avocados, olives, chia seeds, bone broth, nuts, vegetables and fish, but make sure you do all of this in moderation.

If you would like to learn more about my tests to measure adrenal health please get in touch.

How to Do a Phone Detox

Written by trish on February 22, 2022. Posted in addiction, Anxiety, Depression, Mental Health.

Phone addiction is becoming more and more serious and is not something to be taken lightly. Phone addiction is very real and can make you anxious or cause you to lose focus on things that are so much more important than that Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or WhatsApp update that you checked five seconds ago. Your phone addiction can harm your mental health, personal health, and social relationships, even potentially causing you to fall prey to depression or anxiety.

If you are reading this article, you may have already experienced some anxiety or bad days due to your phone addiction. Do not fear; here are some tips to do a quick, easy phone detox to help curb your phone addiction.

Phone Free Mornings

Resist the urge to check your phone the second you wake up. Get an actual alarm clock to wake you up in the mornings so you have no excuse to touch your phone at all. If you still find it hard to resist the urge to use your phone the first thing in the morning then there are three things that you can do.

Take a few moments after you wake up for some conscious breathing or meditation. Experience the sensations of your body and mind waking up instead of the urge to see what you may have missed.
Immediately start your routine. Get out of bed and keep the momentum going—get dressed, brush your teeth, make breakfast. Starting your day off checking your phone will inevitably set you back from the get-go. Instead, get up, get going, and see what you can accomplish before you ever pick up that phone.
Do not keep your phone at your bedside. Keep it in a closet or drawer that is not within your hand’s reach when you are in your bed.

No phones with family

Make a rule that whenever you are with your family, the phones stay away. So if you go out with your family to dinner, to the mall, or another special activity, do not take your phone with you. Keep use limited during vacations and road trips. Focus on spending quality, uninterrupted time with your family. Plan activities like games or movies that keep everyone occupied and avoiding the “boredom slide” that leads to phone overuse.

Download apps

There are phone detox apps like “Cheeky” or “Forrest” designed to help wean you off that phone with a specific challenge. “Forrest” lets you set a timer for up to 110 minutes during which you select a little tree. The tree starts to grow from a little seed and in order to successfully grow your tree, you have to leave your phone alone. If you leave that app then your tree dies.

No more notifications

You might be doing well with your phone detox when a notification pops up and you are quickly sucked back in to aimlessly wasting time or checking your phone. Put your phone in airplane mode and turn off or disable pop up notifications for all your apps. Instead, set deliberate times for checking any messages. You control your phone; do not let it control you.

If you would like to learn more about 8 week program TIME TO NOURISH heal your gut, balance your hormones click here

Yours in health and wellness,

Trish Tucker May