Some great advice in this, would recommend.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

Living with anxiety can be hard. Having been diagnosed with anxiety myself in 2020 (although realistically living with it for much longer), I am all too familiar with the different ways we try to cope with it. There is no single solution. Each person is different. For many, a combination of therapy and medication works well. For others, mindfulness and yoga can help. Some suggest that what we eat can make a difference. But can food help reduce anxiety?

In this guide, Dr Naidoo presents new research about the ways anxiety is rooted in the brain, gut, immune system and metabolism. Drawing on the latest science on the connection between diet and anxiety, she shows us how to effectively use food and nutrition as essential tools for calming the mind.

Complete with meal plans and recipes, this book is a really useful way of discovering how you can use food to your advantage when dealing with your mental health. However, this book does not completely discourage the consumption of animal products. I do not feel that one can be truly at peace mentally when consuming the negative energy of death and suffering. For this reason, I had to mark the book down to 3 stars. Despite much useful information otherwise.

However resistant we may be to the idea (and until a couple of years ago, I was pretty resistant myself), recent developments in science have made it pretty evident that it's not so much that we *are* what we eat, but more that *how we feel* is hugely influenced by what we eat. That realisation applies not only to issues such as maintaining a healthy weight or avoiding chronic disease such as cardiac issues, but also to mental health and wellbeing wrt depression and anxiety.

I have come across Dr Naidoo's work before, so was eager to get a closer look at this latest book. And it does not disappoint.

Step by step, she takes you through the process of understanding the way that food creates or impacts anxiety, how to regulate the kind of food you eat in order to minimise or cure such illnesses, and how to ensure that you can live your best life through making better food choices.

Dr Naidoo's advice includes the six pillars she has developed on how to plan your food to maximize your health outcomes and to calm the mind, the role of your microbiome in promoting your overall health, and how to free yourself from the inflammation that can adversely impact your physical and mental wellbeing. This is a terrific book to read and learn from if you are struggling with anxiety. Highly recommended.

Nutrition Guidelines for Anxiety and Pain Relief Too

In a class about ion channels, receptors and pain mechanisms our lecturer emphasised the link between neuropathy and glial cell activation. By coincidence I had been reading about glial cells in the gut earlier that day and was curious about the role of the gut brain axis in pain. When I asked him he told me that this was a lecture on CNS mechanics and the gut had absolutely nothing to do with what he was talking about. Yes I am still fuming. And yes I still think that there are links between gut health and pain. Reading “Calm Your Mind with Food: A Revolutionary Guide to Controlling Your Anxiety” has reinforced this belief.
Dr. Uma Naidoo is a nutritional psychiatrist who explains the link between nutrition, gut health and anxiety. Reading her work through a lens biased towards chronic pain - it makes sense for this community too. Naidoo explains that an upset in the chemical balance of neurotransmitters along with inflammation exacerbate anxiety. Snap. This is also true for pain. Of course both conditions are biological, psychological and social in origin and cannot be purely “fixed” through nutrition. But when the medication doesn’t work it makes sense to understand how we can help ourselves through reducing inflammation; improving gut health; and eating to optimise our health and well-being.

Naidoo explains why gut health is important for anxiety. Her descriptions can easily be applied to pain management too. Her main points are:
*Neurotransmitter precursors are made through the transformation of specific nutrients by specific gut bacteria and are carried through the blood stream, across the blood-brain barrier, and into the brain where they are assembled into neurotransmitters. Two that you may have heard of are serotonin and GABA. Serotonin is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, which means it helps calm down your nerve cells. We know about Low dose SSRIs (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) in the chronic pain field because they are prescribed for pain because of their anti inflammatory effects. GABA is also an inhibitory neurotransmitter, and when GABA levels are low, your amygdala can be more reactive, triggering strong stress responses when they're not warranted. The pain community knows about GABA because people experiencing nerve pain often have insufficient GABA function.

*Other compounds, like short-chain fatty acids and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) also have key roles in the relationship between the gut and the brain, and also rely on gut bacteria to create them. BDNF is known in pain management as it is released in response to inflammation and is known as a nociceptive modulator for pain perception.

*The best thing that we can do for our gut health is to eat a diet high in fibre. Fibre has been shown to be a bulwark against inflammation and depression. Fibre is a prebiotic that promotes helpful strains of bacteria, discourages toxic strains, increases absorption of minerals, and improves gut permeability and immune response. The bacteria that produce important metabolism-regulating sub stances like SCFAs thrive on the dietary fibre passing through your gut.

*The worst thing you can do for your gut health is to eat a whole lot of processed sugary foods. Anxiety and depression can be worsened by excess sugar in the diet. Artificial sweeteners like sucralose (Splenda) and aspartame (sold under the brands NutraSweet and Equal), promote gut dysbiosis by providing bad gut bacteria with a feast. Aspartame in particular has been linked with anxiety symptoms in both animal and human studies,

Dr. Uma Naidoo Summarises the principles of her book into 6 pillars. They are:

To eat whole foods.

To include a large variety of multicolored plants, herbs, and spices in your diet.

To Identify any gaps in your diet through testing and consider supplementation if necessary. The most important vitamins to help quell anxiety are the B complex, vitamin C, vitamin D, and vitamin E. The most important minerals are calcium, iron, magnesium, and zinc. (This goes for pain too)

A steady supply of healthy fats is one of the most important factors in keeping our brain
healthy and free of anxiety.

Avoid processed artificial foods,

Create sustainable dietary and lifestyle changes rather than falling into quick fixes and miracle diets. Eating is about powering your body but also about the pleasure that comes from a delicious meal.

Finally,
She has a range of recipes in the back of her book and I tried her Quinoa porridge - the quinoa to liquid ratio was off she had 1:1 where it was better at 1:4 but that wasn’t a biggie. This book has inspired me to eat better and to read more in this area. I have just started Kimberly Wilson’s “Unprocessed how the food we eat is fuelling our mental health crisis.” Nutrition has more influence on what we feel, who we become and how we behave than we could ever have imagined. I suspect that “Calm your Mind” will be one of many books on this theme.

An incredibly important book, which does give details of foods that calm your mind, illustrated by case studies and a great deal of information on anxiety itself.
On so many levels this is a brilliant book and I recommend it. Thank you to the
author. I learned a lot from this book.