Typically, people think of anxiety as a mental health condition. If we feel fearful or “off” or agitated or anxious, we tend to say that something is happening in our brains. Well, that might not be too far off, but not in the way we are thinking. We tend to assume that our brains and our minds are the same things (a hint here – they are not) and therefore, we label our unease as a mental health issue. However, during our recent webinar conversation with Dr. Mike Lukens, we learned that there is a definite distinction, yet a clear connection, between the brain and the mind, between what we think and feel and the physical organ where most of that feeling and thinking takes place.
Of course, there is episodic anxiety, where an incident or some type of trauma may have occurred that led to anxiety. Indeed, that can be an emotional trigger. However, there are several biochemical causes for anxiety. We might be anxious and not even know why – we feel it in our bodies, but cannot come up with an explanation for our feelings. Such feelings are often caused by a biochemical imbalance, hormonal dysregulation, or even dietary choices we make. All of these can also make us more predisposed or sensitive to environmental insults that create anxiety. Let’s talk about some of these internal culprits.
Biochemical Triggers
If you follow this blog regularly, you may have noticed that in one of our recent blogs, we talked about many of the biochemical imbalances that can lead to depression and depressive tendencies. Many of the same chemical imbalances we outlined in our depression blog can also lead to anxiety. Far too often, I’ve treated patients with great lives, yet they still feel anxious. They might say, “I’ve got a great family. I’ve got great loved ones. I’m very well taken care of. I have no wants and no needs, but I still have anxiety. I still have this sense of being unsettled and I don’t know what’s causing it.” These patients come to us because they likely don’t realize that they have a biochemical imbalance.
There are several, fairly common biochemical imbalances that can certainly lead to emotional responses or the internal sense of unsettledness that we often call anxiety. Zinc deficiency, a lack of vitamin B6, Pyrrole Disorder, and copper toxicity are all imbalances that we regularly treat at Mensah Medical and can be direct causes of anxiety. Even though we’ve covered this before in our recent blog post about depression, let’s take a quick, more in-depth look at how these imbalances create anxiety.
Zinc and vitamin B6, for example, are directly involved in making neurotransmitters. These nutrients help make one very important neurotransmitter in particular that is involved in calming your system known as gamma-aminobutyric acid (we just call it GABA for short). You cannot make GABA if you do not have proper levels of zinc in your system. Also, remember Pyrrole Disorder steals both zinc and vitamin B6 from your body. As a result, severe mood swings, rage, depression, AND anxiety can become an everyday vicious cycle.
Now let’s talk about copper. Copper is a direct stimulant to the production of norepinephrine or adrenaline. Copper impacts your neurotransmitter dopamine, which is that wonderful neurotransmitter that makes you feel good. But copper takes your dopamine and turns it into norepinephrine, and norepinephrine is your fight-or-flight neurotransmitter. Norepinephrine then converts to adrenaline or epinephrine. When you’ve got excess levels of copper, that copper will consistently push that norepinephrine pathway. This causes you to feel anxiety as well. You can also feel impulsive, or mood dysregulated and rageful. In short, your mood can be directly related to your biochemistry.
Dietary Triggers
Now, let’s talk about food for a minute. Many do not realize that many dietary agents can also lead to feeling anxious. Carbohydrates (in the form of pasta, bread, cereals, our pizza) cause an increase in your glucose level. When you have that increase, you often get an elevation in mood. But then the hormone insulin comes along and drops your blood sugar, often causing internal anxiety. Your mood shifts, and you get hungry and crave more carbs. Some people jokingly call this form of anxiety “hangry” (hungry and angry). Eating frequent, smaller, protein-rich, low-carb meals throughout the day keeps you from getting those severe ups and downs so that you don’t get “hangry.”
Hormonal Triggers
There can be hormonal causes for anxiety. A relatively common one is the thyroid hormone. One of the first things doctors check in your system when you’ve got anxiety or depression is your thyroid level. Elevated thyroid hormones can definitely lead to anxiety. Additionally, excess cortisol, and in men, testosterone, can also cause our anxiety levels to spike. Testosterone has become popularized as a sort of “youth serum” for those males seeking rejuvenation. Less well-popularized is the fact that this hormone can also lead to increased anxiety and aggression.
Epigenetic Triggers
We certainly do not want to minimize the external factors that can trigger anxiety. Trauma, emotional distress, environment, and several other outside influencers can certainly put us in an anxious state. When outside factors impact our internal chemistry, this can also lead to anxiety. This is what we call epigenetics influences. Our goal is to look at the external and internal factors, evaluate them, and look to correct those that we can. Often times that external traumatic event does not have as significant an impact when we address the underlying chemistry first.