A Functional Medicine Approach To Anxiety: What’s really causing your anxiety?

How many times do you lay in bed at night with racing thoughts, keeping you tossing and turning all night? “Ahh, I forgot to send that email”, “When are my kid’s school pictures, again?”, “Do my coworkers even like me?” Or how many times have you canceled last minute on plans because your anxiety for some reason is through the roof. Sometimes anxiety can just be annoying thoughts that pop up, making you feel a little insecure or worried, and other times anxiety can be so severe that it triggers panic attacks and keeps you from leaving the house.

While there are anti-anxiety medications you can take for anxiety, oftentimes, it takes a while before you get the right prescription that works for you, and many times it requires you to keep increasing your dosage over time or taking it as needed with no real solution. And sometimes, it can literally knock you out, sedating you, not allowing you to function.

Unfortunately, these medications also have side effects that impact nutrient stores like depleting your body of calcium, B vitamins, Coenzyme Q10, and Vitamin D and can negatively affect certain organs, like your gut microbiome. Even taking SSRIs over a long period of time can lead to sexual dysfunction, weight gain, and sleep disturbances.

If you want to get rid of those racing thoughts and anxiety symptoms, a functional medicine approach to anxiety is what you need. This approach gets to the root cause of why you’re experiencing those symptoms in the first place. Today we are uncovering why you could have anxiety and what to do about it. Please know, there are times and places for meds, and you and your provider have to make those decisions together, however, don’t just mask your anxiety with a pill and ignore, what the contributing factors are in the first place.

What are some symptoms of anxiety?

First off, anxiety can show up differently from one person to another. Here are some common symptoms of anxiety.

• Racing thoughts

• Overthinking

• Racing heart rate

• Feeling tense or nervous

• Thinking the worse outcome is going to manifest

• Rapid breathing

• Feeling exhausted and weak

• Trouble concentrating

• Hard time focusing on the present

Gut-Anxiety Connection

One of the most common contributors of anxiety that I see in my functional medicine practice is poor gut health. Your gut and brain are connected through what’s called your vagus nerve. This means that your mental health can impact your gut health and your gut health can affect your mental health.

Your gut is made up of billions of bacteria (beneficial and harmful). When the bad bugs start to take over because of a large intake of processed foods, excess sugars, antibiotics, loads of stress, poor sleep, and even hidden infections and overgrowths (like candida)…that’s what anxiety can start to manifest. Your gut is where many neurotransmitters, like GABA , serotonin, dopamine, and melatonin, are produced and regulated. If your gut bacteria isn’t balanced, it can interfere with this process and lead to anxious and depressive thoughts.

Tons of papers have been published showing this connection of how dysbiosis and inflammation of the gut are linked to mental illnesses like anxiety and depression. 

So what do you do to turn your poor gut health around? Here are some simple tips you can try:

• Eat organic, whole foods

• Take a high quality probiotic

• Spice up your food variety and try new foods and recipes

• Incorporate fermented foods into your diet like sauerkraut and kimchi,

• Sip on bone broth a couple of times a week to keep your gut lining healthy

• Incorporate stress management practices like deep breathing, prayer, getting outside in nature, journaling, or talk therapy

Is Inflammation triggering my anxiety?

High inflammatory levels could be contributing to your anxious thoughts. In fact, studies show that inflammation can impact the anxiety-related regions of the brain, including your amygdala, insula, and anterior cingulate cortex. Inflammation can arise from poor diet choices, lack of movement, increased body weight, poor sleep, genetic factors, infections, psychosocial stress and trauma, food sensitivities, and even a leaky gut.

To address this inflammation, you’ll want to eliminate those sources of inflammation in the first place and incorporate anti-inflammatory foods and practices into your daily routine.

Here are some places to start to reduce your inflammation and help your anxiety

• Invest in a high-quality water filter. Your water could contain toxins like microplastics, heavy metals, and chemicals that trigger inflammation. My favorite water filter is Aquasana.

• Ditch highly processed foods smothered in inflammatory oils (canola, sunflower) and excess sugar

• Address blood sugar imbalances

• Get in a healthy amount of movement (not too much or too little)

• Focus on reducing daily stress

• Chow down on anti-inflammatory foods like salmon, turmeric, nuts like walnuts and almonds, olive oil (avoid heating on high heat), and green leafy vegetables.

• Take a fish oil supplement packed with omega 3’s

Can a lack of nutrients cause anxiety?

If your body doesn’t have sufficient amounts of certain nutrients, it could manifest into anxiety and depression. The top vitamins keep an eye out for are B vitamins, magnesium, vitamin D, and zinc.

While you’ll want to try to get these nutrients from your diet, supplementation may be needed. A high portion of the population is deficient in these vitamins and minerals, so the chance of you needing supplementation is a high possibility. The best way to know your nutrient levels is by getting functional medicine lab testing performed. This way, you don’t have to guess, and you can know for sure which supplements will help.

Tips To Naturally Address Anxiety

If you want to use a more natural approach to address your anxiety, here’s where you can start.

• Focus on gut health

• Start meditating daily. Use an app like Abide to guide you along

• Journal to get out racing thoughts

• Spend time outside in nature and practice grounding

• Prioritize sleep. Avoid screen time 1 to 2 hours before bed. Better yet a social media fast.

• Avoid high amounts of caffeine. Think about transitioning off of coffee or reducing your intake

• Try supplements like GABA, CBD, Magnesium, Reishi, Ashwagandha, and L-Theanine

• Focus on activities that regulate your nervous system such as epsom salt baths, saunas, mediation, prayer

• Disconnect from social media

• Stimulate the vagus nerve via gargling, humming, deep belly breathing

• Get functional medicine testing performed to understand what’s contributing to your anxiety. Functional medicine providers can run GI stool, hormone, micronutrient tests, and more. Learn about my gut-healing program HERE.

A Functional Medicine Approach To Anxiety

Working with a functional medicine practitioner is the best way to get to the root of your anxiety and overcome it for good. While medication can be helpful for some people…diet, supplementation, and lifestyle choices may be enough to address your anxiety or be great to integrate while you transition off your anti-anxiety medications. Please talk to your healthcare provider before coming off of any medications to ensure you’re approaching the transition in a safe way.

Get Your Gut Right

If you need access to a stool test, a gut health expert, and personalized protocols, the Get Your Gut Right program might be the right fit for you. This is a very comprehensive program that also focuses on nutrition, detox pathways, nervous system, clean environment, and more. Click HERE to learn more.

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