In my recent conversation with psychiatrist Dr William Van Derveer on The MindHealth360 Show, we explored a far more grounded and clinically useful perspective. Rather than positioning psychedelics as a miracle cure, Dr Van Derveer places them within a broader healing model that includes trauma, attachment, inflammation, gut health, lifestyle, spirituality and the deeper biological drivers of mental ill health. 

It is an approach that feels especially relevant now. As interest in psychedelic treatment accelerates, what is needed is not more hype, but more nuance. Not a search for the next silver bullet, but a deeper understanding of how mental health recovery actually works. 

Moving beyond the limits of conventional psychiatry 

One of the most interesting aspects of Dr Van Derveer’s work is the path that led him beyond conventional psychiatry. In our conversation, he described how the limits of medication and talk therapy pushed him to look more closely at the broader terrain of mental illness and recovery. 

This is a tension that many clinicians and patients will recognise. Conventional approaches can be essential and at times lifesaving, but they are not always enough for people whose mental health symptoms are being driven by multiple overlapping factors. When trauma, inflammation, gut dysfunction, nervous system dysregulation, immune imbalance and chronic stress are all part of the picture, symptom suppression alone may leave the deeper causes untouched. 

What emerged from our conversation was a much wider map of care: one that looks not only at thoughts, emotions and diagnoses, but also at biochemistry, physiology, attachment, lifestyle and meaning. The whole person lens integrative mental health calls for. 

Why functional medicine and psychedelic therapy may need each other 

A central theme in my discussion with Dr Van Derveer was that functional medicine and psychedelic therapy are often best understood as complementary. 

Functional medicine helps identify and address the biological terrain that may be shaping mental health: inflammation, nutritional deficiencies, microbiome disruption, immune dysregulation, toxic load and poor stress resilience. Psychedelic therapy, by contrast, may help people access deep emotional material, trauma, insight, self-compassion and spiritual experience in ways that are not always possible through ordinary therapeutic processes alone. 

For many people, these dimensions are deeply intertwined. 

A person may have profound psychological insight during psychedelic therapy, but still struggle to sustain change if they return to a body that is inflamed, exhausted, dysregulated or depleted. Equally, someone may improve their physiology significantly, but remain stuck in deeply patterned trauma responses, relational wounds or destructive beliefs. What Dr Van Derveer describes is a model in which both biology and biography matter. 

That is one of the strongest ideas from our conversation: recovery is often not either biological or psychological, but both. 

Trauma is not only psychological, but physiological 

Trauma is often misunderstood as something that exists only in conscious memory. In reality, as Dr Van Derveer explains, it may be stored outside narrative awareness, including in somatic, episodic and procedural memory. 

This has important implications. Many people cannot easily explain why they feel the way they do, yet their nervous system, beliefs and behaviours may still be shaped by earlier experiences. Early attachment patterns and chronic dysregulation can influence not only relationships and emotional responses, but also inflammation, health behaviours and vulnerability to illness over time.  

Psychedelic therapy may help people access this deeper material, but it does not replace the need for careful therapeutic support. Without integration and context, there is a risk of reducing complex healing processes to a single intervention. 

Psychedelics are not a cure, but a catalyst 

Public conversations about psychedelics often overlook an important distinction: these treatments are not cures in themselves. 

As Dr Van Derveer emphasised, their value lies in their potential to act as catalysts. They may open access to insight, emotional processing and self-compassion. They may create opportunities for behaviour change and new perspectives. But they do not remove the need for ongoing therapeutic work, physiological support and meaningful changes in how a person lives. 

Different compounds also play different roles. MDMA, ketamine and psilocybin each have distinct biochemical and psychological effects, and are suited to different contexts. A more mature understanding of psychedelic therapy requires this level of nuance, rather than treating all compounds or experiences as interchangeable. 

Ultimately, the effectiveness of these treatments depends on what surrounds them. Insight alone is rarely sufficient. Lasting change tends to emerge when psychological work, biological support and lifestyle shifts are brought together. 

A broader model of mental health care 

What becomes clear from this conversation is that the future of mental health care will depend on more integrated ways of thinking. Approaches that do not separate trauma from physiology, or biology from lived experience, but recognise how these layers interact.  

Dr Van Derveer’s perspective reflects a growing shift towards understanding mental ill health as the result of multiple, interacting drivers. Addressing those drivers requires more than a single modality. It requires a framework that is capable of holding complexity while still offering practical pathways to healing. 

This is where psychedelic therapy may have a role, not as a standalone solution, but as part of a wider system of care that addresses root causes and supports long-term change. 

Listen to my conversation with Dr William Van Derveer on The MindHealth360 Show to explore how these approaches may work together in practice.

Thank you for reading.
Warmest wishes,  

Kirkland Newman, Founder, MindHealth360 

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Scary Neurological Symptoms

In May 2021, I was under huge amounts of stress trying to open the London Integrative Mental Health Clinic. I had a wonderful team including an integrative psychiatrist, an integrative GP, a nutritionist and a psychotherapist, as well as a health coach. We had a beautiful website, patients waiting for appointments, and offices in Harley Street, the prestigious medical section of London. We even managed to get CQC registration, the tough UK medical board stamp of approval, which was no mean feat given that we were launching pioneering integrative mental health treatment.

It was an incredibly stressful time to get everything up and running, and stressful financially as I was bank-rolling it. But my stress levels went through the roof when I started to have strange symptoms which I had never experienced before, which no one seemed to be able to explain, and which painted a scary picture of neurological issues, possibly even neurodegeneration:

• I first noticed that I could not hold a yoga pose without shaking. It was a subtle ripple in my thigh muscles and legs, but visible to the naked eye.
• Then I noticed that my left leg felt wooden and draggy when I walked.
• I started having muscle twitching (fasciculations) – the type that you can get on your eyelid occasionally (known as myokymia) – but I was getting it all over my body – thighs, fingers, shoulders, abdomen, arms, neck, back and face. It started subtly, a slight twitch on the lip for instance, for several months, but increased until I was getting dozens a day all over my body.
• Then I noticed that I had a sort of inner tremor, like a Parkinson’s tremor but internal, not yet so advanced that others or even I could see it with the naked eye, but advanced enough that I could feel it very clearly.
• I started feeling muscle weakness, and a sort of overall exhaustion, so much so that there were days that l would have a hard time holding my head up.
• I would often wake up with numbness and pins and needles in my fingers, hands and arms.
• I started noticing recurring bruising on my limbs.
• I sometimes felt dizzy and light headed.
• I would feel the most extraordinary bubbling/popping feeling in my calves mainly, almost like champagne bubbles popping beneath the surface of my skin which I later learned were called “crepitations”,  also known as smaller fasciculations.
• I was having more frequent cramps than usual in my feet.
• I started having night sweats which did not seem hormonal as they would happen in the middle of my cycle.
• My nasal mucous was often streaked with blood.
• I would feel strange shooting pains in my bones and muscles.
• I would feel a buzzing sensation in my limbs, like a small vibrator inside my muscles, again very subtle, but very noticeable to me.

In the approximately four or five months leading up to these symptoms, I had developed huge anxiety which felt physiological rather than psychological, and also intense itching on my stomach and back and limbs which would come and go but sometimes made me crazy to the point where I would reach for whatever utensil I could find to scratch myself until I broke the skin.

Being a hypochondriac, I feared the worst. To be fair, Dr. Google promised me the worst, and my symptoms seemed to create a very clear picture of one of the dreaded neurodegenerative diseases: the possible diagnoses seemed to be ALS (Motor Neurone Disease) which was highly correlated with muscle fasciculations, Parkinson’s (the tremor), MS (the weakness and exhaustion as well as the numbness).

This all added to my panic, as having a tremendous fear of disease and death (especially a slow painful one), I could not contemplate these options without descending into a spiral of panic. I became hyper-vigilant and primed to notice my symptoms even when they were subtle. This created a vicious circle in which my symptoms became overwhelming and ubiquitous, and would bring on panic attacks and insomnia, which in turn no doubt exacerbated my symptoms.

My team of wonderful clinic practitioners told me it was anxiety. I didn’t buy it. I’d had anxiety my whole life, and it was a familiar old friend, but I’d never had these very visible-to-the-naked eye bodily movements and sensations. I took videos of my muscle twitching in my lips and fingers, and showed the lovely psychiatrist on my team. She admitted that this was NOT anxiety.

I refused to see a neurologist as I was terrified of hearing the worst, and just soldiered on, hoping that the summer holidays would bring some relief.

They didn’t, and if anything, my symptoms worsened and I spent most of my time on a lounge chair in Greece, listening to Stephen Porges’ Safe and Sound protocol, trying to calm myself down, ignoring my friends as well as my children, who, being teenagers, were luckily occupied with their own friends and were happy to ignore me too.

Detective Work and Diagnosis

I decided I had to put the London Integrative Mental Health Clinic on hold and prioritise my health. I flew to California to work with my functional medicine doctors and did a battery of tests, including a neuroquant MRI, which is an MRI which also looks at volumes in different parts of the brain and cross-references them against a reference range. While my MRI was normal, my volumetrics were in the 1st percentile in some of the lower brainstem areas, which showed apparently a loss of blood flow, and in the 98th percentile in the hippocampus, which apparently indicated inflammation.

I had low DHEA, low progesterone, low ferritin, Epstein Barr Virus and Herpes Simplex 1 reactivation, mercury that was off the charts, and ANA antibodies. None of these on their own seemed to explain my symptoms though, but maybe in conjunction? My functional medicine psychiatrist Dr. Kat Toups, and GP Dr. Neil Nathan, as well as my naturopath Dr. Heather Sandison, said that their working theory was mould toxicity and asked if I had been exposed to mould?

I grew up in a mouldy home. My mother had dementia which I always felt might be due in part to our mouldy basement above which she had lived for 47 years. And more recently, the house I rented in the countryside during lockdown smelt mouldy and musty.  And my two sons had strange symptoms – the youngest would get migraines, the eldest would have hot flushes with intense periods of itching. These can be symptoms of mould, but I had no idea at the time. I later had that house tested by Mycometrics by gathering dust from different rooms on fibre cloths and sending them in plastic bags to the US, and surprise surprise, it was incredibly mouldy and full of mycotoxins.

I also had myself tested. The first mould test I did was from the Great Plains Laboratory (now renamed Mosaic Labs and they have a new mycotoxin test which has just come out). This test was unprovoked, so without glutathione, the molecule that would help flush the mycotoxins (the toxins released by mould spores) out of the cells and into the urine, and came back negative. There went that theory, so I went back to stressing about a neurodegenerative disease. Dr. Kat Toups said that my detox pathways were doubtless compromised, so I would need to provoke the detox process by taking glutathione for a few days before my test.

In September, five months after I had started having symptoms, my second mould test, this time by Real Time Labs, and this time provoked with glutathione, came back floridly positive with 5 different types of mycotoxins (Ochratoxin, Aflatoxin Group, Trichothecene Group, Gliotoxin and Zearalenone).

Mould, Mycotoxins and their Health Effects

This would explain all my symptoms, according to my practitioners, and had to be treated quickly and completely as chronic mould toxicity can lead to a host of other problems such as cancer,www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4603560/ Hokeness K, Kratch J, Nadolny C, Aicardi K, Reid CW. The effects of fungal volatile organic compounds on bone marrow stromal cells. Can J Microbiol. 2014 Jan;60(1):1-4. doi: 10.1139/cjm-2013-0708. Epub 2013 Nov 15. PMID: 24392920; PMCID: PMC4603560,  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9266006/ Ekwomadu T, Mwanza M, Musekiwa A. Mycotoxin-Linked Mutations and Cancer Risk: A Global Health Issue. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Jun 24;19(13):7754. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19137754. PMID: 35805411; PMCID: PMC9266006 neurodegeneration,www.imrpress.com/journal/JIN/22/6/10.31083/j.jin2206137/htmMojtaba Ehsanifar, Reihane Rajati, Akram Gholami, Joseph P Reiss. Mold and Mycotoxin Exposure and Brain Disorders. J. Integr. Neurosci. 2023, 22(6), 137. https://doi.org/10.31083/j.jin2206137www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2093791119306419Saija Hyvönen, Jouni Lohi, Tamara Tuuminen,Moist and Mold Exposure is Associated With High Prevalence of Neurological Symptoms and MCS in a Finnish Hospital Workers Cohort,Safety and Health at Work, Volume 11, Issue 2, 2020, Pages 173-177, ISSN 2093-7911, doi.org/10.1016/j.shaw.2020.01.003.www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4982651/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4982651/ (5) Pizzorno J, Shippy A. Is Mold Toxicity Really a Problem for Our Patients? Part 2-Nonrespiratory Conditions. Integr Med (Encinitas). 2016 Jun;15(3):8-14. PMID: 27547160; PMCID: PMC4982651. (Dr. Dale Bredesen refers to the cognitive effects of mould as “Inflammation Alzheimer’s”),www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4789584
Bredesen DE. Inhalational Alzheimer’s disease: an unrecognized – and treatable – epidemic. Aging (Albany NY). 2016 Feb;8(2):304-13. doi: 10.18632/aging.100896. PMID: 26870879; PMCID: PMC4789584. , Parkinson’s,www.rutgers.edu/news/symptoms-parkinsons-disease-linked-fungusFungal-derived semiochemical 1-octen-3-ol disrupts dopamine packaging and causes neurodegeneration Arati A. Inamdar, Muhammad M. Hossain, Alison I. Bernstein, +2, and Joan Wennstrom Bennett doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1318830110, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7053320/ Pisa D, Alonso R, Carrasco L. Parkinson’s Disease: A Comprehensive Analysis of Fungi and Bacteria in Brain Tissue. Int J Biol Sci. 2020 Feb 10;16(7):1135-1152. doi: 10.7150/ijbs.42257. PMID: 32174790; PMCID: PMC7053320. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987717300774
Ketil Berstad, Johanna E.R. Berstad, Parkinson’s disease; the hibernating spore hypothesis, Medical Hypotheses, Volume 104, 2017, Pages 48-53, ISSN 0306-9877, Multiple Sclerosishttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20214953/ Purzycki, C. B., & Shain, D. H. (2010). Fungal toxins and multiple sclerosis: a compelling connection. Brain research bulletin, 82(1-2), 4–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainresbull.2010.02.012 and even ALS,pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33631494/ Reid WK. Mycotoxins causing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Med Hypotheses. 2021 Apr;149:110541. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2021.110541. Epub 2021 Feb 15. PMID: 33631494
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30515715/ French PW, Ludowyke R, Guillemin GJ. Fungal Neurotoxins and Sporadic Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Neurotox Res. 2019 May;35(4):969-980. doi: 10.1007/s12640-018-9980-5. Epub 2018 Dec 5. PMID: 30515715.
as well as brain fog, fatigue and a weak immune system which would allow the reactivation of dormant viruses such as EBV and other Herpes viruses. Indeed chronic exposure to mycotoxins affects the immune system and inflammation,www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277241662200184X
Margaretha Viljoen, Nicolaas Claassen,
Pathophysiological aspects of exposure to dampness-associated indoor mould and mycotoxins: A mini-overview, Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances, Volume 9, 2023, 100228, ISSN 2772-4166, doi.org/10.1016/j.hazadv.2022.100228
www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/22/12269
Kraft S, Buchenauer L, Polte T. Mold, Mycotoxins and a Dysregulated Immune System: A Combination of Concern? International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2021; 22(22):12269. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms222212269
Yuhang Sun, Kehe Huang, Miao Long, Shuhua Yang, Ying Zhang,
An update on immunotoxicity and mechanisms of action of six environmental mycotoxins, Food and Chemical Toxicology, Volume 163, 2022, 112895, ISSN 0278-6915, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2022.112895.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027869152200093X leading to a host of potential immune issues – including under-activity and overactivity. And apparently mould and mercury have a love story, which would explain my high mercury. Indeed, mould loves heavy metals, especially mercury, and in turn, mercury and other heavy metals make it harder to detox from mould.

Long term exposure to mould and mycotoxins, and to infections (such as Lyme, EBV, Herpes, etc.), especially when the immune system may be compromised by stress, lack of sleep and other poor lifestyle habits, can lead to a dysregulated immune response which is either overactive (as in autoimmune conditions such as MS, or Mast Cell Activation Syndrome) or under-active (increasing susceptibility to cancer and other illnesses).

I found it totally extraordinary that exposure to a natural biotoxin, albeit from water-damaged man-made buildings, could cause such health havoc. And in particular, it blew my mind that mould exposure could cause my strange neurological symptoms. I had read Dr. Neil Nathan’s “Toxic: Heal your body from Mold toxicity, Lyme disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities and other Environmental Illness” and remember being totally surprised by the symptoms he listed as possible from mould, including a feeling of “vibration” in the muscles. I thought “that sounds very unlikely. I wonder what on earth that might feel like!?”… I was soon to find out, as this also was one of my symptoms… the subtle feeling of a small vibrating machine in my muscles… it was surreal but undeniable. But most extraordinary, despite having read Dr. Nathan’s book and interviewed him for The MindHealth360 Show, and later on interviewed him and Dr. Jill Crista about mould, it had not once occurred to me that my neurological and psychiatric symptoms might be driven by mycotoxins, until my functional medicine doctors (including Dr. Nathan) suggested it.

Mould is a stealth operator, taking many guises, and its manifestations in the human body can be so wide and diverse that it is hard to pin down and identify with certainty.  Not for nothing, these bio-organisms and bio-toxins have been around for billions of years, and are hard to get rid of. And until one develops a sensitivity to mould and its mycotoxins, due to genetic and epigenetic factors affecting our immunity and resilience, many of us can cohabitate with mould and its mycotoxins without experiencing any symptoms.

Though who knows what the long term effects might be in terms of susceptibility of cancers and other chronic complex illnesses, especially as so many of us are probably living in its midst without realising it. Indeed, according to a 2022 report from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, around 47% of all homes in the United States have some mould or dampness.https://realestate.usnews.com/real-estate/articles/is-your-home-a-health-risk-why-mold-may-be-lurking-in-your-home#:~:text=Key%20Takeaways%3A,sometimes%20you%20can%20smell%20mold.”Is Your Home a Health Risk? Why Mold May Be Lurking in Your Home” by Liz Brumer-Smith in News & World Report, April 11, 2024

The Gulf Between Functional Medicine and Mainstream Medicine

A few months later, I also decided to see a neurologist from the Cleveland Clinic, paradoxically reassured enough that it probably wasn’t a serious neurodegenerative disease that I was willing to submit to a conventional neurological exam. She gave me a clean bill of health despite my stomach muscle visibly twitching in her office and the videos of my fingers and lip twitching. She said she had no idea what was wrong with me, and yes could see the fasciculations, but she thought I had Myokemia (eye twitching)Jafer Chardoub AA, Patel BC. Eyelid Myokymia. [Updated 2023 Aug 8]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-. Available from: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK560595
due to anxiety. I thought to myself “Lady, I’ve had anxiety my whole life but it’s never manifested in this way!” She said that there was “100% no way” that mould exposure was causing my symptoms.  Any doctor who is that sure of herself is slightly terrifying. I argued with her that did she agree that Parkinson’s was in large part a disease of dysfunctional mitochondria? She agreed on the basis of the latest scientific research,Henrich, M.T., Oertel, W.H., Surmeier, D.J. et al. Mitochondrial dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease – a key disease hallmark with therapeutic potential. Mol Neurodegeneration 18, 83 (2023). doi.org/10.1186/s13024-023-00676-7,
molecularneurodegeneration.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13024-023-00676-7Kevin Zambrano, Diego Barba, Karina Castillo, Luis Noboa, Dariana Argueta-Zamora, Paola Robayo, Eduardo Arizaga, Andres Caicedo, Antonio W.D. Gavilanes,
Fighting Parkinson’s disease: The return of the mitochondria, Mitochondrion, Volume 64, 2022, Pages 34-44, ISSN 1567-7249,
doi.org/10.1016/j.mito.2022.02.003.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S156772492200011 but still refused to see the correlation between mould and my symptoms. We know that mitochondrial function is affected by toxins such as mycotoxins,https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30180298/
Islam MT, Mishra SK, Tripathi S, de Alencar MVOB, E Sousa JMC, Rolim HML, de Medeiros MDGF, Ferreira PMP, Rouf R, Uddin SJ, Mubarak MS, Melo-Cavalcante AAC. Mycotoxin-assisted mitochondrial dysfunction and cytotoxicity: Unexploited tools against proliferative disorders. IUBMB Life. 2018 Nov;70(11):1084-1092. doi: 10.1002/iub.1932. Epub 2018 Sep 4. PMID: 30180298.
and therefore it stands to reason that chronic exposure to mycotoxins can impact mitochondrial function in the brain, a known contributor to neurodegeneration.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878747923019001 {18}
Madelyn M. Klemmensen, Seth H. Borrowman, Colin Pearce, Benjamin Pyles, Bharatendu Chandra, Mitochondrial dysfunction in neurodegenerative disorders,Neurotherapeutics, Volume 21, Issue 1, 2024, e00292, ISSN 1878-7479,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurot.2023.10.002.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6078194/ {19}
Zolkipli-Cunningham Z, Falk MJ. Clinical effects of chemical exposures on mitochondrial function. Toxicology. 2017 Nov 1;391:90-99. doi: 10.1016/j.tox.2017.07.009. Epub 2017 Jul 27. PMID: 28757096; PMCID: PMC6078194
I asked her about my tremor. She said “once it becomes visible come back”. By then, I thought, it will be too late.

It was a rather eye opening experience of the absolute gulf between mainstream and functional medicine, and I felt incredibly sorry for people who do not have access to functional medicine and have to rely on outdated approaches to their health by mainstream medicine.

Mainstream medicine is best equipped to treat acute syndromes once the symptoms are well established and the damage is done. It is often woefully inadequate when it comes to prevention, complex chronic illness and thinking outside the box.

What I did to Recover

Getting out of the mould and remediating!

One cannot recover from mould toxicity unless one is prepared to completely get out of the mould. It’s that simple. Sometimes this is incredibly hard for people, expensive, exhausting and very disruptive. But it’s worth it for your health.

I moved out of the lockdown house in the country. I had my house in London tested by Building Forensics and Action Dry, two UK companies who work in home mould detection. Sure enough, it was also mouldy. Unbeknownst to me, every bathroom in my house had been leaking silently and under the tiles was mould. The ceiling in my bedroom had an inch thick of mould under the white plasterboard, and the kitchen floor had hidden leaks from the fridge, the radiators and the sink. There was no smell, and you couldn’t see any signs of mould. But the mycotoxin levels in the house were very high.

I moved out and spent nine months remediating the place with the help of some great builders and Action Dry. I got rid of all my upholstered furniture, as once you are sensitised, even the invisible and dead mycotoxins in fabrics can cause neuroinflammation according to Dr. Mary Ackerley, who interpreted my neuroquant brain scan and is a psychiatrist well versed in mould illness. I begged her to let me keep my sofas at least “Well, if you want to get Parkinson’s in a few years, keep them. 98% of people would be fine with those sofas, but now that you are sensitised, you’re susceptible”. Needless to say I got rid of them all. I bought a lot of EC3 laundry additive and washed all my clothes, sheets and towels in it. I replaced all the wall to wall carpets with wooden floors which are less likely to harbour mould spores and mycotoxins. Luckily my insurance covered a lot due to the water damage which they recognized (mould damage they did not).

I spoke to an American architect who told me that in the US, the majority of insurance claims and landlord legal battles used to be around asbestos, now they are around mould. In the UK however, we are several years behind the US when it comes to awareness around the health hazards of water damaged buildings, mould and mycotoxins.

Binders and detox supplements

I started taking binders — charcoal, bentonite and zeolite clay, chlorella, and cholestyramine to bind to the mycotoxins and escort them out of my body, and took them for several years, every day. I also took detoxification supplements such as glutathione, milk thistle, alpha lipoic acid, sulforaphane (this was a game changer for me). Even to this day I still take chlorella daily, as it’s a gentle detox supplement which helps bind moulds and heavy metals safely and effectively. It is important to note that different people have different levels of tolerance for binders. Very sensitive people might find that they need to start very slowly with very small doses of binders. Taking too many binders too quickly can overwhelm the detoxification systems, and exacerbate symptoms.

Anti-Oxidants, vitamins, minerals

Mycotoxins can cause oxidative stress You, L., Nepovimova, E., Valko, M. et al. Mycotoxins and cellular senescence: the impact of oxidative stress, hypoxia, and immunosuppression. Arch Toxicol 97, 393–404 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00204-022-03423-x, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00204-022-03423-x  Mycotoxins and oxidative stress: where are we? 1Universidade Estadual de Londrina, Laboratory of Animal Pathology, Campus Universitário, Rodovia Celso Garcia Cid, Km 380, Londrina, Paraná 86051-990, Brazil,Corresponding author: ana.bracarense@pq.cnpq.br; isabelle.oswald@inra.fr, 2Université de Toulouse, Toxalim, Research Center in Food Toxicology, INRA, UMR 1331 ENVT, INP-PURPAN, 31076 Toulouse, France, World Mycotoxin Journal: 11 (1)- Pages: 113 – 134 https://doi.org/10.3920/WMJ2017.2267 Published Online: February 07, 2018, https://www.wageningenacademic.com/doi/abs/10.3920/WMJ2017.2267?role=taband it’s important to supplement with anti-oxidants such as vitamin C, E and A, as well as polyphenol and anti-oxidant rich foods. Mycotoxins also deplete B vitamins, especially B12 Anyanwu, E. C., & Kanu, I. (2007). Biochemical impedance on intracellular functions of vitamin B12 in chronic toxigenic mold exposures. TheScientificWorldJournal, 7, 1649–1657. https://doi.org/10.1100/tsw.2007.113, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17982599/ and B1 Thiamine Deficiency Disease, Dysautonomia, and High Calorie Malnutrition, by Derrick Lonsdale (Author), Chandler Marrs, July 2017, so it’s important to supplement with a good B complex. And of course vitamin D is essential for the immune system and neuroendocrine balance, and can be depleted by mould.https://drcrista.com/2021/07/21/molds-effect-on-vitamin-d-labs/#:~:text=People%20think%20well%20it%20must,absorb%20it%20into%20your%20bloodstream.

Mould can also deplete minerals such as zinc and magnesium, and it’s important to replenish these https://navacenter.com/the-role-of-nutrition-in-resolving-mold-toxicity/#:~:text=Minerals%20such%20as%20zinc%2C%20magnesium,symptom%20exacerbation%2C%20and%20further%20depletion.

Gut healing, diet and membrane healing

Healing my gut was also key, and I took colostrum, sodium butyrate, glutamine and zinc to rebuild the intestinal barrier, as well as spore-based probiotics and saccharomyces boulardii (also a known binder for Gliotoxin in particular) to address my gut dysbiosis. I eliminated sugar as much as possible, as well as grains (which are often mouldy and inflammatory, as well as high in carbohydrates), and try to eat a paleo/keto combination diet high in vegetables and healthy fats, medium in proteins, and low in carbs (sugars, grains). This helps keep any internal, systemic mould colonies which can be present in the gut, nasal passages, sinuses, and even brainhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3920250/
Brewer JH, Thrasher JD, Hooper D. Chronic illness associated with mold and mycotoxins: is naso-sinus fungal biofilm the culprit? Toxins (Basel). 2013 Dec 24;6(1):66-80. doi: 10.3390/toxins6010066. PMID: 24368325; PMCID: PMC3920250.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358749321_Molds_Mycotoxins_the_Brain_the_Gut_and_Misconceptions
TY – JOUR AU – Campbell, Andrew AU – Weinstock, Leonard PY – 2022/02/21
Molds, Mycotoxins, the Brain, the Gut and Misconceptions Volume 28, No.23 – Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5834427/
Liew WP, Mohd-Redzwan S. Mycotoxin: Its Impact on Gut Health and Microbiota. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2018 Feb 26;8:60. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2018.00060. PMID: 29535978; PMCID: PMC5834427 in check. Dr. Jill Carnahan has some very helpful mould and gut healing protocols. 

Recently I have started taking Phosphatidylcholine to renew the lipids of my cell membranes, probably damaged by the mycotoxins. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751731119002593
I. El Cafsi, S. Bjeoui, I. Rabeh, S. Nechi, E. Chelbi, M. El Cafsi, A. Ghram,
Effects of ochratoxin A on membrane phospholipids of the intestine of broiler chickens, practical consequences, Animal, Volume 14, Issue 5, 2020, Pages 933-941, ISSN 1751-7311,
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731119002593https://www.jillcarnahan.com/2021/09/21/what-is-phosphatidylcholine-pc-plus-its-impressive-role-in-healing-mold-illness/

Anti-fungals and antibiotics

I also took anti-fungals and antibiotics for a period of time, which did seem to help. But the use of either is controversial in the integrative community, with some practitioners saying they are essential in order to truly eradicate mould, while others say they can backfire and cause resistance, as well as being hard on the liver.

Other detox and lifestyle interventions

Doing infrared sauna, which I try to do twice a week, and dry skin brushing which I try to do daily, as well as getting enough exercise have been key to my detoxification.

Sleep is also key, and I really notice a difference in my symptoms when I don’t get enough of it.

Other things that help my symptoms are red light therapy to boost mitochondrial function, cold showers after every hot shower to boost mitochondrial function, and peptides to reset the Central Nervous System.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21477861/
Malavolta L, Cabral FR. Peptides: important tools for the treatment of central nervous system disorders. Neuropeptides. 2011 Oct;45(5):309-16. doi: 10.1016/j.npep.2011.03.001. Epub 2011 Apr 7. PMID: 21477861.

I also tried microcurrent which helped somewhat.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9941239/#:~:text=Microcurrent%20is%20a%20non%2Dinvasive,endogenously%20by%20the%20human%20body. Kolimechkov, S., Seijo, M., Swaine, I., Thirkell, J., Colado, J. C., & Naclerio, F. (2023). Physiological effects of microcurrent and its application for maximising acute responses and chronic adaptations to exercise. European journal of applied physiology, 123(3), 451–465. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-022-05097-w

Nervous system reset

Daily meditation has been helpful to help calm my nervous system, as was the Gupta programme, so that I was less hypervigilant and didn’t over-react to physiological stressors such as toxins, mycotoxins and lack of sleep, or psychological ones, such as the fear of illness.

The Roller-Coaster of the Healing Journey

My symptoms got 50% better after a couple of months of treatment. They continued to improve but then plateaued once they reached 70% improvement after about a year. For the last three years I have not been able to get them 100% better, but they hover around 80-90% which is good enough, as long as the trajectory is stable or upwards. I do have moments where they go back down to 60%, but usually it’s when I am re-exposed to mould, or detoxing heavily with glutathione or phosphatidylcholine. This is because I am very sensitised to mould now, and when I go into a mouldy hotel, home, office or aeroplane and am exposed to exogenous mycotoxins, or to endogenous ones released from my own cells when I take supplements which flush them out such as glutathione or phosphatidylcholine – any exposure to mycotoxins, internal or external, brings back my fasciculations and tremor.

Stress, lack of sleep, processed or gluten foods, peanuts, cashews (notoriously mouldy), and sugar, can all set me off and exacerbate my symptoms. Basically, anything that contributes to inflammation drives my symptoms.Skaper, S. D., Facci, L., Zusso, M., & Giusti, P. (2018). An Inflammation-Centric View of Neurological Disease: Beyond the Neuron. Frontiers in cellular neuroscience, 12, 72. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2018.00072, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5871676/ Degan, D., Ornello, R., Tiseo, C., Carolei, A., Sacco, S., & Pistoia, F. (2018). The Role of Inflammation in Neurological Disorders. Current pharmaceutical design, 24(14), 1485–1501. https://doi.org/10.2174/1381612824666180327170632, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29589534/ Dias-Carvalho, A., Sá, S.I., Carvalho, F. et al. Inflammation as common link to progressive neurological diseases. Arch Toxicol 98, 95–119 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00204-023-03628-8, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00204-023-03628-8#citeas Having Covid a year after my diagnosis made my symptoms much worse, as according to Dr. Neil Nathan, Covid exploits your weaknesses and can exacerbates existing symptoms.

Any exposure to toxins such as moulds,https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8619365/
Kraft S, Buchenauer L, Polte T. Mold, Mycotoxins and a Dysregulated Immune System: A Combination of Concern? Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Nov 12;22(22):12269. doi: 10.3390/ijms222212269. PMID: 34830149; PMCID: PMC8619365.
and heavy metalshttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2468202021000127
Stephen C. Bondy, Metal toxicity and neuroinflammation, Current Opinion in Toxicology,
Volume 26,2021,Pages 8-13,ISSN 2468-2020, or pathogens such as viruses and bacteriahttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2468202021000127
Stephen C. Bondy, Metal toxicity and neuroinflammation, Current Opinion in Toxicology,
Volume 26,2021,Pages 8-13,ISSN 2468-2020
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00702-023-02723-5
Sian-Hulsmann, J., Riederer, P. Virus-induced brain pathology and the neuroinflammation-inflammation continuum: the neurochemists view. J Neural Transm (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-023-02723-5
www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2022.907804/full
AUTHOR=Tran Van Thi Ai , Lee Luke P. , Cho Hansang TITLE=Neuroinflammation in neurodegeneration via microbial infections JOURNAL=Frontiers in Immunology VOLUME=13 YEAR=2022 can cause chronic neuroinflammation. When combined with stress, which is also neuroinflammatory, it can cause a perfect storm leading to psychiatric and neurological symptoms.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4828495/
Calcia MA, Bonsall DR, Bloomfield PS, Selvaraj S, Barichello T, Howes OD. Stress and neuroinflammation: a systematic review of the effects of stress on microglia and the implications for mental illness. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2016 May;233(9):1637-50. doi: 10.1007/s00213-016-4218-9. Epub 2016 Feb 5. PMID: 26847047; PMCID: PMC4828495..

Exacerbating the difficulty is that once the system is sensitised, the cell danger response means that any threat, whether real or imaginary, physiological or psychological, can set off a cascade of detrimental immune, inflammatory and neuroendocrine responses.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567724913002390#:~:text=The%20cell%20danger%20response%20(CDR)%20is%20an%20evolutionarily%20conserved%20cellular,bacteria%2C%20fungi%2C%20and%20parasites
Robert K. Naviaux, Metabolic features of the cell danger response, Mitochondrion,
Volume 16, 2014, Pages 7-17, ISSN 1567-7249, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mito.2013.08.006..

There is also a theory that the toxins and pathogens and resulting immune response focuses on areas of weakness in the body. I know that my nervous system has always been a weak spot for me, so it doesn’t surprise me that this is where my symptoms manifested.

According to Dr. Beth O’Hara, an expert in mast cell activation syndrome, it can take on average 2-3 years to clear mould from the body, and in my case it has been just over 3 years and I’m finally feeling about 90% better, providing I keep taking my supplements, following lifestyle interventions such as sleep, exercise, sunlight, detox and relaxation, and staying out of mould, which can be more challenging than you would think!

Could you have mould toxicity?

If you have any of the following symptoms, you may want to get your home and your body tested for mould and mycotoxins.

• Emotional changes: Including anxiety, depression, and mood swings.
• Cognitive issues: Such as brain fog, confusion, and memory loss.
• Physical symptoms: Like fatigue, muscle aches, weakness and joint pain.
• Respiratory problems: Including sinus congestion, chronic cough, and asthma-like symptoms.
• Neurological signs: Such as headaches, dizziness, twitching, weakness, tinnitus, and numbness.
• Sensory disturbances: Including sensitivity to light, noise and smells.
• Digestive issues: Like changes in appetite, abdominal pain, and bloating.

If you do have mould exposure make sure to move out of the mould even if that means moving home, or if you have it remediated choose a reputable company that knows what they are doing, as a badly done remediation can make matters much worse. And make sure to detox your body and brain.

The last three years have been an emotional rollercoaster of sheer terror at the prospect of having a relentless neurodegenerative condition whenever my symptoms came back with a vengeance, or stalled and didn’t seem to get better. I am incredibly grateful to have access to functional medicine practitioners who look for the root cause of illness and use pioneering, out of the box treatments and strategies for healing which have helped me tremendously regain optimal health. After all, without addressing the mould, chronic mould exposure can contribute to neurodegeneration, as the many research studies referenced above show.

I hope that by sharing my experience I can help anyone suffering from any of these strange symptoms, and encourage anyone with CNS and neurological symptoms to make sure that they are not being exposed to mould, to test for mould in their homes and their bodies, and to understand that there are many things they can do to heal. Number one of which, without which no healing is possible, is to get out of the mould. And in the UK especially, people have a tendency to dismiss the mould theory as far fetched. Don’t listen to them. Inform yourself, and work with practitioners and people who are well versed in mould diagnosis and remediation, whether in your body or in your home. You can search for an integrative practitioner in your area in our MindHealth360 global database of practitioners.

Disclaimer: it goes without saying that the above is simply an account of my personal experience with mould, and some treatment interventions from which I benefited, with some published scientific evidence to corroborate and explain the mechanism of mould. Please do work with a qualified practitioner to implement your personalised mould treatment plan.

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The post Maternal mental health: my journey through postpartum depression appeared first on MindHealth360.

I was having several panic attacks a day during my postpartum depression, and was desperate to get a reprieve from the relentless insomnia, anxiety and panic. A simple breathing technique stopped my panic attacks in their tracks, and saved me from checking myself into a psychiatric hospital. 

In a last ditch attempt to avoid hospitalisation, I saw a CBT therapist Dr. Robin Hart, who taught me a very simple breathing technique that I should start as soon as I felt a wave of panic. He recorded it on my phone, and over the next few days and weeks, I clung to that recording for dear life, and in turn, it changed my life. 

It was amazingly simple: breathe in through the nose for 4 seconds; hold 4 seconds; breath out slowly through pursed lips for 8. Incredibly, it worked. Gradually, as I practiced this technique on a daily basis, I felt more and more confident that I had a reliable tool to control my panic, instead of it controlling me. 

And sure enough, in the intervening ten years since, I have rarely had another panic attack, and when I feel anxiety rise, I practice this breathing technique and instead of growing into a full blown panic attack, the anxiety gradually dissipates. 

Why is breathing so powerful? (apart from the fact that it keeps us alive!) 😉

Since then, I have learned more about the science of the breath, and why we have the capacity to calm ourselves with our breathing. I have learned that an exhale slows our heart rate down, sending the signal to our nervous system that we are safe; that increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in our blood through a longer exhale and a shorter inhale can paradoxically increase the uptake of oxygen into our cells; that deep belly breathing stimulates the vagus nerve and increases vagal tone, which helps restore balance to our nervous system. 

There are other mechanisms at work as well, but suffice it to say, that the ancient yogis and meditators were really onto something with their emphasis on breathing techniques such as pranayama, realising that it was key to a sense of peace, but also vital to feeding our life force—prana or chi—which we all depend on to survive and thrive.  

As Richie Bostock says in our interview “Exhale! The incredible power of breathwork for mental health and happiness” breathing is a tool, a Swiss army knife which can be used for many different purposes: to calm us down, rev us up, increase our feelings of happiness, help heal our trauma, and enhance sexual and spiritual experiences. The sum total of what we can do with breathing to alter our states of mind or consciousness is called “breathwork”. 

Breathwork as therapy

I had a transformative experience of breathwork when I worked with Rebecca Dennis of “the Breathing Tree”.  She used different breathing techniques to release stuck energy, stress and trauma in my body, which usually involved lying on the floor breathing in a certain way and crying uncontrollably due to some emotional release, coaxed out by Rebecca, telling me the entire time that I was safe in my body. Then, a feeling of exhaustion but also complete peace would sweep over me, and I felt somehow cleansed, happier and lighter. 

It was a form of somatic therapy that didn’t involve much talking, and taught me to stay in my body and with my breath when rocked by difficult feelings. As such, it was sort of metaphor for life—that when we are ransacked by difficult emotions and situations, we should try to stay present, aware and embodied, so that we are more able to respond appropriately, and do what is best for our wellbeing in that moment. 

 I also did a very memorable and cathartic two day workshop in May 2019 with Rebecca, Jambo Truong and Michele Barrocci called “Journey to Being: through breath, movement and sound”, which brought me several deep spiritual insights, the likes of which I had had before intellectually, but rarely experienced in such an embodied and felt way. 

The instructors took us on a journey of several hours of breathing and movement exercises, many of which involved us lying on the floor, each on a yoga mat, breathing heavily, and then descending into paroxysms of crying, screaming, pounding the floor, and generally letting out a lot of stress, anxiety, fear, trauma, and grief. Sounds like a fun weekend activity? Fun may not be the first word that springs to mind, but it was transformative.

As everyone was screaming and pounding the floor, I was overcome with the profound sense that we were all connected in our humanity, in our common pain and wounding. And yet I was also acutely aware that each of us had our own drama that we needed to process alone. That the screaming person next to me, in front of me, behind me, were in their own drama, as I was in mine, and that was OK. 

I was very conscious that our bodies were our boundaries, and it became really important not to get sucked into the other person’s drama, but to stay in our own bodies. Just as it was important to stay in our own bodies while we experienced our own wounding; our bodies being the container for all this humanity with its inherent pain. 

It drove home the importance of boundaries, figuratively and literally. The importance of processing our own stuff without getting distracted, blindsided or sidetrack by other peoples’ stuff, without needing the other to look at our own drama, judging or validating it. 

Some insights from breathwork

No wonder we have a hard time with boundaries. We crave that feeling of fusion and connection which is our birth right, and yet ideally we come to it from a place of being fully grounded in our own reality, fully boundaried within and connected to ourselves first and foremost, before we can connect with others. 

How do we navigate this dichotomy between the desire for fusional connection with others, and the need for firm boundaries and a developed and autonomous Self? The helpers who supported us throughout the weekend seemed to symbolise this by coming and going, holding us in our pain, because they themselves were resourced enough to be able to hold us, but then moved on and left us to it. 

And maybe that is what it’s about – we need to be taught from the outside first, how to be held in our pain—as a good mother teaches a child how to manage difficult emotions. Once we integrate that, we can do it for ourselves. And then from the strength of being integrated and embodied within ourselves, we can hold and connect with others. We will realise more fully that we are always, and have always been connected with them; and that as resilient adults, if we can, we owe it to our fellow human to hold each other in our common humanity and pain.

We are all just walking each other home – Ram Das

The post My experience of the transformative power of breathwork appeared first on MindHealth360.

Not one of the three psychiatrists, two GPs, two OBGYNs, and two endocrinologists I saw ever mentioned my hormones. It is rare that psychiatrists, or even GPs, make the link and measure our hormones when we present with mental health problems. But what surprised me was that my OBGYNs and endocrinologists didn’t either. Granted, this was back in 2011, which seems like the dark ages, relatively speaking. But even now, I’d be surprised if conventional OBGYNs and endocrinologists know any better how to treat post-partum-depression using properly integrative approaches, taking into account hormone regulation involving nutrition, exercise, supplementation and nervous system regulation along with any necessary BRHRT (Bio-identical Hormone Replacement Therapy) . 

And yet, whether you are a man or a woman, your hormones — chemical messengers that travel from organ to organ throughout the day and night — not only regulate most of your bodily functions such as digestion, sex drive, appetite, body temperature, but they are also essential to regulating your moods, anxiety levels, memory, sleep and concentration.

The importance of hormones to our mental health cannot be overstated 

My crazy French hormone story

One of my most memorable experiences with a doctor was a French endocrinologist in Strasbourg, my home town.

Back in 2011, I went to see her because I wanted to test my hormones as I was in the throes of post-partum depression — anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia and mood swings, and having seen various doctors in London to no avail, I thought that maybe in France they would be more up to speed on the importance of hormones for mental health, which I had started to learn about through my own research from the US. 

When I explained why I wanted to see her she practically scoffed at me and said: 

“Why are you here? You should be seeing your psychiatrist.” 

I replied that I wanted to see her because my hormones were clearly out of balance post-partum and it was affecting my mental health. 

“Your hormones have nothing to do with your mental health.” 

I argued with her that surely they did — what about women who got depressed and anxious during menopause? 

“They are that way because they are usually of the age when their kids leave home.”

Outraged by what I perceived to be either gross ignorance or patronising refusal to engage, I challenged her. 

Finally, she admitted: “The truth is, you are like black boxes to us, we don’t understand the causes, so we treat the symptoms.” 

While her honesty was a relief, it also felt outdated and ill-informed to me, especially based on what I was learning about integrative health from US doctors and scientists. 

And she was not alone. Not one of my UK conventional doctors ever suggested testing my hormones.

• Not my obgyn who supervised my pregnancy 
• Not my GP
• Not my cardiologist who diagnosed me with benign ectopic beats and suggested I go on a beta blocker but never suggested testing my thyroid
• Not my UK endocrinologist who tested me for reactive hypoglycaemia and diagnosed that as the cause of my panic attacks but never thought to test my stress hormones, adrenals or HPA axis
• Not my psychiatrist, who put me on anti-depressants and sleeping pills (and other psychiatrists offered me anti-psychotics and various other forms of anti-depressants when I complained that I was not getting any better), and told me that I would have to be on them “indefinitely”, even though they were having intolerable side effects and I felt were exacerbating my depression

Post-partum depression

As someone who had suffered from some anxiety but never a full-blown depression, I didn’t have a track record of depression, and so clearly this episode of massive anxiety, panic attacks, low mood and insomnia was due to something new and different in my life — something related to pregnancy and childbirth, and therefore surely must have had something to do with my hormones. 

The hormonal upheaval around pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and interrupted nights is significant, and massively impacts our hormones. Combined with the stress of becoming a new mother (which in itself is enough to dysregulate our hormones and our nervous system) and the psycho-spiritual issues which can arise from becoming a mother (which can prompt a resurgence of all one’s unresolved childhood issues), and you can see why post-partum depression affects 10% of women (and clearly it’s a higher number if you take into account the undiagnosed). 

Luckily, I eventually found doctors and nutritionists in London who were practicing in an integrative way, and through a combination of diet, lifestyle interventions, stress relief, and bioidentical hormones, I was able to stay off my anti-depressants and gradually heal. But it took me a lot longer than it should have, and I had to go on a time consuming and expensive journey to get there.

How hormones are essential for mental health

Hormones don’t only affect mental health around childbirth, but on a daily basis, our moods, anxiety levels, sleep, memory and concentration are all affected by hormones — both for women and men. This is why puberty, menopause and andropause can be precarious times for our mental health. 

But equally, every time we feel stressed, we are releasing stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, which will then have an effect on our sex, thyroid and metabolic hormones, but also on our levels of inflammation and the integrity of our vital protective barriers such as the gut barrier, and the blood brain barrier. 

We now know that “depression” and “anxiety” are often symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system, and a dysregulated nervous system can be both a cause and a consequence of a stress hormone imbalance. We know that “stress”, especially when it is chronic, can not only throw all our other hormones out of balance, but is also one of the most substantial causes of mental health symptoms. 

Ten years later, while it is now more accepted in the mainstream that hormones are hugely impactful to mental health, unless you are lucky enough to work with an integrative psychiatrist or GP, you’re still unlikely to have your hormones checked when you present with mental health symptoms such as depression, anxiety, insomnia, poor memory or poor attention.  

Read more on how hormones can impact your mental health. 

Read more on how sex hormones can impact your mental health. 

Read more on how stress hormones can impact your mental health. 

Read more on how thyroid hormones can impact your mental health. 

Read more on how metabolic hormones can impact your mental health. 

Dr. Felice Gersh on how to optimise hormones for better mental health

In my interview with Dr. Felice Gersh, obgyn, we discuss the crucial link between hormones and mental health. Her interview is rich with information and advice on the impact of hormones on our mental health, and what we can do to restore hormonal balance. 

She tells us which hormones are linked with which neurotransmitters, and which hormones are neuroprotective and neuroregenerative. She tells us how hormone imbalances can cause neuroinflammation and impact the integrity of brain cells, the blood brain barrier, the gut microbiome and the gut barrier.

She tells us that light and time of day, movement, foods, toxicants, and sleep can all contribute to balancing or disrupting our hormones, and therefore our mental health. 

A few key ideas she covers in the interview: 

Hormones, neurotransmitters and the brain

• The link between estrogen and serotonin (the happy neurotransmitter) as well as the effects of estrogen on neuroplasticity, immunomodulation and the brain in both men and women
• The link between progesterone and GABA (the calming neurotransmitter)
• Progesterone as neuroprotective
• The link between testosterone, estrogen and dopamine (the reward and motivation neurotransmitter)
• The importance of estrogen in preserving the integrity of the blood-brain barrier

Hormones and mental health

• Why there is a 400% increase in depression and anxiety in women who are menopausal and 3x greater incidence of Alzheimer’s in women than in men
• The vital importance of testosterone to estrogen balance and mental health, in both men and women
• The importance of T3 Thyroid hormone for mental health and how it can be hard to get enough of it 
• Insulin, inflammation, the autonomic nervous system and mental health
• Why dementia is sometimes called Type 3 Diabetes
• The nervous system, vagus nerve and our hormones

Causes of hormone imbalance

• How inflammation and endocrine disruptors such as plastics can cause hormone imbalances and mental health issues
• The dangers of the contraceptive pill for hormone balance and mental health
• The effects of chronically high cortisol on the brain and mental health via neuroinflammation, and the breaking down of the blood brain barrier and the gut barrier
• Why stress makes you make bad decisions and impairs cognitive function and brain health
• The link between inflammation and sleep apnea, and why breathing well at night is essential to hormone balance
• Which toxins are endocrine disruptors and how to minimise our toxic load to improve our hormone balance and mental health

Optimising hormonal balance for better mental health

• The importance of circadian rhythms in balancing our hormones
• Why fun and pleasure are essential to hormone balance
• How oxytocin is key to mental health, appetite and great orgasms
• The importance of omega 3s and 6s and the right amounts of saturated fats for hormonal balance and brain function
• The key nutrients for maintaining hormone balance
• Why just replacing hormones (with bioidentical, or worse synthetic) hormones is not enough — you have to ensure optimum nutrition with the right antioxidants and polyphenols, the right exercise, the right sleep and circadian rhythms, and reduce toxic load
• Why eating breakfast and not snacking are key to hormone balance
• The right type of exercise for optimal hormone balance and longevity

Read more on how to optimise your hormones for better mental health. 

Read more on how to optimise your nutrition and supplement for greater hormone balance. 

Watch or listen to my interview with Dr. Felice Gersh.

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As we approach the end of 2020, most of us will breathe a sigh of relief. It has been a memorable year, and not for good reason. I imagine most of us are hoping that 2021 will be an improvement — that covid will disappear, that the economy will recover, and that we can lick our wounds, pick up the pieces, and put them back together where we can, learning some lessons along the way, and taking the silver linings with us. 

This month’s newsletter features our collaboration with the How To Academy, a conversation between psychiatrist Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s preeminent experts on trauma, and psychotherapist and author Benjamin Fry, who specialises in the nervous system and stored trauma. 

For many of us, 2020 has brought a lot of collective trauma, anxiety and nervous system dysregulation, due to the uncertainty and fear around Covid, the loss of loved ones, economic hardship, and the feeling that good leadership seems in short supply (especially in the UK and the US).

Where are the wise adults?

Just as early childhood trauma and stress are often the result of neglectful, absent or abusive parenting, so this collective stress has often had us asking where are all the wise adults? Who is in charge? And why aren’t they doing a better job?

Many of us have had to become more self-reliant, whether tending to loved ones who are sick, or to ourselves, as the health services are overrun and we are told to stay home anyway; having to make ends meet in the face of loss of business; having to manage and motivate ourselves and our kids to attend online work or school. The onus has been on us as individuals to step up to the plate and take charge.

In these circumstances, those who have done best are often those who have the most resilience to adversity. Obviously material factors play a huge role here — a good bank balance and assured income gives us a leg up in the resilience department.

But just as important as material safety, a sense of emotional resilience is essential to our wellbeing. Those who are less triggered by unresolved trauma or nervous system dysregulation, and who are not stuck behaving like terrified children, petulant teenagers, or critical adults, but rather like wise adults, will do better. This is generally true in life, but especially during difficult times. 

Becoming the wise adult

While we all have these parts — the terrified child, the petulant teenager, the critical adult, and while most of us also have some childhood trauma or neglect, and a more or less dysregulated nervous system, it is in our interest, and that of those around us, that we develop inner resilience, that we learn to reparent ourselves into wise adults, that we heal our trauma, and balance our nervous systems. This is vital for several reasons: 

• So that we develop our own resilience in the face of life’s inevitable stressors, and are equipped to deal with whatever comes our way
• So we can act as wise adults in the absence of good leadership in our countries and communities
• So that we can be better parents, partners, lovers, friends, children, teachers, therapists, doctors, colleagues, employees and bosses 

My interviews on the polyvagal theory with Professor Stephen Porges, and with Benjamin Fry on the nervous system, drove home the responsibility we all have to manage our own nervous systems, which are the bedrock of our mental health, and therefore of our social and communal health.

As Professor Porges points out, if we all had better regulated nervous systems and were able to project feelings of safety to those around us, our societies and relationships would function better, be more peaceful, productive and harmonious. 

Benjamin Fry demonstrates that a more balanced nervous system which has discharged stuck energy from past trauma, and is neither overreacting nor under-reacting to present circumstances, underpins our ability to show up as wise adults.

Healing our nervous system and integrating disparate parts of ourselves is essential to becoming the wise adult, the compassionate parent to our various terrified, traumatised, frozen, rebellious, critical inner children, teens and adults. But how do we do this? 

In a word, we all have a responsibility to DO THE WORK and reparent ourselves daily. 

How to do the work

It takes work to reparent ourselves on a daily basis and show up in the world as the wise adult, shepherding our various parts, managing any stored trauma and nervous systems, husbanding our finite energy and inner resources, and responding in an appropriate and measured way to people and situations.

But the work is worth it, and the world would be a better place if we all took responsibility for showing up in this way, and helping others to show up in this way too.

Address your childhood trauma

When we heal our trauma, whether from childhood, from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), or more recent, we help restore a sense of safety and integrity to our body and mind. This sense of safety and integrity is often essential to us acting and speaking in ways that are kind, considerate of others, thoughtful and constructive.

We all have a responsibility to do this inner work, which involves first becoming aware of where we are stuck in unhelpful patterns of behaviour, often driven by acting from dissociated parts of ourselves and in response to unfinished trauma reactions, and choosing to behave in ways consistent with our wise adult. 

This work will also help restore our biochemical balance. Indeed, trauma and chronic stress can dysregulate our biochemistry — hormones, neurotransmitters, inflammatory markers, and gut for instance — like nothing else, and must be addressed before biochemical balance and therefore health, can be restored.

Different types of therapy can be helpful to addressing childhood issues and trauma, but somatic therapies tend to be more beneficial than cognitive ones.

In particular, EMDR, sensorimotor psychotherapy, somatic experiencing, neurofeedback, TRE and internal family systems therapy can be helpful for trauma and for integrating our various parts.

Yoga, qigong, and other mind-body therapies can also be very helpful for trauma.

Cognitive therapies such as CBT may provide benefits for some, but are usually less effective for healing trauma and the nervous system.

Read more about mental therapies.

Read more about mind-body and somatic therapies.

Rebalance your nervous system

We do this by exploring and addressing unfinished reactions to past trauma or neglect, usually resulting from our childhood and ACEs. We identify and address what causes us to overreact or under-react inappropriately to situations or people, so that we can adjust our reactions to what is really going on in the present, rather than act as though we are reliving the past.

This work usually needs to be done under the supervision of a compassionate adult (ourselves, in combination with our therapist), and as with trauma work, is most effectively addressed via somatic therapies.

Read more about how to fix your nervous system.

Read more about mind-body and somatic therapies. 

Practice self-care

Self-care can take many forms, but essentially involves looking after ourselves like a good parent would look after a child, so that we are resilient to the inevitable stressors of life, and can not only survive but thrive.

Arguably, self-care includes all of the above. It consists of addressing our childhood trauma, rebalancing our nervous system, and ensuring that we are aware of the psychological issues holding us back from living our best lives as our best selves.

But self-care is also the more mundane but equally important practice of daily habits which nourish and restore us, while shunning habits, situations and people that deplete and drain us.

It means that we have a responsibility to manage our calendars, work load, technology, relationships and emotional health so that we are not overwhelmed, over-stressed, and over-stimulated, or undermined and under-stimulated.

Practicing self-care involves dedicating some time and attention every day to meeting our own needs, healing and caring for ourselves.

Far from being selfish, this will benefit others if we do it properly. As the zen expression goes “when I change, the whole world changes”. Or as the airlines always say, “put your own oxygen mask on first before putting on your children’s”. Or as the bible says “love thy neighbour as thyself”. 

And yet despite all these cultural and religious messages, we often think that taking time for ourselves is a waste of time, or selfish, or are just not even aware of what we need to do to look after ourselves. 

If we look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we are assuming that the most basic of our needs are taken care of (food, sleep, shelter, safety). If not, then meeting our needs may require starting at the bottom of the pyramid and working our way up to self-actualisation.

Each person will have different self-care needs. For some it may be to connect more with others, for others it may be to spend more time alone. For some it may be spending less time on technology and more time in nature, for others it may be eating more healthily or exercising more. For some it may be making time to meditate, read a book, or having an epsom salt bath, while for others it could be painting, singing or dancing.

Self-care could also mean demanding more from your relationships — more respect, intimacy, help, attention, or freedom for instance, or walking away from relationships and situations that are unhealthy. And self-care could also be making sure you get the right therapy, as explored above.

Find out what your self-care needs are, what feels sustainably nourishing, healing and healthy for you, and practice these daily.

When we learn to look after ourselves and meet our needs, taking the time to heal past traumas and balance our nervous systems, reducing current stress levels, improving our nutrition and lifestyle habits such as sleep, exercise, exposure to nature, and practicing relaxation techniques such as deep breathing and meditation, we become better parents, children, partners, lovers, friends, therapists, doctors, employees, bosses, colleagues and citizens.

Many of the sections of this website have good advice on daily self-care practices:

Read more about how to improve your nutrition. 

Read more about how to relax. 

Read more about how to manage your stress.

Read more about how to manage your technology and social media.

Read more about how to meditate. 

Read more about how to exercise right. 

Read more about how to sleep better. 

Read more about how to get more exposure to nature and natural light. 

Read more about how to improve your relationships.

Read more about mind-body therapies. 

The challenges of practising self-care

Often, those of us who carry childhood wounds (and let’s face it, most of us do in varying degrees) have a hard time looking after ourselves, or putting up healthy boundaries.

We can’t always identify what is best for us, and even when we can, we don’t always implement it, because we don’t feel we deserve to look after ourselves, or may not even know how.

We may have a tendency towards addiction, codependence and other self-destructive behaviours.

Even though self-care is essential to our wellbeing, it takes effort. And it’s often when we’re exhausted and in desperate need of self-care, that it can be hardest to actually implement.

It’s usually not about sitting around binge-watching netflix and eating ice cream, though for some type A workaholics driven by their inner critical adult, this may actually be a good thing to do from time to time. It’s  about identifying, and then meeting our needs for nourishment, healing, rest and restoration.

We must learn habits of self-care which we may never have learned, and develop enough self-worth that we feel worthy of looking after ourselves. Whether these habits originate from a place of self-love, with a desire to look after this precious being that we are, or whether we are faking-it-until-we-make-it, developing habits of self-care will in turn feed our feelings of self-love and self-worth. The key is in the DAILY PRACTICE.

So this is a plea to us all to really look after ourselves — our physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual selves in whatever we need for our own resilience and wellbeing.

The world needs more happy, wise and healthy adults which in turn will lead to happier, healthier children, colleagues, friends, lovers, partners, parents, bosses, doctors, therapists, teachers and citizens.

Wishing you all a very happy, healthy, fulfilling and peaceful 2021!

The post Where are the wise adults? The vital importance of reparenting ourselves appeared first on MindHealth360.

Today, an integrative approach to her addiction might have saved her — when I looked at her medical records, it showed clear signs of hormone imbalance due to perimenopause and blood sugar issues. All low hanging fruit for integrative and functional medicine practitioners. She also had TBI from a car crash in her early adulthood – another factor which integrative practitioners would look at and treat. 

Prevalence of addiction and poor outcomes of treatment

I look around our societies and see addiction in many different forms – some more extreme, some milder, depending on where we find ourselves on the spectrum; some to substances (illegal such as cocaine and heroin; legal such as alcohol and tobacco; prescription such as opiates and benzos) and some to behaviours (sex, shopping, gambling, technology, social media).

When reading Dr. Arwen Podesta’s book “Hooked: A Concise Guide to the Underlying Mechanics of Addiction and Treatment for Patients, Families, and Providers” to prepare for our interview on The MindHealth360 Show this month I was shocked to hear the poor prognosis of addiction treatment centres, rehabs and programmes, which have success rates which tend to hover around 30% to 40%, depending on the type of treatment and amount of time spent in treatment. 

The relationship between addiction and mental health

To me, the line between addiction and mental health is a very fine one. We become addicted to substances and behaviours as ways of medicating our mental health symptoms and states of depression, mood swings, anxiety, insomnia, irritability, poor memory, poor attention, lethargy and exhaustion, anger, and emptiness.

The interesting thing to me has always been the question of what causes these symptoms and states in the first place — the discomfort of which can then lead to addiction? As we have often outlined in this website, these symptoms and states can be caused by:

Psycho-spiritual factors such as:

• a dysregulated nervous system
• psychological trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACE)
• difficult economic and environmental circumstances
• difficult relationships
• isolation and disconnection
• overwhelm

Biochemical factors such as: 

• toxins (moulds, pesticides, heavy metals)
• infections (Lyme, EBV, bartonella)
• gut issues 
• poor nutrition status
• food allergies
• genetic factors
• methylation issues
• TBI (traumatic brain injury)
• ageing
• disrupted circadian rhythms

Lifestyle-Behavioural factors such as:

• poor sleep
• lack of appropriate exercise
• stress, especially chronic
• poor breathing
• lack of nature and natural light

All of the above can lead to inflammation, and disruptions in hormone and neurotransmitter balance. 

Therefore, it is imperative to look at ALL the factors that may be contributing to the unpleasant mental health symptoms and states that can lead to addiction to substances and behaviours. 

Why an integrative approach is essential

Just as mainstream psychiatry needs to move beyond treating mental health issues with pills and some talk therapy, addiction treatment needs to move beyond treating addiction with pills, talk therapy and 12-steps. I am not knocking any of these modalities of treatment. But I am saying they are not enough on their own.

To improve chances of successfully treating addiction long term, an integrative approach is essential. There are plenty of addicts valiantly white-knuckling through sobriety, while being undermined by untreated and silent biochemical imbalances. This is the approach taken by Dr. Arwen Podesta and Dr. Joe Mather, who team up to look at all angles of addiction, providing medically-assisted withdrawal, and a full biochemical workup to look at the gut issues (such as leaky gut, dysbiosis), toxic load (such as heavy metals and moulds), nutrition status (low D, low zinc, high copper, low Bs) methylation issues (especially of folate the and B vitamins), genetics, and lifestyle factors (such as sleep, exercise, and stress levels), coupled with nervous and limbic system retraining and trauma therapies. 

An integrative approach case study

One of my best friends is an ex-heroin addict who struggled with addiction to various drugs since his early teenage years. In his thirties, having cleaned up his heroin habit with the help of a dedicated martial art practice, he became a benzodiazepine addict. Benzos, according to him, are a harder habit to kick than heroin. The withdrawal from benzos is apparently much longer, more treacherous and difficult. Not only was he using benzos to medicate his underlying anxiety, but the benzos were undermining his own endogenous production of calming neurochemicals (especially GABA, the calming neurotransmitter) as well as the integrity of his gut (benzos can cause irritation of the gut lining and leaky gut). 

In order to make his sobriety easier to sustain, we took an integrative approach and looked at what may have been causing his underlying anxiety, which in his case was childhood trauma, gut dysbiosis, incredibly low cholesterol (low cholesterol is correlated to suicidality, aggression and other mental health issues), a vegan diet with low protein and poor amino acid supply (therefore, poor building blocks for key neurotransmitters), and low B12 amongst other things.

We helped him boost his biochemistry with supplements and nutrition, as well as some NAD IV therapy, to help balance his hormones, neurotransmitters, gut bacteria, fats, proteins and micronutrients, therefore lessening his anxiety and his need for the benzos, and to repair the damage done by the benzos. This has been a long and slow process, but his ability to stick with the 12-step programme and stay sober for almost a year so far, has been greatly enhanced by his more balanced biochemistry. Somatic therapies such as sensorimotor psychotherapy, somatic experiencing and EMDR, if available, would have been a vital addition to this treatment programme. He also followed a method of breathing and ice baths which have been shown to act on the opiate and endorphin system. 

My plea to the addiction treatment community

There is no doubt that a more integrative and functional medicine approach would greatly improve patient outcomes, and yet few rehab and treatment centres seem to be practicing this approach completely. While some of them go further than others, the price tag is prohibitive. While this approach can be more expensive, it needn’t be prohibitively expensive.

My plea to the addiction and rehab treatment communities is therefore this: adopt an integrative approach to addiction — combining biochemical, with psycho-spiritual and lifestyle approaches — in order to improve recovery rates and outcomes. 

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There are many theories — the main ones being that addiction is driven by an inborn and/or acquired biochemical imbalance in dopamine, endorphins and other neuro-chemicals, and/or that it is driven by psycho-spiritual factors such as early trauma and/or a lack of healthy connections. 

I have been fascinated by addiction — what causes it, its biochemistry, and how to heal it — for a long time. My grandmother was an alcoholic and died tragically of suicide when my mother was 15, impacting the mental health of several generations in our family, including my own and that of my children. 

Several of my closest friends are ex-addicts. I am drawn to ex-addicts, as I often find them particularly sensitive, thoughtful, empathetic and self-aware, and they are usually the ones who have done the hard graft of self-work and self examination, which tends to make them particularly evolved, conscious and awake human beings.  

Addiction is a life threatening disease, but I believe we are all on a spectrum. Some of us are more addicted than others, but pretty much all of us can dabble or indulge in potentially addictive substances and behaviours, whether it’s loving too much, being too avoidant, too codependent, shopping or drinking too much, smoking, taking recreational drugs or painkillers, excessively using technology, or not being able to stop checking our social media. 

We often wonder where to draw the line — when does the use of a substance or behaviour tip into addiction? Usually, when it meets two criteria: 

• It is unhealthy for the “addict” and those around them (this does beg the question as to how far on the spectrum of “unhealthy” one has to go before deciding something is an addiction versus a coping mechanism) 
• The “addict” is unable to stop it, even when they are aware of it and its damaging effects

The link between addiction and the nervous system

This month, I released two interviews for The MindHealth360 Show — one with Professor Robert Lustig and Dr. Don Grant on the biochemistry of addiction, especially technology addiction, the other with Professor Stephen Porges on the nervous system and his groundbreaking polyvagal theory. 

These have led me to ponder the relationship between addictive substances and behaviours and the nervous system. 

Professor Stephen Porges’s groundbreaking work on the polyvagal theory sheds new light on the nervous system — not only do we have the fight and flight mechanism of the stress response, but we also have a freeze, or shut down response, and a social engagement system, all of which are part of our autonomic nervous system. 

• Rest, digest, and social engagement are all states that correlate with a calm nervous system, and lead to healing and repair of our bodily and mental functions. 
• Fight, flight and freeze are all coping mechanisms that we have developed to deal with stressors, and over the long term, will hamper the body and mind’s ability to heal and repair. 

A dysregulated nervous system is when we can no longer cycle appropriately between these two states, and get stuck in fight, flight, or freeze states, even when the threat has passed, usually a case of reliving past stressors as if they are happening in the present. 

Meanwhile, chronic current stress of any kind can lead to a physiological and psychological state of threat, which can jangle our nervous system (albeit appropriately, as in response to current stressors rather than past ones) and cause discomfort. 

Psychotherapist Benjamin Fry, inspired by the work of Professor Porges, believes that a response to this uncomfortable state of stress and dysregulation (with its ensuing biochemical cascade of neuroendocrine imbalance) can be to seek relief and nervous system regulation through external behaviours and substances, which temporarily make us feel better, but can lead to addiction. 

Meanwhile, indulging in addictive substances and behaviours can cause chronic biochemical imbalances in our hormones and neurotransmitters, and can lead to gut issues and inflammation, all of which can further dysregulate our nervous system, so it can become a vicious circle.

My 15 year old son, for instance, who seems addicted to video games and his phone, is using these to cope with the fact that he is anxious/bored at school, and his virtual world is a more comfortable world in which he can control his environment and, ironically, find some peace and some connection. 

His overindulgence in video games and social media may also be a response not just to the current threat of a high work load and academic and social pressure, a poor diet high in sugar and processed foods, but also to past threat — from early childhood traumatic experiences to do with my own postpartum depression and/or his grandmother’s life-threatening heart attacks, and/or his parents’ separation for instance. 

If his nervous system were more regulated, would he have as much of a need to escape into video games? Probably not. But how much of it can be seen as a “coping mechanism using external regulation rather than an actual “addiction”?

Healing addiction by healing the nervous system

In order to heal addiction, we need to first and foremost heal the nervous system, and look at what might be stressing it. As we have seen in Nervous System Dysregulation and in The 6 key causes of mental health issues?, in order to heal our nervous system we need to look at:

• Current threats, which may be causing us stress. These can be:
  • Biochemical (mould, pollution, food allergens, and infections, which can lead to hormonal/neurotransmitter imbalances, gut issues and inflammation)
  • Psycho-spirtual (lack of purpose and meaning, difficult life circumstances and relationships, traumatic events, etc)
  • Lifestyle behavioural (lack of healthy sleep, exercise, life habits)
• Past threats (these can be biochemical and psycho-spiritual) which are stuck in our system, and to which we are still responding as if they were current threats, leading to nervous system dysregulation.

The cultural and commercial component of addiction

While the nervous system theory explains addiction as an escape, via substances and behaviours, from uncomfortable feelings of threat, Professor Robert Lustig postulates that  we are driven to addiction by the commercial forces in our societies (advertising, cultural conditioning)  which seek to sell us products and services in exchange for pleasure. And that these commercial forces have successfully conflated pleasure with happiness in our minds. 

Whatever the driver towards addictive substances and behaviours however, Professor Lustig notes that since biochemically, pleasure is inversely correlated with happiness, just as dopamine (the pleasure neurotransmitter) is inversely correlated with serotonin (the happiness neurotransmitter), when we pursue pleasure and engage in potentially addictive activities and substances such as sex, alcohol, drugs, shopping, technology consumption, etc. we are damaging our ability to find true contentment.

Especially as the more dopamine we seek and make, the more we can burn through our receptors, and the more behaviours and substances we need to consume or engage in to make the same amount of dopamine.

So our lives can become about constantly seeking that next dopamine hit through substances and behaviours rather than being satisfied with a calmer feeling of contentment and even happiness that comes from an internal sense of peace and regulation. 

How a healthy nervous system helps us to avoid addiction

We can combine both theories and say that people with healthy, regulated nervous systems who have balanced lives with an optimal amount of stress (not too little, not too much) are doubtless less susceptible to the cultural calls for more consumption and pleasure, rather than contentment, and therefore less liable to become addicted to substances or behaviours.

A healthier, more balanced nervous system, exhibiting less physiological and psychological stress, is less likely to become addicted, and more likely to find lasting contentment and freedom. 

Therefore, healing and balancing our nervous systems, and dealing more appropriately with our stress, is key to healing and avoiding addiction. 

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Mainstream medicine claims that we don’t know exactly what causes mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and bipolar. As we have seen however, in “How can we get to the root causes of mental health symptoms?“, doctors practicing integrative mental health believe that they can identify and improve many of the factors contributing to our mental health symptoms.

Certainly, it’s an interesting and important subject for debate, as identifying the root causes is crucial to treating them and improving mental health outcomes. So it’s a personal fascination of mine, and in this blog, I suggest 6 possible key causes of mental health issues.

This month, I released two interviews for The MindHealth360 Show, both identifying certain root causes of mental health issues.

Obgyn Dr. Margaret Christensen talks of the 5 causes of mental health issues as being toxins (such as mould, pesticides, heavy metals, plastics, pharmaceutical and recreational drugs, EMFs), poor nutrition, infections (such as Lyme, Bartonella, etc.), allergens (such as wheat, gluten, dairy), and last but not least, trauma/abuse.

Psychotherapist Benjamin Fry, however, sees the root cause of most common mental health issues as resulting from a dysregulated nervous system.

Rather than contradict each other, I believe that they complement each other, and help to give us a comprehensive overview of the root causes of mental health issues.

What their respective ideas about root causes have in common is that they are all seen as threats by our bodies, and trigger a stress response, which can lead to a biochemical cascade of inflammation, hormone imbalance, neurotransmitter imbalance, gut issues, mitochondrial dysfunction, and further nervous system dysregulation. We know that these biochemical phenomena can all be implicated in creating mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, insomnia, poor memory, poor concentration and attention,Lee, C. H., & Giuliani, F. (2019). The Role of Inflammation in Depression and Fatigue. Frontiers in immunology, 10, 1696. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2019.01696, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6658985/[accessed 21st August 2020], Duval, F., Mokrani, M. C., Ortiz, J. A., Schulz, P., Champeval, C., & Macher, J. P. (2005). Neuroendocrine predictors of the evolution of depression. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 7(3), 273–282. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181737/[accessed 21st August 2020], Clapp, M., Aurora, N., Herrera, L., Bhatia, M., Wilen, E., & Wakefield, S. (2017). Gut microbiota’s effect on mental health: The gut-brain axis. Clinics and practice, 7(4), 987. https://doi.org/10.4081/cp.2017.987https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5641835/[accessed 21st August 2020], Allen, J., Romay-Tallon, R., Brymer, K. J., Caruncho, H. J., & Kalynchuk, L. E. (2018). Mitochondria and Mood: Mitochondrial Dysfunction as a Key Player in the Manifestation of Depression. Frontiers in neuroscience, 12, 386. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2018.00386https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5997778/ [accessed 21st August 2020] as well as behavioural and relationship issues.

The level of stress response they trigger (and therefore the ensuing biochemical imbalances) will depend on two things: the genetic terrain (and the epigenetic reactions entailed), and the current resilience of our nervous system, which itself will depend on our past experiences and our current biochemistry.

So what are these threats/stressors?

Outlined below are the main stressors, however there are doubtless others.

Biochemical stressors

1. External toxins such as moulds, heavy metals, plastics, EMFs, pharmaceutical and recreational drugs
2. Poor nutrition consisting in mainly processed foods
3. Allergens such as gluten, lactose
4. Infections such as Lyme, Bartonella, EBV
5. Traumatic brain injury

Psychological stressors

1. Trauma
2. Abuse
3. Poor relationships
4. Difficult life circumstances
5. Lack of purpose and meaning

Lifestyle-behavioural stressors

1. Poor sleep and disrupted circadian rhythms
2. Lack of exercise
3. Lack of nature and natural light
4. Lack of relaxation
5. Poor breathing

While these stressors can be biochemical, psycho-spiritual or lifestyle-behavioural, they have in common that they all provoke a physiological stress response, and since the body does not distinguish between psychological and physiological stress, they can elicit the same biochemical cascade of inflammation, neuroendocrine disruption, gut issues, nervous system dysregulation, and mitochondrial dysfunction.

Furthermore, they contribute to and exacerbate each other. So for instance if our systems have been weakened by repeated physiological stressors such as infections, pollutants or poor nutrition, the effect of a psychological stressor such as trauma will be far greater. And there is also some evidence that those who have suffered trauma and have a dysregulated nervous system, are more susceptible to physiological stressors.

Our bodies are equipped to deal with short term stress (whether psychological or physiological), mount a biochemical response (which can lead to temporary inflammation, hormone imbalances, neurotransmitter imbalances, gut dysbiosis), and return to homeostasis once the threat has past. Short term stressors which are addressed and given some time to heal (eg: the infection is eradicated, the mould is detoxified, the diet is improved, the psychological threat has passed, and short term supplements and therapies are administered) should not cause long term mental health symptoms.

However, if these stressors are chronic, and/or cause a lasting dysregulation in the nervous system (when we over-react or under-react to a perceived threat based on past threat as if they were present threats, because our physiology is stuck in a threat response), and/or get stuck in the cell danger response (Dr. Robert Naviaux’s explanation that cells when faced with a threat that is past can get stuck and continue to behave as if they are under threat, pumping out inflammatory molecules for instance, and this may be part of nervous system dysregulationNaviaux R. K. (2014). Metabolic features of the cell danger response. Mitochondrion, 16, 7–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mito.2013.08.006https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23981537/[accessed 20th August 2020]), they can lead to the following chronic imbalances which can manifest as long term mental health symptoms and conditions.

This is why mental health issues can seem so intractable. Because not only does the original stressor need to be ended and addressed, but then the ensuing biochemical cascade needs to be returned to homeostasis. Something that is much harder to do when the stress has been chronic, has caused lasting nervous system dysregulation, or cell danger response.

Chronic biochemical imbalances: the 6 key causes of mental health issues?

The stressors above may or may not lead to the following chronic biochemical imbalances, but if they do, they will tend to cause mental health symptoms.

We can therefore venture to say that these 6 chronic biochemical imbalances are the 6 key causes of mental health issues. There may be others, which will gather evidence in the future, but for now, these seem like the most likely suspects.

1. Inflammation and neuroinflammation
2. Gut issues
3. Hormone imbalances
4. Neurotransmitter imbalances
5. Mitochondrial dysfunction
6. Nervous system dysregulation

In conclusion, if we were to break it down and simplify, we could say that the causes of mental health issues would look something like this:

Mental health issues can arise when stressors (psychological, lifestyle and physiological) impact on our genetic terrain and our nervous system resilience, to cause one or more of the 6 key chronic biochemical imbalances listed.

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