Jeff Tannen

Good moods bad moods: How to maintain feeling mentally well and optimistic versus feelings of depression or just feeling low.

Moods are something we all have and as a mental health counselor I have had many years of experience with people that are in a lousy mood some of the time or all of the time.

Feeling poorly and ‘out of it’ can be a sometimes mood or unfortunately a daily occurrence. I have discovered a major connection bad moods and low blood sugar states.

I’m sure almost everyone has heard of low blood sugar but what is it really and how does it tie into poor mental states?

This is a complicated process which I will simplify:

Low blood sugar episodes occur when the body doesn’t metabolize blood glucose (sugars) properly. Over eating of highly refined sugary foods such as candies, cakes and cookies, reduces the brains natural way of breaking down nutrients put into the body and used by the brain to function. Our bodies were not created to eat these highly sugar reined foods .Their over consumption has come about in the modern era.

The brain needs to be able to make its own sugars by way of the proper intake of fruits, vegetables, meat, fish and poultry. In this way our brain does not have to rush to metabolize these refined sugars which cause us to experience a ‘mood drop.’

Chronic stress is another contributor as it forces the adrenals to pump out insulin which is used by the brain to function. If the adrenals become overtaxed and the brain becomes over insulinized a blood sugar drop will occur.

I have seen so many people through the years that have every bad habit in the book including constant severe stress which is punctuated by a very poor diet. These people experience a multitude of bad moods each and every day.

Most have shopped around and had various therapy treatments but have excluded the vital step of examining their diets and stress levels and attending to them.

This is why so many people go for years and don’t get any better. Believe me, this is a major component in getting mentally and emotionally well.

If you are constantly nervous, overly anxious, depressed and out of sorts, you may have a chronic low blood sugar state which can be easily remedied by improving your diet, doing meditation or self hypnosis for stress and adding affirmations in long hand writing before bed time. I have addressed some of these therapies in previous blogs. I hope that you will review them or feel free to write to me and let me know about what’s going on with you.

Here’s to good mental health

Best wishes,

Jeff Tannen MFT