Brain Chemistry 101

 I wanted to give everyone some background information about brain chemistry or neurochemistry. As you might remember from health class, amino acids are the building blocks of our bodies. Protein is composed of amino acids. So when you eat protein you are helping to restore your body. When I say amino acids are the building blocks of our bodies or more specifically our cells, this also translates to our brains. Our brains also need protein to function. Just like our bodies are composed of cells, so our brains. Our brain cells are called neurons. Our neurons are so important they need cells (glial cells) to support them. We have an estimated 100 billion neurons. All of these neurons need to communicate to one another, so our neurons are connected to one another through a synapse. Because our neurons need to talk to more than one neuron, we have an estimated 100-500 trillion synapses. When our neurons communicate with one another they do it through a neurotransmitter. Neurotransmitters are the chemical messengers in our brains.  When we are thinking, feeling, or engaging in any behavior, even sleep, our brains are active. Our brains produce electrical activity. This electrical activity is our neurons firing and our neurotransmitters sending messages to other neurons. Have you seen the commercials talking about serotonin, dopamine, or norepinephrine? These are all different types of neurotransmitters and each different type of neurotransmitter has a different function.  And guess what? These neurotransmitters are made from amino acids (among other things), too. The moral of the story is: MAKE SURE YOU EAT YOUR PROTEIN!!!

Welcome to Nature's Prozac

Hello everyone and welcome to Nature’s Prozac. This blog is dedicated to looking for all natural alternatives to promoting your mental health. My name is Dr. Dixie Meyer, PhD and I am a counselor and clinical mental health counseling professor. The concept behind this blog grew out of conversations I regularly have with friends and family.  I prefer to live a healthy lifestyle including eating healthy, nutrient rich foods and I rarely turn to medications for health benefits. Therefore, often my conversations with friends and family involve them describing aliments to me where I suggest foods that could help alleviate their symptoms. This, also, transfers to my counseling practice. I am a proponent for holistic counseling and having all of my clients maintain a healthy lifestyle. Often times, when clients start treating their bodies right, their mood improves. Witnessing these transformations was the impetus for my research in neuroscience and more specifically, neurochemistry. What you will read here in this blog will be empirically supported. I will provide information about specific nutrients or activities that positively influence your brain chemistry. There will be no promises or outlandish claims, only information about how to maintain a healthy lifestyle.  It will then be your decision if you need and want to incorporate the research into your own life.

I am dedicating this blog to wellness and giving everyone the tools they need to take control of their own mental health.