Social Anxiety Treatment

The body and mind are inextricably linked in so many different ways. There are so many different systems at play in your body, the hormonal system, the complex system of the brain, the circulatory system etc. What benefits one system also benefits the others, and what hurts one system also hurts all the others.

Today I'm looking at the role diet plays on the success of any social anxiety treatment.

A good diet is extremely important, you are feeding yourself constantly and if you are feeding yourself the wrong things you are going to be constantly hampering your treatment efforts and doing some serious damage to yourself along the way.

Everyone has heard of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, not everyone however has been given good advice on which of these should be consumed and in what quantity. I believe that we should all eat as close an approximation as possible to what our ancestors ate before the agricultural revolution. I say this because this is the way our bodies ate for millions of years, it is only in very recent times (the last 10,000 years or so) that our diets switched to include grains which is not enough time to adapt.

Proteins are an essential building block for the body you should be consuming around 1g per 1lb of lean body mass. Good sources of protein are organic free range grass fed animals or wild caught fish. Our bodies have adapted over millions of years to eating meat, and obtaining protein from meat, you should not be looking at other sources e.g. soy as these do not contain enough protein in the right amount.

Fats, especially saturated fats, are extremely misunderstood and that all started with a study done in the 1950's by a scientist called Ancel Keys. He set out to try and prove a correlation between saturated fat and heart disease. The study is called "the 7 countries study" and indeed it does show a correlation, however in order to prove the correlation Ancel had to cherry pick the 7 countries he knew would prove him right out of the 22 countries he studied. All the other countries showed no correlation. Saturated fats (like those found in lard, dripping, butter, and ghee) should account for 60%+ of your daily calories and can be consumed in any amount. "Fat free" and "low fat" are very heart unhealthy!

Carbohydrates are the only macronutrient that does not form both an energy source and a building block for the body. Carbohydrates whether low GI, high GI, wholegrain or anything else are simply sugar, sugar is toxic to the human body. This is the macronutrient you want to avoid as much as possible as it causes all kinds of imbalances and damage in your brain chemicals and hormones. Sources high in carbohydrates that you want to avoid are anything made from grains ("heart healthy" whole grains are actually extremely heart unhealthy) rice, pasta pizza etc.

For more information on ways to tackle social anxiety click here: Social Anxiety Treatment

A new article post over on the social anxiety treatment blog starts:

"When undertaking any social anxiety treatment you need to consider more than just what is going to happen in the therapy room. A succesful therapy will not only be able to help you get over the issues you are currently going through but also be able to direct you to going on and leading a much happier lifestyle in the future."

This is very true. When you go through a change of any kind the change itself is usually in the filters, or in other words the way you view life. If you don't spend the time experiencing these filters you will continue experiencing the world through a problem that no longer exists. Over time either that problem, or a similar one will rise and you'll have to go through the change all over again.