Читать книгу The Mood Cure: Take Charge of Your Emotions in 24 Hours Using Food and Supplements - Julia Ross - Страница 42

You may be experiencing a cluster of traits that all have to do with a single annoying or even tormenting symptom of low serotonin: false fear. Whether you experience it as shyness, anxiety, or panic, your fear quotient is a good gauge of how deficient in serotonin you are. You may have tried to accept your disorder as “just the way I am” if it’s mild or fought it with therapy, medication, and behavior modification if it’s crippling.

I always ask my clients what their moods were like when they were children. Many of them tell me that they’ve always been shy or a worrywart. But what is shyness? It’s just a way of describing chronic, low-level fear combined with another classic low-serotonin symptom: low self-esteem. And worry? It’s usually an unproductive mental reflex that is actually a combination trait in which three low-serotonin symptoms gang up together: fear, obsessiveness, and negativity.

Panic and phobia are obviously the most fearful symptoms of low serotonin. They can start early in life or develop later. Are you excessively afraid of heights, airplanes, spiders, or enclosed spaces? Has fear about exams, interviews, or public performance swelled into full-blown terror, complete with heart palpitations and difficulty breathing? Do you wake up with panic attacks in the middle of the night or have nightmares on a regular basis? (Remember that the night is the lowest serotonin production point of your twenty-four-hour cycle.) Even these extreme symptoms can usually be dissolved nutritionally by raising serotonin with a few key nutrient supplements.

A handsome 24-year-old actor came to see me because he’d been having unrelenting anxiety (including stage fright) and frequent panic attacks since he was 5 years old. He’d tried everything, including too much alcohol, to no avail. Yet a few weeks on his nutritherapy program and he was volunteering for cold script readings in his acting classes!

Serotonin deficiency is the most common cause of both anxiety and panic attacks in our experience, but thyroid or adrenal malfunctions can also be significant factors. If the nutritional supplements recommended in this chapter don’t eliminate your panic, see chapter 5’s suggestions for using calming amino acids like GABA. If no supplement helps, it’s time to consider testing your thyroid and adrenal functions: first look at the symptom list on pages 66 and 79 to see if either problem sounds like yours. If so, follow the testing and treatment suggestions in the “Thyroid Tool Kit” and the “Adrenal Tool Kit.”