Is Your Depression or Anxiety Related to Neurotransmitter Imblances?

Neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine (adrenaline), epinephrine, and GABA (gamma aminobutyric acid) regulate our mood and sense of well being. Serotonin and GABA help us to feel content and relaxed. Dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine are responsible for controlling energy, muscle movements, and happiness.

Targeted nutritional intervention can be used to balance and optimize mood, and create a greater sense of well being. Rather than prescribing medications to cover up your symptoms, specific vitamins and herbs can naturally increase or decrease neurotransmitter production in your body.

The vitamins and herbs are non-addictive, and can effectively replace the need for antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications for most people. Because these supplements are designed to improve your body's natural neurotransmitter balance, we can taper you off of these vitamins and herbs over time, as you become symptom-free.

Neurotransmitters are natural chemical messengers that travel between nerves to send signals of pain, happiness, sadness, satisfaction, fear, or excitement. Neurotransmitters are released into the space between the nerve cells (the synaptic cleft), and received by the next nerve cell. After the chemical signal is received, the neurotransmitters are sent back into the first nerve cell.

If there is not enough of a certain neurotransmitter in your brain, you can feel symptoms of anxiety, depression, irritability, or mood swings.

While medications can improve symptoms by increasing the amount of serotonin or dopamine between two nerve cells, we can supplement specific vitamins, amino acids, and herbs to actually increase or decrease your body's own production of neurotransmitters. Amino acids are the building blocks for proteins in your body, and neurotransmitters are made from certain amino acids, with the help of vitamins and minerals. For example, L-tyrosine is used in the body to make dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine.

Your cells have the ability to make serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine, and other neurotransmitters. When you are deficient in certain nutrients, it is harder to make enough of the neurotransmitters you need to feel happy and relaxed. Drugs like Prozac hold the serotonin you have in the synaptic cleft longer than usual, to send more signals of happiness. However, if you are deficient in certain nutrients, you can take all the Prozac you want, and still have depression symptoms because your body simply is not making enough serotonin in the first place.

Rather than tricking your body into thinking it has enough serotonin to make you feel happy, neurotransmitter support supplements are designed to give your body the vitamins and amino acids it needs to make more of its own serotonin. The same is true for the other neurotransmitters.

Based on your symptoms, your naturopathic doctor can determine which supplements will be best for promoting an improvement in your mood. These supplements are natural, non-addictive, and work with your body instead of covering up symptoms. The best results are typically seen when combining neurotransmitter support supplements with homeopathic medicine, to bring your body chemistry and your mood back into balance.

Tara Peyman, ND
Naturopathic Physician
Phoenix, AZ
www.DrTaraPeyman.com