What Nutrition Has to Do With Your Mental Health
This is not a post about eating clean or optimizing your diet. It’s about something more fundamental: the relationship between what you eat and how your brain functions, regulates emotion, and recovers from stress.
Most people understand that mental health affects the body. Fewer people understand that the body, including what it’s fed, profoundly affects mental health. The science on this is not fringe. It is increasingly one of the most important conversations happening in clinical mental health
The Gut-Brain Connection
Your gut and your brain are in constant communication via the vagus nerve- a direct pathway that carries signals in both directions. This is why anxiety often shows up as a stomach ache, why grief can kill your appetite, and why chronic digestive issues are so frequently linked to depression and anxiety.
Approximately 90-95% of the body’s serotonin - the neurotransmitter most associated with mood regulation - is produced in the gut. Not the brain. The gut.
What this means practically: the health of your gut microbiome directly influences your mood, your stress response, your capacity for emotional regulation, and your vulnerability to depression and anxiety.
What the Research Says
Nutritional psychiatry is a growing field that studies how diet and nutritional status affect mental health outcomes. The research consistently shows:
Diets high in processed foods, refined sugar, and inflammatory ingredients are associated with higher rates of depression and anxiety
Diets rich in whole foods, omega-3 fatty acids, fermented foods, and micronutrients are associated with better mental health outcomes
Nutritional deficiencies - particularly in vitamin D, B vitamins, magnesium, zinc, and iron - are common in people experiencing depression and anxiety
Blood sugar instability creates mood instability - the connection between what you eat and how you feel emotionally is not metaphorical, it is biochemical
What This Means for Therapy
I am not a nutritionist or a dietitian. I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and I hold additional certification in nutrition and mental health because I have watched too many clients work incredibly hard in therapy while unknowingly working against themselves nutritionally.
This doesn’t mean nutrition replaces therapy. It means that when we’re doing the deep emotional work together, I want to make sure we’re also paying attention to the physiological context that work is happening in.
For clients navigating mood disorders, emotional dysregulation, eating disorder histories, or chronic stress, the nutritional dimension of their mental health is clinically relevant. I bring that lens to our work where it’s useful.
Signs That Nutrition Might Be Affecting Your Mental Health
Mood changes that feel tied to your eating patterns
Energy crashes that affect your emotional regulation
Anxiety or depression that doesn’t fully respond to therapy or medication
A complicated or painful relationship with food and your body
Persistent fatigue, brain fog, or difficulty concentrating
An eating disorder history or current disordered eating patterns
If any of these sound familiar, it may be worth exploring the nutritional dimension of your mental health alongside the emotional one.
Nutrition-Informed Mental Health Therapy in California
I’m Lauresha Hawkins- a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with additional certification in nutrition and mental health, offering telehealth therapy across California and Alaska.
I bring an integrated approach to the work, one that honors both the emotional and physiological dimensions of healing. If you’ve been in therapy and still feel like something is missing, it might be worth exploring what a nutrition-informed lens could add.
