Prepare To Be Salt Struck
One way of looking at salt is to see it as an all purpose, metabolism enhancing, stress reducing, anxiolytic, anti-depressant.
When dietary sodium is restricted this tends to slow energy metabolism, lowering body temperature and eventually promoting many symptoms of stress.
A suppressed metabolism shifts away from the efficient use of sugar, towards the increased release of fat from storage as one alternative source of fuel.
Free fatty acids (often polyunsaturated), raise levels of inflammation and further suppress thyroid function in a variety of ways. This has a tendency to promote the loss of sodium in the body, causing the release of adrenalin, often interfering with sleep, as well as potentially increasing anxiety levels.
When thyroid metabolism is suppressed, digestion is slowed, which then generally allows for greater absorption of bacterial toxins into the blood stream. As a direct result of this, serotonin levels are raised throughout the system, promoting many of the symptoms of stress and depression.
Simply increasing sodium intake can help in a multitude of ways.
Sufficient salt consumption can suppress adrenalin, raise body temperature and improve sleep quality. Sodium can also improve digestion, which can result in the reduction of bacterial endotoxin, thereby lowering serotonin secretion.
Rather than causing high blood pressure, increasing salt intake can reduce hypertension, which is often a symptom of hypothyroidism and the release of adrenalin, as well as cortisol, serotonin and numerous other inflammatory substances.
There is a powerful connection between metabolic function and the relationship between sodium and the other alkaline minerals, magnesium, potassium as well as calcium. The hypothyroid state is closely linked to the biological interactions between these minerals, and they have all been shown to play a part in mood stability.
Extra intake of salt can go a long way to improving the regulation of all of the minerals, as well as protecting against deficiencies in (and excessive wastage of) the others, guarding against many varieties of mood disorder.
A great number of studies have shown that the symptoms of depression and anxiety are in many ways the product of the suppression of metabolism and the various stress promoting substances which are released directly resulting from this low energy or hypo-metabolic state.
Adequate intake of salt not only helps to protect against metabolic dysfunction (moving the body away from chronic sympathetic nervous system activity), it also helps protect against many of the inflammatory conditions (including diabetes, cancer and heart disease) which very commonly ensue.
The combination of greater amounts of simple sugar and salt (in the context of an appropriate anti-inflammatory, pro-metabolic diet and lifestyle) can lead to vast improvements in the biochemical, hormonal and nervous system related issues which underlie the progression of many kinds of disturbances of the mind.
A diet with enough protein from milk, cheese and gelatinous meats, as well as plenty of sugar from sweet ripe fruits, fruit juice, honey and white sugar, whilst simultaneously supplementing with gradually increasing amounts of salt (starting at roughly 5 gms spread over the day), is a reasonable approach to improving anxiety or depression and their related symptoms.
A salty sugary drink, such as for example milk with a few pinches of salt and lots of added sugar or honey can, before bed (or when you awake during the night) help to improve sleep quality which, in and of itself, can alleviate many issues tending to have an effect on mood.
Have you experimented with increasing your salt intake?
See more here.
Low-salt diet increases insulin resistance in healthy subjects
Hypertension in thyroid disorders
Endotoxemia is associated with an increased risk of incident diabetes
Dietary sodium restriction: take it with a grain of salt
Rapid recovery from major depression using magnesium treatment.
Salt intake and mental distress among rural community-dwelling Japanese men
#saltysleepaid
#dontforgetsugar
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Image: Rakkard: “A salt with a deadly weapon”
