The Mood Cure: Take Charge of Your Emotions in 24 Hours Using Food and Supplements. Julia Ross
nothing had ever improved. When it became clear, after a few sessions, that Dad was actually deeply devoted to his family but simply unable to control his critical, angry feelings, I suggested that he meet with the same staff nutritionist who was seeing his son. He agreed because he could see that his son’s headaches were responding to dietary changes and that his mood and ability to concentrate were improving on the amino acids. When Dad began taking amino acids himself, the change was immediate and powerful: his obsessive, explosive behavior evaporated entirely, much to the amazement and relief of his wife and son. Family therapy proceeded very constructively, since all family members were finally able to listen and respond to one another free of their false moods. Interestingly, Dad also needed some private psychotherapy to adjust to his new emotional style, especially in the business world, where his abrasive personality had become his trademark. In 1995, our staff began suggesting that our clients try potentially helpful aminos right in the office, during their initial assessments. As a result, we’ve actually been present as the amino acids have taken effect, typically within fifteen minutes. We’ve watched and cheered as hundreds of clients shed their false feelings of tension, apathy, irritability, and emotional pain right before our eyes. The word that our clients always use to describe this experience is “amazing.” What’s more, our clients typically need to take the aminos for only three to twelve months. After that, their mood chemistry repairs are usually complete. They must, however, continue eating plenty of protein, vegetables, and other fresh whole foods and taking their basic vitamin, mineral, and fatty acid supplements.
HOW DO THE AMINOS ELIMINATE FALSE MOODS AND REVIVE TRUE EMOTION?
This is the secret: There are twenty-two different kinds of amino acids in high-protein foods like chicken, fish, beef, eggs, and cheese. You may have heard them referred to as the building blocks of protein. Each amino has its own name and unique duties to perform, but only a few very special aminos can serve as fuels for the brain’s four mood engines. Just five or six of these amino acids, taken as supplements, can effectively reverse all four of the brain deficiencies that cause false moods.
Each of the four mood engines in your brain needs a different amino acid fuel. The lower your access to amino fuel, the more false mood symptoms you can develop. The question is how much “gas” do you have in each of your engines? How do you know when you’ve run too low? How can you fill ’em up? Which amino brain fuels do you need? Where can you get them? How long will it take? You’ll soon learn what the best brain foods are for you and how to find and use the amino acid supplements that will jump-start all of your emotional engines and keep them fired up.
The four emotion generators in your brain are called “neurotransmitters.” Some of their specific names will probably be familiar to you: serotonin, catecholamines, GABA, and endorphin. Each of these four neurotransmitters has a distinctly different effect on your mood depending largely on the availability of its particular amino acid fuel.
A well-stocked brain produces true emotions: depending on your life circumstances, you’ll generally feel emotionally positive if your key neurotransmitter levels are high.
A poorly stocked brain produces false moods: If you drop too low in any of the key neurotransmitters, you’ll tend to develop a specific set of defective moods as a result.
Your Brain’s True and False Emotional Chemistry
Once any of the false moods evolve, their standard symptoms may come and go, become more or less intense, or remain constant. Whatever the case, the appropriate amino acid fuels, taken as supplements, can reliably, safely, and quickly dispel every vestige of all four false mood types by raising the levels of all four vital neurotransmitters.
Fortunately, every amino acid you’ll need can be easily found at your neighborhood health food store or drugstore or by phone or on-line.
WHY ARE YOUR MOOD ENGINES RUNNING ON EMPTY?
Did You Inherit False Moods? Some of us tolerate the same adverse circumstances with much more serenity than others. My mother endured fifty years of marital stress, polio, cancer, heart disease, gallbladder disease, thyroid disease, and more with relish, grit, high comedy, courage, and selflessness. She was rarely depressed, irritable, or fearful. What was her secret? She had two—she’d inherited her own mother’s nicely balanced brain chemistry, and she always ate lots of the protein that maintained it.
Did you inherit good-mood genes? Many of us didn’t. Over the years, numerous clients have brought in parents, siblings, and children with false mood symptoms very similar to their own. A brief tune-up with amino acids and a dietary “adjustment” was often all that was required to set them right. These experiences taught me how often false moods run in families.
Did you think that your father was hard to be around on purpose or that your mother cried at any upset because she was so weak? These are the kinds of questions that I have learned to ask when exploring the types of negative moods that run in families. My clients have often found the answers to be unexpectedly liberating: Although Anna hated to compare her irritability with her father’s rages, when she realized that they shared a common brain chemistry deficiency, she ended up having new compassion for him and less of a hurtful sense that his abusiveness had been personal to her.
We all know families in which everyone is laid-back and others where no one can slow down; outgoing, cheery families and shy, quiet families; worried, perfectionistic, families and sloppy, low-energy families. Ask yourself as you go through this book, “Do my family members share any of my mood traits?” “Are we the same false mood type?” But you won’t need to worry about being a stick-in-the-mood. Although we used to think that genetic traits were intractable, when it comes to moods, even genetic programming can be reprogrammed remarkably easily by amino acids and other nutrients.
Is It Your Diet? Regardless of your genes, but especially if your mood-programing genes are inefficient, good nutrition is essential. It’s no coincidence that our grandparents’ generation had a more cheerful disposition than ours, although they certainly had their share of wars, depressions, diseases, and other hardships to deal with. The fact is that their diets were better. They were lucky enough to grow up before the junk food invasion and before low-calorie dieting had become a way of life. They ate “three square-meals” a day, including