This post originally appeared on Pills to Paleo, my former website.

I’ve talked to a lot of people with anxiety and depression, and nearly all of them have experienced some type of trauma: they grew up in abusive or neglectful families, they endured a major loss, they experienced assault, or they witnessed something horrific. In other words, their mental health issues didn’t appear out of thin air — they have very real, painful reasons for feeling the way they do.

If that’s the case, can nutrition really make a difference in their mental health? Don’t these sorts of issues need to be addressed with a therapist or psychiatrist?

The answer is complicated, and it’s different than you might think.

Several years ago, I experienced the worst episode of my life. I slept all day, I drank an entire bottle of wine every night, I would cry and shake for hours on end, and I would snap and scream at my husband. I felt like the whole world was against me, and I knew exactly why: I was finally coming to terms with my trainwreck of a childhood. I was letting myself feel things I’d stuffed away for nearly 15 years.

If someone had told me then that nutrition could help, I’m not sure how I would have reacted. I might have tried to make changes, but then again, I probably would have scoffed: You clearly don’t get it, I would have thought. This isn’t about what I’m eating. This is about some really painful shit that you can’t even begin to understand. 

I feel so much empathy for that girl I once was, and I just want to say this: I totally get it. I really do.

The truth — which I now know because of time, healing, and thousands of hours spent studying — is that it’s very much a chicken-and-egg situation, or a snake-eating-its-tail phenomenon. It’s a vicious cycle, but my stance is this:

Yes, nutrition can provide tremendous help, even if your mental health issues stem from trauma. The reason is that the mind affects the body, and the body affects the mind.

Mind Affects Body: How Depression and Anxiety Cause Physical Symptoms

You spend all day in your head, playing things over and over, wishing for a different past, and being afraid of your future: I can’t live with this pain. It consumes me. I’m worried things will never change, so what’s the point?

You know what’s going on in your mind: rumination, anxiety, and a total sense of hopelessness. But did you know that what’s going on in your mind directly affects your physical body?

Whenever you spend the majority of your time feeling depressed or anxious, you trigger what’s called the “flight or fight” response in your body. Your body — which can’t tell the difference between real, immediate danger and habitual, negative thoughts — gets the message that things aren’t safe and it’s time prepare for the worst. Because of this, you release a hormone called cortisol.

Everyone produces cortisol, and it serves many good purposes. But when we produce too much of it, too often, it can lead to all kinds of problems with our physical health. Here are just a few:

• Adrenal fatigue, which results in low motivation, fatigue, moodiness, and many other symptoms
• High blood pressure
• Blood sugar dysregulation
• Low stomach acid, which leads to an inability to properly break down and absorb nutrients
• Rashes, allergies, and skin issues
• Leaky gut and numerous other digestive disturbances

These are just a few of the biggies, and for the sake of brevity, I’ll keep the list short. The bottom line is that over time, your thoughts can affect your physical body.

To quote Dr. Lissa Rankin, author of Mind Over Medicine, “When the nervous system is in ‘fight or flight,’ the body’s self-repair mechanisms don’t function properly and the body is predisposed to illness.”

Body Affects Mind: How Physical Symptoms Make Your Anxiety and Depression Worse

The opposite is also true: What’s happening in your physical body can affect your emotions.

If you’re experiencing constant exhaustion from adrenal fatigue, that can exacerbate depression. High blood pressure and blood sugar dysregulation can make your already-terrible anxiety shoot through the roof. And if you have digestive issues (constipation, diarrhea, stomach aches, etc.), that can have a huge effect on your mood. In fact, 95 percent of your body’s serotonin — a neurotransmitter that impacts mood — is located in your gut.

Put simply, if you’re already having mood issues, physical symptoms can make them even worse. See how it turns into a never-ending cycle?

Sorting It All Out

Here’s the tricky part: It’s very hard to tell the difference between the anxiety and depression that’s “in your head,” and the anxiety and depression that’s being aggravated by your physical symptoms. They swirl together in a tangly mess and turn into one big monster.

That’s where nutrition comes in. Nutrition can’t erase your past hurts or bring your loved ones back to life. It can’t make the trauma go away. But it can feed and nourish your body, and in turn drastically improve those physical symptoms that contribute to your mood issues.

I found that when I changed my diet, my mood improved by a whopping 70 percent. This REALLY surprised me. My trauma is big, bad, and scary. I had no idea how much my physical symptoms and malnutrition were contributing to my feelings.

Yes: I still have trauma, insecurities, and heartbreak that I work through on a day-to-day basis. But the work is so much easier now that the fog is cleared. Today, I know the difference between the anxiety I feel when I eat too much sugar, and the anxiety I feel because of stressful situations. Before, it was one big ball of crazy emotion, and it made me feel powerless.

Today, I know that I have power. And without good nutrition, I wouldn’t be in the same place.

Break the Cycle: Use a Multi-Pronged Approach

Nutrition isn’t the only tool I’ve used on my path to healing, and I would never claim that it can fix everything. However, it’s a huge piece of the puzzle, and I think it’s extremely overlooked.

If you’re currently struggling with mental health issues that stem from trauma, I suggest a combination of whole-foods-based nutrition, therapy, and if you’re open to it, other alternative approaches, such as acupuncture or cranial-sacral therapy.

Combining different healing modalities can help you get to the root of your issues faster, so you can feel better sooner.

Have a question about nutrition and mental health? Let me know in the comments!