New Study Finds Link Betwe
en Good Nutrition and Addiction Recovery
The Mental Health Foundation has found that food can have lasting and powerful effect on one’s sense of well-being, often felt immediately. A good diet, therefore, can play an integral role in the treatment of such mental health disorders as depression, schizophrenia, ADHD, and others.
Mental health disorders that are all contributing factors in substance abuse and addiction.
Thus, a careful and well-balanced diet can be an important aspect of one’s recovery. Food has the power to invoke memories of comfort, security, and happiness as we are transported to a different time and place. The tastes and smells of the foods we eat can help us cope with our feelings of sadness, loneliness, and even longing.
Beyond the emotional side-effects of our meals, studies have found that certain neurotransmitters, primarily dopamine, serotonin, and GABA (gammma-aminobutyric acid), hop between nerve cells carrying vital and very pleasurable signals as they go. Some addictive drugs mimic their actions. Other addictive drugs enhance them. Either way the body tends, as a result, to give up making these neurotransmitters.
At that point the person needs the addictive drug as a substitute for the missing transmitter–i.e. are physically addicted.
At Heritage Home, this improved understanding of the biochemistry of addiction is being translated into improvements in our treatment. Heritage’s approach recognizes, respects, and works with, the biochemistry underlying drug addiction to improve the recovery addiction process.
Our tools in this case are not therapies but dietary changes. The dietician and chefs at Heritage incorporate local and sustainable foods into the cuisine, rich in the precursors of these lost transmitters. This boosts the level of neurotransmitters in the braind, thereby reducing cravings.
When nutritional therapy is combined with psychotherapy one’s drug rehab recovery is significantly (and deliciously) improved.