In A Nutshell
If you suffer from social anxiety, new research suggests that there might be a safer alternative to any medication that can be prescribed, which is found in your fridge. Fermented foods like pickles, yogurt, and sauerkraut contain probiotics that seem to act in much the same way as some prescription medications do, altering the brain is neurotransmitters. Studies found that students who frequently eat fermented foods were less likely to suffer from social anxiety, even when their high scores on the neurotic scale suggested they should be more prone to it.
The Whole Bushel
Social anxiety is one of the most important and most far-reaching psychological conditions in the world. It is estimated that around 7 percent of the population suffers from it at any given time. As much as 14 percent of people have it at one time or another.
It’s characterized by irrational anxiety triggered by certain types of social situations. Those situations vary from person to person and can include speaking in front of a group, using a public bath, or eating in front of other people.
It all stems from a fear that others are evaluating you, that impressions are being formed, and that you are standing out from the crowd as somehow different or wrong.
For some people, it can be so bad that it is crippling. There is a whole host of suggestions for people who suffer from one of its various forms, from consulting with a therapist to gradually exposing yourself to situations that make you anxious, a little bit at a time, and building up a tolerance to the things that you might find terrifying.
Research shows another way to help fight anxiety, and if you like pickles, you’re in luck.
According to researchers from the College of William & Mary and the University of Maryland School of Social Work, people who regularly eat fermented foods seemed better equipped to deal with social situations and were less likely to suffer from social anxiety. That included foods like pickles, yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, and fermented soy milk.
As weird as it sounds, it is building on something we’re already familiar with.
They looked at the relationship between the probiotics that seven hundred students were regularly exposed to and compared that to their anxiety levels. Previous studies already suggested a correlation between diet, probiotics, gut bacteria, and a reduction of anxiety and depression in animals. The studies seem to indicate that foods were increasing the GABA in the subjects’ systems. Gamma-aminobutyric acid is the neurotransmitter that anti-anxiety medication focuses on, and the work has shown that some probiotics have the same effects as prescription medications.
The data came from surveys handed out to a cross-sectional of students, and it also showed that the students who were most likely to benefit from the presence of the good bacteria of fermented foods in their diet were also those who scored high on the “neurotic” scale, making them more prone to social anxiety than their peers.
At a glance, it may seem a bit far-fetched that scarfing down some pickles before a big presentation might help you feel more comfortable.
However, plenty of studies out there support the apparent influence our gut bacteria have on what’s going on in our heads and bodies.
The National Institutes of Health have some pretty staggering numbers regarding the bacterial cells in our bodies: They outnumber our human cells by about ten to one. We are made up of millions of bacterial genes, too, so adding the right kind into our systems when we need it the most seems like a logical thing to do in that context.
Source
https://socialanxietyinstitute.org/what-is-social-anxiety
http://theplate.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/18/feeling-anxious-have-a-pickle/
http://psychcentral.com/lib/6-ways-to-overcome-social-anxiety/
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