Experiencing a period of intense stress can totally alter our daily lives, engulfing us in a toxic malaise. In these negative periods, we rarely think about eating healthy foods for our body and on the contrary, we tend to let ourselves be invaded by cravings that are often too sweet or too salty. Isn't it rare to end your evening at a fast food restaurant due to lack of time, desire and energy?

In order to help us live as healthily as possible during these low periods of our lives, health specialists - whether psychiatrists or medical doctors - often opt for medications such as anxiolytics, antidepressants or sleeping pills. Naturopaths, on the other hand, will focus their advice more on a change in lifestyle, health and by providing dietary recommendations to consume foods that repair.

Nutritherapy is an essential health field and yet it is often left behind, wrongly so.

Focus on amino acids.

Amino acids are the building blocks of most body tissues. Among other things, because they participate in the synthesis of neurotransmitters. Therefore, they are essential for all metabolic processes.

Our body, through its homeostasis process, will constantly try to maintain a perfect balance of our amino acid reserves. Unfortunately, our lifestyles and health disruptive factors prevent the proper assimilation and manufacture of these.

Note that there are 24 amino acids of which 8 are essential:

• Isoleucine
• Valine
• Leucine
• Lysine
• Methionine
• Threonine
• Phenylalanine
• Tryptophan
• Valine

They are said to be essential because they cannot be manufactured by the body and must be provided by the diet.

Some of them are very important for the nervous balance and for the fight against depression, see below:

• The phenylalanine is a precursor to tyrosine and contributes to optimal functioning in the depressed state. It participates in the synthesis of dopamine (L-dopa), adrenaline and noradrenaline which are 3 substances essential to the good nervous transmission.

It is found in the following foods:

• cereals and cereal products
• Legumes
• Meat and poultry
• The vegetables
• Cheeses and other dairy products
• Oats
• Wheat germ
• Nuts and seeds
• Seaweed
• The fruits

If the needs are very important or if there is a deficiency, they will be brought via food supplements. However, they are not recommended for pregnant and breastfeeding women, people suffering from diabetes, hypertension or psychosis. Be careful if you are being treated for depression, as interactions with IMA (monoamine oxidase) antidepressants are possible.

• The tryptophan , used for its action in depression by the English psychiatrist Coppen in 1963, this amino acid is biologically active in its L-Levorotatory form. The deficiencies in this amino acid are very numerous due to the impoverishment of our food; consequently the food complements are essential for the people who suffer from a lack in tryptophan.
  Moreover, this amino acid is used by our organization to manufacture the serotonin, a neurotransmitter which a very important role in the disorders of the mood but also in the disorders of the food behaviour (mainly the compulsions and the dependences), among other things.
  One will be able to consequently use this amino acid to stabilize the mood.

It is found in the following foods:

• The almonds
• Peanuts
• Brown rice
• Soybeans
• Cheeses
• The eggs
• The fish

A nutritherapy assessment is often indispensable because it allows us to solve health problems by simply modifying our meals or by including an adapted food supplement. The latter are sometimes indispensable, especially when there is a deficiency and the diet is not adapted to the essential needs.