The thyroid hormones are widely distributed in the central nervous system, and for good reason. These hormones play a critical role to help regulate your mood.
However the connection between thyroid health and changes in mood is not always recognised. For some individuals they can feel as though their life is out of control; they feel apathetic, stressed out and are experiencing mild to severe mood swings.
Emotional complaints are often pushed aside or attributed to stress or anxiety when you have a thyroid disorder. This is despite the fact that when your thyroid is below par it’s common to experience emotional problems, even symptoms of anxiety or depression. For some they can even be given a misdiagnosis of a psychiatric illness.
Ongoing scientific research confirms the link between your thyroid health and thyroid-related mood symptoms. Safeguarding your thyroid health may therefore be the key to help naturally lift your mood.
Your Feel Good Brain Chemicals
The thyroid hormones play a key role in neurotransmitter production. These potent feel good substances are naturally produced by your body to help regulate your mood and behaviour.
The most prominent neurotransmitters include serotonin and noradrenaline. When these neurotransmitters are in balance life feels good and you have an optimistic outlook.
Alterations in serotonin levels within the brain can have a direct effect on your mood and when levels drop it’s possible to feel less than happy, even down in the dumps. That’s because serotonin is the crucial happy neurotransmitter. It also plays a controlling role to assist learning and restorative sleep.
Has Life Lost It’s Romance?
An interesting study conducted by Oxford University found that serotonin influences the perception of intimacy and romance. When researchers lowered serotonin activity in healthy volunteers and showed them photographs of couples the volunteers with lower serotonin activity rated the couples as less romantic than the volunteers with normal serotonin activity.
Keeping Pace in a Busy World
Noradrenaline is produced by the adrenal glands, the small glands situated on top of each kidney. These glands are important to survival as they produce both noradrenaline and cortisol; the critical fight or flight hormones that help your body take charge in stressful situations.
When the adrenals are firing on all cylinders it’s possible to keep up with the demands of a busy lifestyle. However prolonged physical and psychological stress can take a toll on the adrenal glands.
When the adrenals are overworked these glands eventually struggle to keep up with the strain of day-to-day life. Often the first warning signs that the adrenals are reaching breaking point are feelings of ongoing fatigue and a noticeably reduced ability to handle stress. You may remember a time when tense situations did not bother you. Now small things irritate you, and the slightest bit of stress leaves you feeling flat and worn out.
From my clinical experience adrenal fatigue frequently leads to an exhausted thyroid as these two glands are inextricably linked. In fact, the symptoms of adrenal fatigue closely resemble the symptoms of a sluggish thyroid.
Basraon S, Costantine MM. Mood disorders in pregnant women with thyroid dysfunction. Clin Obstet Gynecol. 2011 Sep;54(3):506-14.
Bauer M, London ED, Silverman DH, et al. Thyroid, brain and mood modulation in affective disorder: insights from molecular research and functional brain imaging. Pharmacopsychiatry. 2003 Nov;36 Suppl 3:S215-21.
Pilhatsch,M. Marxen,M. Winter, C. Hypothyroidism and mood disorders: integrating novel insights from brain imaging techniques. Thyroid Res. 2011; 4(Suppl 1): S3.
The Oxford University. Judging couplesâ€™ chemistry influenced by serotonin. Media release 12 March 2011.
Brown, H. For Some, Psychiatric Trouble May Start in Thyroid. The New York Times. Health. November 21, 2011.