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Since the Global Pandemic began in 2020, anxiety has surged. 25% of adults reported an increase in anxiety when Covid began. Since then, despite the decrease in anxiety about Covid, people are reporting feeling more anxiety over the previous year in the American Psychiatric Association’s annual mental health survey. 43% felt more anxious in 2024 up from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022.
Anxiety is having a big impact on our mental health but few doctors look at a person’s diet to help them reduce it. Nevertheless, people are discovering that lifestyle changes especially in their diet can help reduce their anxiety.
In a survey of over 1700 Teeccino drinkers, anxiety was the third top reason why people quit drinking coffee. The first reason, caffeine sensitivity, was reported by 67% of respondents and the second reason, acid reflux / GERD, was selected by 43%. Although anxiety and stress was chosen by only 17% of survey participants as the reason why they quit coffee, 28% of all respondents reported that their anxiety and stress was reduced by drinking caffeine-free Teeccino.
But was it just the reduction in caffeine that caused their stress reduction? With so much research being done on the gut -brain axis and how the gut influences mental health, it is possible that Teeccino’s prebiotic support of beneficial micro-organisms in the microbiome has played a role in reducing anxiety too.
Caffeine-induced anxiety disorder
Caffeine-induced anxiety disorder (CIAD) is an actual diagnosis listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) which is the authority for psychiatric diagnosis in the USA. With 400g or more of caffeine like you can consume in two Starbucks Caffe Americano Grandes, a sudden onset of a panic attack can be triggered in the general population. For people who are sensitive to caffeine, their nervous system can react to much smaller doses of caffeine, which stimulates the sympathetic nervous system to activate the fight or flight response to produce stress hormones like cortisol.
Heart palpitations, sweating or clamminess, restlessness, nausea and increases in breath rate can all be caused by too much caffeine. These caffeine side effects mimic anxiety symptoms and can make the body believe it is having a panic attack. With so many diverse sources of caffeine, which is frequently unlabeled in food and beverages, it isn’t hard to consume too much caffeine without realizing it until it’s too late. Unfortunately, many people don’t associate their anxious feelings or panic attacks with their coffee drinking.
The influence of the gut-brain axis on anxiety
Many common expressions about our gut are used daily that show how anxiety affects our stomachs. Often people have a ‘good or bad feeling in their gut’ when they register a reaction just below the threshold of their conscious thoughts. Anxiety is commonly expressed through sayings such as “I have butterflies in my stomach” or “I feel sick to my stomach”.
Though we’ve known for centuries that we feel anxiety in our stomachs, the extent of the influence that the gut and brain have on each other and the surprising role of the microbiome in mental health is only recently being extensively examined.
Scientific studies on the relationship between the gut, the microbiome, and the brain, reveal that all three are actively influencing each other via the left and right vagal nerves that conduct communication for the parasympathetic nervous system between the brain, the heart and the digestive system. The vagal nerves play an important role in digestion, heart rate and mood along with immune system responses, all of which can influence feelings of anxiety.
Both the brain and the intestinal microbiota are responsible for the production of dopamine, GABA, and serotonin, our feel-good neurotransmitters. ‘Bidirectional cross talk’ along the vagal nerves between the gut microbiota and brain cells affects both brain function and the composition and function of the microbiome.
DNA analysis of the microbiome has shown that people who are diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) have a less diverse microbiome and a prevalence of some species that may be responsible for increased anxiety. A lower population of species that produce Short Chain Fatty Acids (SCFA) is also found in people who have GAD. SCFAs travel along the vagal nerves to induce beneficial metabolic effects such as reducing inflammation, producing serotonin and other hormones that are beneficial to mental health and the immune system.
Reducing anxiety through diet
If you are battling anxiety, step one is clearly to eliminate caffeine from your daily routine. Once you’ve weaned yourself off of caffeine, you’ll be less anxious and your sleep will improve. Follow the Teeccino Kick the Caffeine Habit Program and you won’t experience uncomfortable side effects like fatigue, headaches and irritability from quitting caffeine.
Beyond that, a healthy gut microbiome can have an immensely beneficial effect on your mental health. Taking a probiotic that includes a wide assortment of those species that ferment prebiotics to create SCFAs can help restore your gut microbiome if it has been disrupted by antibiotics, prescription drugs or toxic chemicals in the environment.
Inulin is a prebiotic found in chicory root and in smaller amounts in other common foods like onions, garlic and artichokes. Inulin is fermented by lactobacillus and bifidus species to produce SCFAs. Other oligosaccharides like the two found in Teeccino’s Prebiotic SuperBoost blends, XOS and GOS, also support those SCFA-producing gut microbes. Importantly, prebiotics also nourish species that are anaerobic and thus can’t be taken as a probiotic supplement.
Eating foods rich in prebiotic fibers and drinking chicory-based beverages like Teeccino that naturally contain inulin help to support a diversity of probiotics in your gut for a healthy, diverse microbiome and thus better mental health.
