In This Issue:

• ​The Most Diagnosed Mental Health Condition Is Actually A Survival Response​
• ​Skipping Breakfast May Be Fuelling Your Anxiety​
• ​Quote Of The Issue​

The Most Diagnosed Mental Health Condition Is Actually A Survival Response

Anxiety is now the most diagnosed mental health condition in the world. But the dominant narrative around it is both outdated and disempowering. We’re told it's a genetic condition that results in a chemical imbalance, but the truth is far more hopeful and … far more human.

Anxiety is not inherited the way we inherit eye colour. It is passed down through what’s called the inheritance of acquired characteristics. In other words, what your parents lived through - from wars to famine, abuse, neglect, migration, loss - shaped how they operated and responded to stress. And they passed down those adaptations to their children.

Anxiety is not a broken brain or a faulty gene. It is a mind-body state stuck in chronic fight-flight, like a fire alarm that never stops blaring, never getting the signal that the danger had passed. This chronic sympathetic activation changes everything: how we breathe, digest, sleep, think, and has system-wide effects, from heart disease, to inflammation and blood sugar problems. Over time, anxiety alters hormonal rhythms and metabolic pathways. It is a full-body experience, not just a mental one.

Skipping Breakfast May Be Fuelling Your Anxiety

Chronic anxiety doesn’t just affect how you feel, it changes how your body runs. When someone struggles with anxiety, their stress response system (the part that manages threats) can get thrown off. This makes it harder for the body to respond normally when blood sugar drops - something that should be a quick, smooth correction. Instead, the body either overreacts (unleashing an adrenaline tsunami and making anxiety worse) or doesn’t respond enough.

When this happens over and over, especially with skipped meals or sugar crashes, it can keep the body stuck in “fight-or-flight” mode. That constant tension messes with hormones, throws off blood sugar balance, and makes the body more inflamed and less sensitive to insulin over time.

Chronic anxiety can wear out the systems that keep your blood sugar steady, paving the way for insulin resistance and long-term metabolic issues. It’s not just emotional - your body is caught in the storm too.

If you suffer from anxiety, especially as a woman, stop skipping breakfast.

• If you are struggling with anxiety, and you still get your period (meaning you are not menopausal), extending your overnight fast past 12 hours - especially by skipping your morning meal - can backfire.
• While intermittent fasting may seem like a quick fix for things like weight loss, most of the research was done on young men, not women with complex hormonal rhythms. In women, skipping breakfast can disrupt reproductive hormones, worsen PMS, destabilize metabolism, and intensify anxiety.
• Your body reads the missed meal as a stress signal, which raises cortisol and often leads to energy crashes and overeating later in the day.

Quote Of The Issue

“Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action”. - Walter Anderson

Action for the remainder of the week:
​Nourish yourself within an hour of waking to raise your threshold for feeling anxious so you can feel safe enough to use, not store, energy.

​

Dr. Dominika Zarzeczny Naturopathic Doctor ​ 📧 hello@drdominika.com​ 🌐 www.drdominika.com​ ​​​

​
​Unsubscribe · Preferences • Milverton Blvd., Toronto, ON M4C 1X4