3 Ways To Take Care Of Your Gut To Prevent (Eco-)Depression
How microorganisms can help keep us mentally healthy
Credit: This article is based on two scientific articles by Agata Chudzik and Samantha K. Stanley and their colleagues. (Full citations and link available at the end of the article)
Climate change is already having devastating consequences in the world. One of these consequences is extreme weather events, which impact nature, ecosystems, and humans in many ways. For example, people who have experienced an extreme weather event are more likely to get depressed (further reading: How Extreme Climate Events Impact Mental Health). And also people who didn’t experience it yet but are aware of what can happen, are more likely to get depressed. This is called eco-depression. This is very unfortunate in many ways, for example because being mentally healthy is important for being able to and being motivated to care for our environment.
Luckily, we can influence our mental health by taking care of ourselves continuously. One way to do this is by improving our gut health by taking care of the microorganisms in our gut. These microorganisms include bacteria, viruses, and fungi and their number is almost as large as the number of human cells.
