Vitamin D Can Improve Mental Health

Did you know that vitamin D for mental health?

In addition to maintaining a healthy physical condition, maintaining a mental condition is an inseparable part of living a healthy life. Vitamin D is one of the nutrients needed to maintain physical and mental health. The brain, as an organ that affects how a person behaves, has several receptors for vitamin D. This is why the adequacy of vitamin D will affect our brain or mental.

Read: The Connection between Vitamin D and Cognitive Decline

The Importance of Mental Health

Mental health is closely related to emotional and psychological conditions. These two components determine how he thinks, feels, and behaves in everyday life. In addition, mental health also determines how a person deals with stress and socializes with others.

Although mental health is influenced by many things, a person's biological mechanisms such as genetics and brain work also affect a person's mental processes. In addition, it is not uncommon for various physical conditions in us to cause us to think and behave abnormally or experience mental illness. One of them is depression.

Mental health disorders: depression

Depression is a mental illness that can be caused by various factors, one of which is a person's physical condition. Although it does not cause direct bodily dysfunction, depression is still categorized as a serious illness that can worsen a person's physical health condition. Depression can be triggered by conditions of stress or sadness caused by various social and health problems. Depression is characterized by easily recognizable behavioral changes, such as not appearing happy and withdrawing from social circles.

Depression is also the most common type of mental illness because it has various risk factors, including:

1. Hormonal disorders and chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease or cancer can cause a person to experience excessive sadness.
2. Unhealthy lifestyle – habits such as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, obesity, and lack of physical activity make it more difficult for a person to deal with stress.
3. Women - women more often experience emotional disorders that cause depression.
4. Old age – various physical and life changes in the age range of 45-64 years cause a person to experience confusion and lose self-confidence and cause depression.

How Vitamin D Can Improve Mental Health

The benefits of vitamin D in maintaining mental health have been studied for more than a decade. The results of one study stated that low levels of vitamin D in the body were associated with the appearance of symptoms of depression in the elderly. Meanwhile, other studies have also shown that giving vitamin D reduces the number of symptoms experienced by people with depression. The condition of depression caused by Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) that occurs in winter is also associated with low levels of vitamin D in the body.

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is needed at every level of body function. Every tissue in the body has receptors for vitamin D, including the brain. In the brain, vitamin D receptors are located in the same part of the brain that gives depression effects. Therefore, vitamin D deficiency will have an impact on physical and mental health. Vitamin D also functions to activate the immune system and release the hormones dopamine and serotonin which affect brain function and development.

In addition, vitamin D may have an anti-depressant effect on the brain. Vitamin D can affect levels of monoamine hormones needed by the brain. This is the same way some types of anti-depressant drugs work to increase monoamine hormones in the brain to treat depression.

Although mental health disorders such as depression are caused by various things, vitamin D intake is still needed to improve brain function. Depression can be exacerbated by an imbalance of brain hormones. The consumption of vitamin D, will accelerate the recovery of brain work and relieve symptoms of depression.