Brain Chemistry 101: The Missing Nutrients Behind Your Mood, Cravings & Sleep

Ever find yourself battling anxiety spirals, brain fog, relentless cravings, or sleepless nights filled with ruminating thoughts? These aren’t random, they’re signs your brain chemicals are running low on the key nutrients needed for balance.

How the Gut–Brain Axis Works

Think of your gut and brain like best friends constantly chatting; what happens in one often affects the other. Your gut microbiome (the trillions of good bacteria and microbes in your digestive system) sends signals to the brain via nerves and chemicals. When you eat whole, minimally processed foods rich in fiber, nutrients, and healthy fats, you nourish this microbiome and send positive mood signals. But when your diet is packed with ultra-processed foods (UPFs), it disrupts the conversation.

Other factors, like stress, also affect how your gut biome talks to your brain. When you’re under chronic stress, your body produces more cortisol (your main stress hormone). Cortisol can shift the balance of gut microbes, weakening the “good guys” and allowing less friendly bacteria to thrive. This imbalance can increase gut permeability (often called “leaky gut”), which sends distress signals up the vagus nerve to the brain. The result? Heightened anxiety, low mood, trouble sleeping, and even more food cravings.

In other words, stress doesn’t just live in your head, it physically changes your gut environment, which then feeds back into your brain chemistry. That’s why calming practices like breathwork, yoga, walking in nature, or even mindful eating can be just as important for mental health as what’s on your plate.

What exactly are UPFs?

Ultra-processed foods are industrially made products that often come with long ingredient lists you wouldn’t recognize at home. They’re designed to taste amazing (hello, addictive!), include preservatives, artificial colors or sweeteners, and are built for convenience, not nutrition. Common UPFs include:

• Ready meals (think frozen dinners, microwaveable meals)

• Sugary breakfast cereals, flavored yogurts, energy bars

• Sodas, chips, packaged cookies and crackers

• Chicken nuggets, instant noodles, soft drinks

Because they’re high in sugar, salt, bad fats, and additives, and also low in fiber and real nutrients, they cause blood sugar rollercoasters, fuel inflammation, and feed unhealthy gut microbes. This imbalance can damage your metabolic health (like insulin control and energy) and hurt your mental health.

A large study, Consumption of Ultraprocessed Food and Risk of Depression, found that people who ate the most UPFs had a 50% higher risk of depression compared to those who ate the least.

The Five Brain “Chemicals” You Need—and What Happens When They’re Missing

Here are the five brain players I focus on, how they operate, and how they tie into conditions like anxiety, OCD, ADHD, panic, ruminating thoughts, intense cravings, and more:

1. Serotonin – Balances mood, supports sleep, and controls cravings. Made from tryptophan and B-vitamins in your gut.

   • Deficiency = anxiety, panic, depression, obsessive thoughts, sleep trouble, cravings.

2. GABA – Calms the nervous system and soothes stress. Produced from glutamine and magnesium.

   • Deficiency = panic attacks, jitteriness, physical stress, restless nights, cravings.

3. Endorphins – Natural mood lifters and pain relievers. Built from quality protein and healthy fats.

   • Deficiency = low pain tolerance, emotional “flatness,” difficulty bouncing back, cravings.

4. Catecholamines (dopamine, norepinephrine) – Drive focus, motivation, and mental energy. Need tyrosine, iron, B-vitamins.

   • Deficiency = ADHD-like symptoms, lack of motivation, poor concentration.

5. Balanced Blood Glucose – Foundation for steady energy and mood. Depends on fiber, protein, and healthy fats.

   • Imbalance = energy crashes, mental fog, irritability.

Why Ultra-Processed Foods Are Undermining Your Brain

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) may be convenient, but they’re leaving our brains undernourished. As Julia Ross explains, “Nutrient-poor, low protein diets… starve the brain of the specific nutrients it needs to generate positive moods. That leaves us with ‘false moods’: unnecessary feelings of depression and anxiety and the attraction to temporary mood-boosts from chocolate, pasta, alcohol, or drugs.” In other words, instead of giving us real emotional balance, UPFs trick our brain into craving quick highs that never last.

Ross also reminds us that it doesn’t have to be this way. By restoring the missing building blocks through amino acids and protein, “our neurotransmitters [can] broadcast natural sensations of happiness and satisfaction that no brain-altering junk foods, including chocolate, can override.” Real food provides the raw materials that no processed snack can truly replace.

This concern is echoed by Dr. Robert Lustig, who warns that the stakes are far higher than cravings alone. “Ultra-processed food consumption is associated with depression in people,” he notes, pointing to the growing body of evidence linking UPFs to declining mental health.

Nutrition expert Marion Nestle has long pointed out that the food industry’s goals are not aligned with public health. In her words, “Food companies are not social service agencies; they are businesses with primary fiduciary responsibility to stockholders. Their job is to sell products, not to promote health. Whatever they say about health is only to sell their products.” (Food Politics, 2002). This helps explain why ultra-processed foods are engineered to be irresistible, even when they undermine our metabolic and mental wellbeing.

Putting It All Together

Think of your brain as a high-performance engine. It can’t run smoothly on cheap, processed fuel. When your daily diet is loaded with UPFs, you miss out on the amino acids, vitamins, and minerals your neurotransmitters need to fire. The result? An engine that splutters — showing up as anxiety, panic, restless nights, ADHD-like focus issues, or intense cravings that feel impossible to tame.

The good news is you can swap the fuel. Every time you choose real protein, vibrant plants, and healthy fats over a packaged snack, you’re literally rebuilding the chemistry that drives your mood, sleep, and motivation. Your brain doesn’t just need calories — it needs quality instructions from food to create calm, focus, and joy.

Simple Steps You Can Take Today

• Switch to whole foods: Build meals around protein, colourful vegetables, and healthy fats.

• Include protein at every meal: This feeds serotonin, GABA, endorphins, and catecholamine production.

• Pile on fibre-rich plants: They keep your microbiome — and your mood — balanced.

• Notice how food feels: Keep a short food-mood diary. Did that snack leave you calm, or edgy?

• Swap one UPF at a time: Replace sugary snacks with nuts or fruit, or trade soda for sparkling water with citrus.

✨ Is your brain running the show instead of you? If mood swings, relentless cravings, restless nights, or stubborn weight have you feeling hijacked, you don’t have to keep pushing through alone. Your brain chemistry can be rebuilt with the right nutrients, strategies, and support.

💡 Book a Strategy Call today and let’s uncover what’s driving your symptoms. Together we’ll map out a clear, root-cause plan so you can feel calm, focused, and back in control.

References:

Study on UPFs and Depression

• Wang, Yanping, et al. Consumption of Ultraprocessed Food and Risk of Depression Among US Adults. JAMA Network Open. 2023;6(9):e2334552. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.34552

• Robert H. Lustig, Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition, and Modern Medicine (2021)

• Julia Ross, The Mood Cure: The 4-Step Program to Take Charge of Your Emotions—Today (2002).

• Julia Ross, The Diet Cure: The 8-Step Program to Rebalance Your Body Chemistry and End Food Cravings, Weight Problems, and Mood Swings—Now (2012, revised edition).

• Nestle, Marion. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. University of California Press, 2002.