EPISODE 13 – Thought: How do We Make Serotonin & Positive Psychology

Welcome to the final episode of the Unstress Lab Series. If you are here, well done. Over the past 12 episodes, we have covered just some of the key areas to help you on your journey to developing a more holistic approach to your health and life.

In the final episode of the series and the final episode of the Think pillar, we will be exploring mental health. With one in five (20%) Australians aged 16-85 experiencing a mental illness in any given year, mental health is an aspect of health that we felt integral to explore in our health model.

In the interests of taking a more holistic view of mental health, the first half of this episode we will be looking at mental health from a nutritional perspective in a conversation with Professor Julia Rucklidge, a clinical psychologist, researcher and Professor at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch NZ.

IN our conversation we cover an overview of the current state of mental health in our modern world, her book “The Better Brain and How Nutrition Will Help You Overcome Anxiety, Depression, ADHD and Stress”, how we make serotonin and we take a wider approach to look at the difference between pharmacological interventions vs nutritional lifestyle habits to improve mental health.

In the second half of this episode, we talk to Suzy Green, the CEO of The Positivity Institute. We explore the idea of positive psychology, explain The PERMA model, the impact technology is having on our relationships and how you can integrate the PERMA model in your own life.