Table of Contents
What is my personality?
Your personality simply refers to your patterns of thoughts, emotions, and behavior. The purpose of this page is too merely bring your attention to the importance of nutrition not only to brain health (as an organ) but also to the potential influences for your personality traits.
For over five decades, there has been a tremendous amount of scientific research published in peer-reviewed journals about the effects of nutrition producing positive and negative personality traits.
Keep in mind, there are roughly 638 different personality traits (ideonomy.mit.edu). Of these, 234 are positive, 112 are neutral, and 292 or almost half are negative traits. Again, nutrition plays empirical roles throughout.
Question: Have you ever wondered how you can smile, be cheerful, gregarious, likable, respected, and appear to be genuine with anyone in your presence yet on the inside your mental thoughts and emotions may be filled with anger, frustration, criticism, fear, judgmentalism, envy, guilt, and a long list of other negative thoughts and emotions? Read on!
Note: As with all topics on this website, this applies to children as well.
What affects my personality?
Numerous factors affect your personality that include diet, environmental exposures, metabolic activity, disease processes, drugs, neurological activity, endocrine activity, physiological needs, stress, immune function, genetics, and even your thoughts and emotions effect your biochemistry.Some factors you can control and others you can’t. Let’s address a few major factors you can control that includes:
- Diet/Malnutrition
- Toxins
- Stress
- Thoughts and Emotions
Diet/Malnutrition (subclinical):
As seen in Malnutrition, nutrient excesses and deficiencies will ultimately affect your mental and/or physical health. Scientific research has clearly revealed how nutrient excesses and deficiencies of amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals can effect proper brain development (Family Planning), health, and functioning.
Albeit the “blood-brain barrier” is always a topic of discussion for nutrients (and toxins), every nutrient (or toxin) is subject to myriad factors (i.e., poor digestion, medications, nutrient interrelationships, etc.) long before it reaches or passes through the blood-brain barrier.
Because proper nutrition (specific to your unique nutritional needs) is the cornerstone for mental and physical health, we recommend taking a moment to read Healthy Foods.
Unequivocally, nutrient excesses as well as nutrient deficiencies influence your personality because they interfere with the nutrient transport systems. Your thoughts and emotions (personality) are nutrient based!
Toxins:
Every toxin (toxic elements, chemical toxins, nutritional toxins, or metabolic toxins) possess the potential to effect brain function. Toxic elements, such as mercury, arsenic, cadmium, aluminum, and others have been studied sufficiently to declare these natural elements as toxic.
Unfortunately, due to the overwhelming amount of chemicals in your life, very few of the over 80,000 chemicals have been studied for safety let alone the potential adverse effects to the mind and body. Science does not know what they do to you nor do they understand the detoxification processes. As you may realize, chemical sensitivities are increasing.
Nutritional toxins are the result of nutrient excesses. As any nutrient becomes excessive, it becomes a burden to the body; however, at some point an additional excess can become toxic. Every nutrient works with myriad other nutrients and an excess of any nutrient can cause or contribute toward deficiencies of myriad other nutrients they actually need to work.
“In brain, copper is of importance for normal development. In addition, both copper deficiency as well as excess of copper can seriously affect brain functions.” Progress in Neurobiology
Metabolic toxins normally result due to the lack of specific nutrients required to complete the reduction and clearance processes of any naturally occurring toxic byproduct throughout any metabolic pathway.
Stress:
As seen in Stress, each stage of stress, whether physical or mental stressors, creates tremendous demands on your nutrient balance. Simply put, stress creates nutrient excesses and deficiencies throughout all essential (and nonessential) nutrients that include amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals. As such, your personality could be effected by a deficiency or an excess of any (or many) of these nutrients.
Because it is difficult to recognize your level or stage of stress (thanks to your ability to adapt), we always recommend a nutritional stress test. This helps reveal your nutrient excesses and deficiencies that may be due to stress. Keep in mind, a nutrient excess can be just as detrimental as a nutrient deficiency.
Your Thoughts and Emotions:
Interestingly, your thoughts and emotions possess a tremendous power to constantly influence or even dramatically change your biochemistry, and due to the biphasic effect, your resulting biochemistry is now effecting your personality!
Keep in mind, we know about the psychosomatic effect, the somatopsychic effect, the gut-brain connection, and endless other connections that basically eliminate the continual separation of the mind and the body. Absolutely everything is connected from top to bottom – cell to cell.
However, here are two research articles from The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that reveal excellent information and graphics that help show the different areas throughout the mind and body that are effected by a variety of both your positive and negative thought and emotions.
Bodily maps of emotions, https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1321664111
Maps of subjective feelings, https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1807390115
These two articles are worth a few minutes of your time!
Your metabolism provides insight into your personality traits.
Your metabolism reveals a plethora of information including your potential personality traits. Your neuroendocrine systems (sympathetic and parasympathetic) are controlling factors of your metabolism and as such, each system directly affects your nutritional status. Each system, through complex mechanisms, will increase or decrease nutrient retention, excretion, or utilization of myriad nutrients. As such, it is important your neuroendocrine systems remain dynamically balanced. As revealed by a hair analysis, your metabolism will normally consist of myriad nutritional minerals that are excessive and deficient. This includes toxic elements as well.
Minerals, as with most nutrients can be classified as stimulatory, sedative, or transitional. This not only affects your physical traits but your psychological or personality traits as well. In essence, a dominance of either stimulatory or sedative nutrients affects your personality.
For example, a fast metabolism (sympathetic neuroendocrine dominance) normally reveals the dominance of several stimulatory nutrients. This may result in personality traits that include:
- Type A personality
- Anxiety
- Fear
- Sexually aggressive
- Compulsive or risky behaviors
- Futuristic
On the other hand, a slow metabolism (parasympathetic neuroendocrine dominance) normally reveals the dominance of several sedative nutrients. This may result in personality traits that include:
- Type B personality
- Lack of confidence
- Low sex drive
- Depression
- Fatigue
- Lives in the past
Obviously, with over 600 personality traits, this is a small sampling but reveals how your metabolism influences your personality traits.
In addition, a hair analysis reveals the presence of toxic elements. Toxic elements interfere with absorption and/or utilization of nutritional elements. This in turn influences your metabolism and personality traits.
Nutrition and common personality traits.
Let’s explore this a little deeper with one of the more recognized essential minerals.
“It is high time evolutionary approaches to violence are expanded to include the possibilities that violence may be triggered by nutritionally depleted foods, reactive hypoglycemia caused by habitual intake of foods with a high glycemic index (GI), food allergies/intolerances and exposure to new environmental toxins (heavy metals, synthetic poisons).”
Mysterud, I., & Poleszynski, D. V. (2003). Expanding Evolutionary Psychology: toward a Better Understanding of Violence and Aggression. Social Science Information, 42(1), 5–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018403042001791
Calcium is the most publicized and over-consumed essential mineral today! Calcium plays hundreds of important roles for health; however, calcium (as well as all essential nutrients) also affects your personality.
Calcium can be classified as a sedative nutrient. Excessive calcium can potentially result in personality traits that include:
- Defensiveness
- Apathy
- Introversion
- Withdrawal
- Rigidity
- Depression
- Over sensitive (a huge problem today)
On the other hand, a deficiency of calcium can potentially result in personality traits that include:
- Irritability
- Aggressiveness
- Hostility
- Anxiety
- Nervousness
- Tension
- Short-tempered
- Extroversion
- Under sensitive
This was just one example of a sedative nutrient; however, an excess or deficiency of any nutrient (e.g., a vitamin, amino acid, fatty acid, etc.) can produce myriad personality traits as well. This is one reason all “dietary” recommendations and supplements must be formulated by understanding nutrient interrelationships and your nutrient excesses and deficiencies.
Have you noticed; America is becoming an angrier nation!
Almost every day, you hear about someone committing violent atrocities. School shootings, military base shootings, shopping centers, religious communities, fast food restaurants, serial killers, and an endless amount of senseless acts of violence now permeate our society and the media.
Think for a moment, as the “experts” crawl out of the woodwork and into the media, not one ever mentions nutrition!
What does nutrition have to do with violence?
Do you realize that over the past four decades, numerous nutritional studies have been conducted on both adult and juvenile violent criminals? Yet, with all this “scientific proof” and still not one mention of the importance of proper nutrition and mental functioning!
In addition, studies have shown (repeatedly) that nutrition can be helpful when it comes to many serious disorders. These include:
- Depression
- Bipolar disorder
- Schizophrenia
- Eating disorders and anxiety disorders
- Attention deficit disorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD)
- Autism
- Dyslexia
- Addiction
Obviously, many factors are involved in societal problems that extent beyond nutrition. However, in our opinion, as long as fast and processed foods remain dietary staples, negative personality traits will continue to grow.
Note: This section about anger is from firsthand experience, not insensitivity. On May 21, 1998, both of my (Alan’s) children were on campus during the Thurston High School shooting where 2 students were killed and 25 others wounded. The shooter killed both his parents the day before.
“On the basis of accumulating scientific evidence, an effective therapeutic intervention is emerging, namely nutritional supplement/treatment. These may be appropriate for controlling and to some extent, preventing depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, eating disorders and anxiety disorders, attention deficit disorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD), autism, and addiction.” (See references)
Rao TS, Asha MR, Ramesh BN, Rao KS. Understanding nutrition, depression and mental illnesses. Indian J Psychiatry. 2008 Apr;50(2):77-82. doi: 10.4103/0019-5545.42391. PMID: 19742217; PMCID: PMC2738337. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19742217/
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