Anyone that has children will tell you that they can be your greatest teachers, especially when you least expect it. Their issues (and they do have plenty of them that arise from time to time) force you to be a more responsible person and take better care of yourself so you can take better care of them.

I have written a couple of articles about my two sons, Jakob and Jaxson, and how I was able to improve on some of the issues they were having through the use of genetic testing to identify genetic mutations and then implementing the use of nutritional supplementation to overcome those mutations. This process has proven time and time again to be extremely healing for both of them and for myself at times.

I found myself needing to revisit my younger son’s issues with tantrums again recently and again, found myself returning to the data we had obtained regarding his genetic mutations. You can tell me all day long that tantrums are a normal part of development and it’s just the “terrible two’s” (or whatever the age happens to be at the time) because no matter what the age is, someone will tell you “it’s just a phase.”

But when that “phase” just keeps going and going for months and you’re purely exhausted by it, when exactly do you draw the line? Is that person who told you “it’s just a phase” there dealing with the repercussions of it for you? I doubt it. At some point, you know you need to look deeper.

And so I did, yet again. I defied “old-fashioned” logic and dug deeper. 

That seems to be what I do best. Dig until I find an answer and it’s usually not the typical answer most people would expect and I have to say, I’m quite happy about that, because at least I end up finding out that I’m not crazy and my gut instinct was actually on target when I knew something wasn’t right to start with.

(In fact, I can’t tell you how many times I wish I had stopped listening to everyone else and started listened to myself sooner. I highly recommend blowing everyone else off and following your gut instinct by the way. You’ll get MUCH farther that way and faster.)

To make a long story short, Jaxson has a genetic mutation that affects the lining of the gut and more specifically, how well neurotransmitters are produced in the gut … including serotonin. And if you know anything about neurotransmitters, the majority of them are produced in the gut and then go on to feed your brain, so it’s extremely important that your gut is in as good of health as you can possibly make it, not only for digestion but also for the health of the rest of your body.

This is why your gut is referred to as your “second brain” (check out this Scientific American article to learn more), and in fact, many neurotransmitters are produced and utilized there in what is referred to as your enteric nervous system (here’s an NIH study discussing it). In fact, more than 90 percent of serotonin is produced in your digestive tract.

That’s a pretty large majority of serotonin to be missing out on if your digestion is not up to full capacity, which in this day and age, most people’s is not as good as it should be for various reasons. The better you are able to digest your food, and especially protein, the better you will be feeding your body and your brain directly from your gut, and feeding your brain is the key part here. Serotonin is generally thought to be responsible for improving mood, sleep, memory, digestion, and a few other things in the body, but I think there’s more significance to it than we realize.

Most people would not think of serotonin as something that improves your body’s ability to heal. I know I certainly did not until I tried a supplement to increase my own serotonin levels. I noticed very quickly after incorporating it into my supplement regimen that I had more energy, less overall fatigue, and certain issues that I’ve had for a very long time began to correct themselves – issues that I had tried just about everything under the sun for, like my sinuses and skin clearing and improving suddenly and noticeably.

This prompted me to research to see if serotonin could, in fact, boost your immune system. To my surprise, I found several articles explaining that is does. Here’s one of them from Science Daily in case you’d like to check it out. I even found an article that linked serotonin to healing the skin in my search, giving me, even more, validation.

It made me think about what other biological processes serotonin might be involved in that aren’t so readily discussed or as well-known and made me think back to all the information presented in The Thyroid Secret documentary. I don’t remember it being discussed, but I wonder how many people who suspect they are “hypothyroid” due to ongoing fatigue might benefit from balancing their neurotransmitters … something to consider in my opinion.

At the very least, it’s a huge reminder to identify and correct imbalances in the body because you never know what difficulty they might be causing.

While this information is not very old, it still has been around for about 10 years. It’s something I wish I had come across a lot sooner, that’s for sure, and it wasn’t for lack of trying or researching, I can promise you that, but thanks to my son’s tantrums, I figured it out.

It’s also something that again, has given me, even more, validation that supplemental nutrition can make assist you in making drastic improvements in your health and very quickly when the right one is found and utilized.

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** Be sure to keep an eye out for Part 2 of this article coming soon where I talk about what else I did around the same time that also helped my body to heal and give me more energy very quickly. Stay posted! **