Episode 94: Nutrition for Trauma Recovery: 3 Superfoods To Calm Adrenaline & Anxiety with Luis Mojica

Listen to Episode 94 with Luis Mojica →

When Food Becomes Your Regulation Strategy

You find yourself reaching for specific foods when anxiety spikes. You eat compulsively even when you're not physically hungry. Your cravings feel uncontrollable and you feel ashamed of using food to manage emotions and stress.

What if your body is trying to regulate your nervous system through food because adrenaline stays chronically elevated?

Can you better manage anxiety by decreasing adrenaline levels through food and eating habits? Yes, you can. And understanding adrenaline's role in trauma changes your entire approach to both nutrition and nervous system healing.

Today we talk about adrenaline—the major hormone of stress and trauma. This episode helps you understand adrenaline's role in dysregulation and stored trauma while giving you nutritional tools for balancing it. Luis Mojica joins me as a somatic therapist, nutritionist, and musician who's also my good friend. Like me, he started noticing how biology and nutrition affected somatic work, got curious, and began testing theories on himself. Luis came to this work through personal experience with relational trauma and binge eating thousands of calories in one sitting just to suppress his anxiety and social fear. Until one day, by mistake, he played guitar and discovered co-regulation and parasympathetic response. This led him to research other modalities and the trauma work he does now.

Understanding Adrenaline and Trauma

How can you better manage anxiety by decreasing adrenaline through food and eating habits when most people don't understand the connection? Food affects your stress hormones directly through multiple mechanisms including blood sugar regulation, nutrient support for adrenal glands, and compounds that help metabolize excess adrenaline.

Adrenaline serves as the major stress and trauma hormone that keeps your nervous system activated long after danger passes. It prepares you for fight or flight through increasing heart rate, blood pressure, and alertness. When you have stored trauma, adrenaline stays elevated chronically because your nervous system perceives ongoing threat even when you're objectively safe. This chronic elevation creates the anxiety, hypervigilance, and reactivity that characterize trauma symptoms.

Tracking your current cravings back to childhood reveals patterns where you first used food for internal regulation. Your childhood self discovered that certain foods created temporary calm when your environment felt chaotic or threatening. Understanding this connection removes shame by revealing that compulsive eating isn't weakness but rather your nervous system seeking balance through the tools it learned early.

Understanding the Biology of Trauma® alongside nutrition reveals why food matters so much for trauma healing. Your adrenal glands produce adrenaline and cortisol in response to perceived threat. These glands need specific nutrients to function properly and to metabolize excess stress hormones. When trauma keeps your system in chronic activation, you deplete these nutrients faster than normal. Supporting your adrenal glands through nutrition provides the biological foundation that nervous system regulation requires.

Foods That Support Your Nervous System

Certain foods help your body metabolize adrenaline more effectively by providing nutrients your adrenal glands need. Luis shares which foods support adrenaline metabolism, how they work at the biochemical level, and why they matter specifically for anxiety reduction. This isn't about superfoods as marketing but rather understanding which foods provide compounds your stressed nervous system actually needs.

The three specific superfoods Luis reveals calm adrenaline and anxiety through supporting your adrenal system directly. These aren't trendy supplements or exotic ingredients but rather accessible foods that provide targeted support. They help your body clear excess adrenaline, support adrenal gland function, and provide the nutrients chronic stress depletes. Understanding what these foods are and how to incorporate them gives you practical tools.

Compulsive eating often represents attempts at nervous system regulation rather than lack of willpower or food addiction. Your body learned that eating creates temporary calm through activating parasympathetic response during digestion. This isn't weakness or moral failing but rather biology seeking balance through the most accessible tool. The problem isn't the strategy itself but that it's the only regulation strategy available.

Luis's personal story of binge eating thousands of calories in one sitting to suppress anxiety demonstrates how desperate your nervous system becomes for regulation. This worked temporarily by forcing parasympathetic activation through massive food intake. Until he discovered other regulation tools including playing guitar which became his first experience of co-regulation and genuine safety. That discovery changed everything about his approach to healing.

The Food-Nervous System Connection

Some foods actually create perceived threats in your system by triggering adrenal activation. They affect your adrenal glands directly through stimulating adrenaline release, spiking blood sugar dramatically, or containing compounds that mimic stress signals. This can maintain chronic PTSD symptoms through diet alone even when you're doing trauma work. Identifying and reducing these triggering foods matters as much as adding supportive ones.

The food-adrenal connection runs bidirectionally where what you eat directly affects your adrenal glands and your adrenal function affects what you crave. These glands produce adrenaline in response to blood sugar crashes, nutrient deficiencies, and stimulating compounds in food. Supporting them through nutrition reduces chronic activation by providing stable energy and necessary nutrients. This creates a foundation for nervous system regulation that behavioral strategies alone cannot achieve.

You can use food strategically to help metabolize excess adrenaline that trauma keeps elevated. Specific foods support this metabolic process through providing cofactors for adrenaline breakdown, supporting liver function that clears hormones, and reducing inflammation that amplifies stress responses. They help clear what keeps you chronically anxious and activated beyond what your current life circumstances warrant.

Somatic practices for the stomach that Luis shares help access stored trauma in your digestive system. Managing cravings through body awareness. Addressing digestive issues that connect directly to nervous system dysregulation through the gut-brain axis. Your stomach holds trauma and responds to nervous system states. Working with it somatically rather than just nutritionally addresses both dimensions simultaneously.

Integration and Application

Luis's discovery of co-regulation through accidentally playing guitar created his first experience of parasympathetic response and genuine safety. The vibrations, rhythm, and focus involved in playing music regulated his nervous system more effectively than thousands of calories could. This discovery led him to explore other co-regulation modalities and eventually to the integrated trauma work combining somatic practices with nutritional support that he teaches now.

Your eating habits reflect your nervous system state through what you crave, when you eat, and how you eat. And eating habits affect your nervous system through blood sugar impacts, nutrient availability, and digestive activation of parasympathetic response. This loop runs both ways creating either vicious cycles that maintain dysregulation or virtuous cycles that support healing. Understanding this bidirectional relationship gives you multiple intervention points.

The practical application involves identifying which foods trigger your adrenal system versus which support it, incorporating the three superfoods Luis recommends in ways that fit your life, addressing blood sugar stability to reduce adrenaline spikes, and exploring somatic practices around eating and digestion. Small consistent changes in nutrition create cumulative effects on nervous system regulation over time.

For people with compulsive eating patterns, removing shame by understanding the nervous system function allows compassionate approaches. Your body isn't broken or lacking willpower but rather doing its best to regulate with available tools. Adding nervous system regulation strategies beyond food reduces reliance on eating for regulation. Food becomes fuel and pleasure rather than primary regulation tool.

Luis emphasizes that nutritional support alone won't heal trauma but provides essential foundation that makes trauma work more effective. Your brain and nervous system need specific nutrients to function optimally. Chronic stress depletes these nutrients faster than diet typically replaces them. Strategic nutrition rebuilds reserves that trauma depleted allowing your nervous system capacity for the regulation work that healing requires.

This Episode Is For:

✓ People with anxiety and compulsive eating patterns 

✓ Anyone whose cravings feel uncontrollable despite efforts 

✓ Practitioners wanting to understand the adrenaline-food-trauma connection 

✓ Those using food as primary nervous system regulation tool 

✓ Anyone with chronic anxiety that hasn't responded to therapy alone 

✓ People ready to support adrenal health through nutrition

What You'll Learn

Listen to learn which three specific superfoods calm adrenaline and anxiety through supporting your adrenal system and why your eating habits directly affect your nervous system's ability to heal from trauma. Discover how to identify foods that trigger versus calm your system. Understand the connection between childhood eating patterns and current compulsive behaviors.

Your compulsive eating might be your body's attempt to regulate chronically elevated adrenaline from stored trauma.

Listen to Episode 94 with Luis Mojica →

Disclaimer

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The information shared reflects my clinical expertise and research, but every person's biology and healing journey is unique. Always consult with qualified healthcare providers before making changes to your treatment plan or starting new interventions. If you're experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact emergency services or a crisis helpline immediately.

Join the Conversation

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode. What resonated with you? What questions came up?

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