Amino Acids Explained: The Foundation of Mental Health

Podcast Introduction and Guest Background 0:00

Amino acids have played a key role in that. If you're feeling so pent up, if you are feeling that you can't emotionally regulate, If your just feeling overall exhausted, a lot of those times your neurotransmitters are depleted. I think that the world is going through some heavy stuff right now. And mental health has also just come to the forefront of conversations over the last several years where emotional regulation and these kinds of things are becoming a normal topic of conversation. There's not as much shame around identifying with anxiety and depression and things like that anymore, which is great.

Your health is shaped by more than symptoms. Through real stories and expert insights, we explore how your genetics, environment, and daily choices affect your wellbeing. We uncover root causes and share practical tools to help you find the healing you need. Welcome to the Forum Health Integrative Medicine Podcast. Welcome back to the Forum Health Integrative Medicine podcast. I'm your host, Amanda Graveau. And today we have a fascinating conversation around amino acids, brain health, and we've got our guest today, Lori Hammer, who is a functional nutritional therapist.

Lori, thank you so much for joining us today. Can you tell our audience a little bit about yourself and how you got here and so passionate about amino acid? Well, amino acids literally saved my life. Like I honestly don't think I would be here had I not done amino acid therapy. So that's why my passion is so high on amino assets. I had an eating disorder for 12 years, so from like junior high into the early 20s and nothing worked and I couldn't stop it. And I was bulimic so I binged and purged all the time.

When I went to college, it got really, really bad. I did all the counseling. And I was in a place where I had a nursing school at the time and I tried to get into eating disorders programs and my weight wasn't low enough. Like I answered all of the right questions. You weren't at risk. So, yeah, I just couldn't get the help that I needed. So I thought I'd move away and that would solve everything and it didn't. My eating disorder got worse, depression got worst, anxiety got, worse as you can probably imagine.

And finally I received an article from this nursing professor at the time her name was Penny. She sent me an Article and It was about the amino acid therapy and stopping food cravings and then stopping that bingeing and purging cycle. I talked about being addicted to what your body is sensitive to. So the foods that you were sensitive too. It was an outpatient clinic in California, so I called out there and that was my first introduction to, wasn't nutritional therapy back then, but that my was our my introduction nutritional.

I found out I had celiac disease, I have thyroid issues, adrenal issues yeast overgrowth. But most importantly, I found I was super depleted and they started giving me therapeutic doses of amino acids to rebuild my brain, stop the craving cycle, lift to the depression, the anxiety. And I'm still here. That was in 1996. So it literally honestly saved my life because I had seizures ending up in the ER and I wasn't doing well.

What Amino Acids Are and Why They Matter 3:25

Those are some severe symptoms. I mean, anxiety, depression, and all of that, but even seizures, that's a hefty load of stuff to deal with. Yeah. Well, I was so imbalanced, my electrolytes were very off. So thank you so much for the introduction. I'm really glad that you're still here. Amino acids is kind of a buzzword right now. When you hear amino acids, people go straight to peptides because those are built with building blocks of amino acid. A lot of people take them when they're working out, so muscle building.

There's a lot more to amino assets than peptide and building muscle. Can you break down what is an amino asset and what kind roles do those play in the body? Yeah, so amino acids are the building blocks of everything. So amino acid, like you were saying, make peptides. Peptides make proteins. And so they're the basic foundation of your protein in your body. That affects everything, your hair, skin, and nails. We often think about that, you're muscles. But more importantly, it's your hormones. It's you digestive enzymes.

and amino acids affect those neurotransmitters that affect your mood. So everything from head to toe really depends on amino acid. And when we're talking about amino-acid therapy, the kind that I do, I'm targeting that for specific neurotranmiters in your brain that target your move. And I was listening to a podcast that you had done with another provider. And, I think one of the things that had mentioned in there was, this is an area that, you start, it's a building block for everything else. The thought of using this therapy to help build resilience as first.

A lot of times you have so much going on and you need that motivation and that brain power to put all those care plan pieces in place. And so this is really a great starting point for people in care because it helps, like you said, refuel the brain so that you're able to tackle all of the other pieces of care plans that have going. It is so key. The resilience is key and I love the amino acids because people respond to them so fast. So when you're doing a protocol and you are trying to overcome autoimmune or you know, any disease profile, it takes a long time to get well.

And there's not too many things that you're gonna get an immediate reaction from. The amino acids are something that, you are going to notice them right away. That helps the person going through those protocol and it helps your practitioner because both of you get a fast win. You're like, okay, we're on the track now and now let's work on, the root cause issues as to why you have these deficiencies in the first place. Yeah, gut issues, or I want to lose weight, Or I'm tired and I am fatigued. A lot of times we're missing parts of the conversation about the brain fog, anxiety.

I know our providers dig deep into their questionnaires and i've been recommended amino acids before as well. My husband's an athlete, I have an athletic background and take amino acid, the eight essentials to help recovery, to build muscle. We don't typically think about them for anxiety, brainfog. depression, mood support. How do you educate patients on the different types of amino acids? Because there's essential, there is non-essential. There's a lot to dive into. So in my brain and my thinking, I'm thinking all of the amino acid are essential.

I know we have the eight essential quote unquote, your body can make the rest out of them.

Targeting Neurotransmitters for Mood Support 7:00

But if people are so depleted, you need them all. Right? So when we're specifically targeting mood, anxiety, depression, food cravings, those types of things, mental health issues, I use a questionnaire that's targeted to five different areas. So it's concentrating on your serotonin neurotransmitter, GABA, endorphins, catecholamines. and then glucose regulation. And there's specific amino acids that fit into those five categories to support those areas. So that's really what I'm focusing on. Then we can get super targeted with therapeutic doses.

We're not just taking a full spectrum amino acid and hoping it works, we're targeting those neurotransmitters so that you start to feel better right away. Can you walk me through what a patient with anxiety would come in and what that looks like for Right. So my first appointment is you're filling out paperwork for me because when I'm assessing amino acids, your neurotransmitter function and what amino acid you need, I don't do blood. I do a questionnaire and it's divided in those five categories that I just mentioned.

And when you come in, we're seeing, what are you scoring high in? Because all of them are symptom-based. It's on a scale of zero to 10. If you are scoring anything higher than a two, that flags in my mind that we are going to need some amino-acid therapy for that particular So we're talking about anxiety and depression. Just generalize. A lot of that has to do with having low tryptophan, so low serotonin, right? So trypophane is an amino acid that helps to produce seratonin in your body. And so we'll discover.

I actually take a capsule of trypsophan, and if you're not local, I send you a kit of amino acids. So, we are on Zoom. You're like, what are we doing right now? And you open up the capsule with amino-acid, tryppofan. Put it underneath your tongue. We stare at each other for a couple of minutes. And then I asked, do you feel anything different cognitively, emotionally and physically? And sometimes people say, yeah, absolutely do. Somebody's like, maybe, and then if it's a maybe we'll try another dose instead of 500 milligrams, we will do a thousand milligrams and we go up to 2000 milligrams.

to see what you actually respond to. And that'll be your starting dose for that particular amino acid. Then we'll decide, do you need it twice a day or do need four times a days? So that's all based on health history. But we will go through those five categories and try the different amino acids based your responses, the questionnaire, and the health histories that I got from you. So you're testing for the difference buckets of anxiety, insomnia, depression, and they're put into the box for like serotonin, dopamine, et cetera.

Are people staying on like those doses long-term? Is this a temporary protocol? What is the length or the duration of people having to take these precursors? Yeah, so I like to do everything in 90-day increments because your body needs at least 90 days for adjustment. So those first 90 day we're really tweaking those amino acids in the dosing to make sure that you feel super stable, right? And then once I know that your feeling super-stable, you know, we start doing some basic changes in those 90 first days, maybe some testing and then the next 90 is where you kind of maintain and oftentimes before that six-month mark, People will say, oh, I forgot to take my GABA in the afternoon and I still feel really good.

That's great. So then your body is sufficient, right? So usually when your your is getting built up, you just kind of forget to those amino acid supplements and you still really feel good, some people it takes close to a year, so six months to year and we adjust those doses during that time. Okay. Cool. So the brain's raw materials, amino acids are the building blocks to neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters help us regulate our emotions. They help with our mood stability. Mm-hmm. Let's go back to those five categories.

Tryptophan and 5-HTP is a precursor to serotonin. Serotonins, it helps to regulate, not just anxiety and depression, OCD. Maybe you become super angry, super fast. You have afternoon or evening cravings, PMS, you have a hard time falling asleep at night or even just staying asleep. A lot of that can be related to serotonin. And so we're going to try that 5-HTP and L-tryptophan. If we are going over to GABA. There's an amino acid GABA, and GABE lets us take that deep breath and just let it out. It's our stress responder.

Its nature's natural value, really. And so you could try GAbe, you can try taurine, try theanine maybe even glycine. Those are some of the amino acids that could be helpful to support that GABe pathway. So we have serotonin which is like our inner sunshine. GAB helps us to take a deep breathe. Then there's the endorphins. Endorphin are like your inner joy and they make us feel super comfortable. And so if you have food cravings or anything you're craving to bring you comfort, that could be an endorphin issue.

Or maybe you are super sensitive emotionally. You cry super easy at the drop of a hat. Where you feel physical pain more than other people do. Like when you stub your toe, you fell it from head to toe as opposed to just in your tow, right? So that can be endor... We're going to use D-phenylalanine or DL-fenoalaninine for those things. And then catecholamines. That's your dopamine, that's you epinephrine, norepinephrin, all those things. And so you mentioned tyrosine. Tyrosin is great for that. That gives us our focus.

You know, those catecholamines are, you know our mental energy is strong. If you have apathetic depression where you just don't care, or you don�t feel like doing anything, and you do not have the want to do things, then that is usually a low catocholine issue. So we can use tyroxine, we could use DLPA again, Dl-phenylalanine Those are great for boosting on those catecholamines.

How Amino Acid Therapy Is Assessed and Dosed 12:40

And then we go into glucose regulation, and glutamine is great, for that. Glutamine it's very grounding to the brain as well. So those are things that we'll definitely do in that trialing session. Then one thing that's not an amino acid, Amanda, is lithium orotate, which is super protective to brain. It calms the noise down. That can be very helpful for people as, well so I send that in my kit to see if you respond to that? Awesome, I love that! areas that you could identify if you are feeling a little bit like everything has to be put together or everything's kind of just triggering you too, right?

Like, my gosh, there's a mess over there where normally it wouldn't get to you, but today it is, Right? There's always, we always have those days. I had a day yesterday, everything irritated me. Everything. If you're feeling like so pent up, if you are feeling that you can't emotionally regulate, If your just feeling overall exhausted, your neurotransmitters are depleted. Our tools in the past were anti-depressants, anti anxiety medications, and there is a whole group of us that are either coming off finding alternatives.

When we went to the doctor, we didn't talk about our emotional well-being or mental well being. We just talked about her physical. And we have the, this generation of women and men and who are. Either on still trying to do it on their own, which is super hard if you don't have Yeah, which is, it's a big problem right now. Cause we've had, you know, I have clients that have been on SSRIs and other medications for 30 plus years. And, they're suffering from being on those medications and it is very hard to get off of them.

The amino acid therapy makes that transition so much easier. At Forum Health, we uncover the why behind your symptoms. With advanced lab testing, hormone optimization, and cutting-edge therapies, We help you heal and perform your best. And now, through shopforumhealth.com, you can access physician-grade supplements trusted by our providers, supporting everything from adrenal health to focus and longevity. Learn more at forumhealth.com and explore supplements at shopforumhealth dot com. It really does.

You can feel that initial change in your brain chemistry and you put it under your tongue or on your tone because it dissolves so quickly and it's absorbed directly into the bloodstream. So it hits your. And you'll be able to feel those impacts. Amino acids are fascinating because you can do that immediate type of a test and can you feel a difference right away. adjust your dosing, if you will. So it does allow transitioning off of those kind of pharmaceuticals a lot easier. I will say too, that this is not a do-it-yourself type of a situation.

A professional or somebody who can collaborate even with like psychiatry or anything like that. I think that this is one of those things you don't do it on your own. Supplements can give the impression that you. Don't have to go to a doctor's office. You don' need help with it. In this case, it's very important. Your playing with your brain chemistry. It's not a probiotic or a fish oil where you can just pop it in and. It's doing its job in its gut, right? Right. No, it's therapy. It is very targeted, intentional therapy for your brain.

And if you're on medication, you really need to work with somebody. I do think that we have an epidemic of amino acid depletion. in the country. You can naturally just see it occurring, right? We have this GLP-1 and weight loss momentum going. People aren't eating as much, and where do you get building blocks for life? You get it from your food. And we have a lower intake of food overall, a low quality of the food if you're not getting the right quality. Even your baseline nutrition isn't getting you the ingredients your body needs just on a daily basis to maintain the appropriate level.

There's foundational things you can do. to support amino acid levels in the body and just have that foundational level of protection. And then when you have been looking for a solution to transition off of my anti-anxiety or I had a traumatic event in a family, I'd have a passing or something where I'm going through a large emotional burden or a mental burden where you might need some of these tools back in your toolbox to fill up your buckets. Yeah, amino acids are great tools to have. When my mom died, I went back on several of the amino acid because it helped me with the grieving process.

We'd spent two years taking care of her and while I maintained a really good health during that time, it does take a toll on you or maybe you have you're in a car accident or you get married. I had, you know, one client, she got married and she crashed and it was a good thing. Really. It was great, but it just a stress on her and then she's got all this anxiety. She's like, I don't even know why I'm anxious because I love my husband. And I loved my life, right? Well, we did the interview. You're still planning a really expensive event or not.

But you can love your husband and be planning on a very stressful event. Yeah, and it is so, I mean men way too, but it's so prevalent in women because I think we just are naturally, our hormones deplete us because we don't nourish ourselves well enough to start with. And so all of a sudden you have anxiety, depression and nobody looks at your hormones. Nobody checks, you know, hey, are you deficient in anything? You know you just get put on an SSRI and sent out of the doctor's office and said, well.

Good luck. So yeah, it is just it's a phenomenal tool to have in your tool bag So I teach all my you know clients how to use them But throughout their life and you now I teacher my students that to you. Sorry train practitioners So, you Know anybody looking for a practitioner I can lead you to somebody if you want to see somebody in person so Absolutely.

Using Amino Acids for Stress, Medication Transitions, and Brain Health 18:35

So amino acids are the building blocks of pretty much everything in the body. They're not just for athletes, they're just not for building muscle, They are also for all of these little individual chemicals in our body that send signals everywhere. And a big part of our signals and our communication is our neurotransmitters, which right now we're kind of going through an epidemic of neurotansmitter or amino acid depletion. And that's coming from so many different areas. It's come from the fact that our nutrition looks a lot different, so we are not getting the same ingredients in that we need to support our body's general maintenance.

ton more stressors that hit the body from mental and emotional, just like what's going on in the world, what going in your own life. All of that on top of biologically, we see a lot of women going into perimetapause and metapose. Those are just, again, more stresses on the bodies that your body needs building blocks for. And if it's not, if you don't have enough building box, your buddy has to prioritize Right. What you put in and where it goes. And it's not going to the neurotransmitters. It is not.

Right? It's going your essential organs, right? Like that's where your ingredients that you feed your body are going. Yes. We're not giving our body enough ingredients for the basics. So when we sacrifice the basic, then we get to these levels of depletion. As we're talking about amino acid depleation as it relates to brain and neurotransmitters. You can see symptoms for like low serotonin being worry, low dopamine. When I'm feeling low motivation or severe procrastination, there are physical symptoms of neurotrasmitter depletion or amino acid depleation.

Gaba is such an important amino acid that helps also, my husband just tweaked his back last night. And so instead of ibuprofenate, how about some gaba? Get some of that tension, like loosen the muscles up, right? It helps just, Like you said, take a deep breath. So it's not just all mental, emotional anxiety. There is also the physical symptoms as well in that. It's head to toe, inside out. Amino acids are affecting everything and can be used for so many different things. And they're just readily available for anybody to find.

But really, anyway, you can go to Sprouts and get a whole line of amino acids. So it's amazing. Yep. Our providers at Forum Health, we do recommend, and we have health coaches also that help with neurotransmitter support. And I love that you have trainings because this is such important work that clinicians in regenerative and functional and integrative medicine, it's such a key piece to care that if you are seeking comprehensive care, this is one of those puzzle pieces that fits into protocols with patients' stall.

If you've been in such a neurotransmitter depletion and HPA access dysregulation that this can be one those tools in the tool box, you have to give yourself to get yourself the next level. Exactly. It's just a key, it's like we just keep saying this over and over again, man, is just key. Its foundational. Everything in your body is dependent upon amino acids. And so you want to make sure that those, if we're going to look at everything as a pyramid, we've got amino acid and we got minerals and fatty acids and so let's focus on those first.

Maybe the issues that you have is an amino-acid deficiency and then minerals in fatty- acids, and that might take care of 80% of the things that are going on in the body. Then let see what's left over. And then let's dive into that, right? Then we can shift your microbiome because your neurology is calm. When your neurology calm and regulated, then your gut can heal. And so it's just a fast win for the body. It's a faster win emotionally for people. Be like, oh, I'm doing something and I notice it right away.

Then it changes that your practitioner is telling you to do at Forum Health. Yeah. So you get to those deep issues and you won't have as much to work on. I was having a call with one of my girlfriends today.I was telling her that I would super excited to this podcast today with you and talk about amino acids. And she has two young kids, I can see this becoming a bigger problem just because of food quality. Children earlier and earlier with mood or emotional not being able to regulate emotions. The parents today are also a little bit more proactive having those conversations now.

With that being said, I feel like there's also lack of support for children. Like right now, your only option is therapy, medications, and that is still a tool. Is there an age limit? Yeah. And I think most people feel like that's what they have to do. I have get my child labeled with something and then we have do therapy so that they can overcome this label. Then we'll have put them on medication. They'll just be on it forever. Kids diagnosed with ADD, they're like, this is it. This is what you're going to have use to regulate.

You can use this with infants. All the way up to, I've got 80 and 90 year olds that I use with. It's amino acids. So there's nothing harmful about them. There's a few medications where you're going to need to navigate a view of the amino acids around. But other than that, I mean, you are not going get harmed by tiny, tiny pieces that build up protein, right? So I have a lot of kids that I've worked with, autistic kids, kids with ADD. Um, kids with pretty severe anger issues, you know, all those kinds of things and we can work those things out.

You know we, we bring in the amino acids. Like I had one, well, I'll give you, this is a recent one with one of my students. They had a child that they were working with and the child was just out of control, angry all the time.

Children, Depletion, and Emotional Regulation 24:25

And they literally, they we're going to send it off to, to the children after respite care for a while with, with grandparents and stuff. Cause the parents are like, We've got three other kids. We just can't handle this right now. Yeah. And literally, you know, my student, she used tryptophan. This was the one that helped this child. It could be another amino acid. But she use trypophane and literally the anger outbursts and the harming of the other children in the home with the right dose of trypsophene stopped all of that and a child could stay at home.

profound. I had a child in my office not too long ago. He wasn't sleeping and we gave him and he was just very overactive, like on all the time. And I know you parents out there and are like, my child just never ever stops, right? And, I'm just constantly on and on, and, on. And we used tyrosine with him for starters. And he started sleeping through the nights and he was able to calm down. Then we added a couple other amino acids. So he's able regulate his nervous system then. He could respond appropriately to situations.

Just like as adults, we want to respond to appropriately situations Kids want to too, but they're so stuck at overdrive and they are so depleted that they don't have the tools to emotionally regulate. And you can do all the therapy you want. If they do not have basic nutritional tools, their brain can't remember what you just did in therapy. They really, really want it. No child wakes up and says, gee, I want be a problem today. So let's start addressing the the nutritional piece of it too. And it's not just diet.

It's fixing those deficiencies. Because you can have a great diet, but if you've never fixed the deficancies, a lot of times your body just, it not gonna catch up. So let's allow it to catch-up, set them up for success, and then you're gonna have happier kid and you gonna be happier as a parent. I agree, I do think that we're going to be supporting with, you know, acids more and more in the future. I did my certification about 10 years ago in vitamins, trans, through Huntington Sciences College.

And at that time, they were comparing the food from today, which back then was 10-years ago, to the foods 10, 15, 20 years and very different nutrient makeup. One tomato today is probably equivalent to about 15 or 20 tomatoes from 10, 20 years ago, right? We do not get the same level of nutrition from our food. And like you said, you can have a perfect diet, but with the amount of stressors and Things that you cannot control. You can't go outside and control the air quality. No. Go outside. And control, the exhaust on somebody else's car.

you're going to be breathing that in whether you like it or not. Yeah. Can't control if there's wifi and EMFs at all of these locations. Your, our bodies are exposed to so many toxins and just things that your body has to combat. and it uses all the ingredients from the food that we eat. which does not even touch our baseline nutritional needs for regular functions. We're delusional if we think that we can get by in today's day and world and have optimal health without supplementation in some way or capacity.

Is oil supplementations the only way to get amino acids or are there other forms of delivery for people? Yeah, I mean, there's IV, you can clearly get the IV. You can get some liquids out there, like theanine comes in a liquid a lot of the time. Most of them are just oral though. There's some chewables, those are awful. I don't have very many kids that even do those, but yeah, most of the time it's just oral is going to be your best and most efficient dosing. What are your thoughts on all of these functional foods that are coming out?

When I say functional food, there's like little like protein bars. Yeah. I mean, I think they have their place. So I'm not against them, But I wouldn't rely on those. That's not the goal. We don' want to eat bars and chocolates and you know, all those kinds of things. Can they be in the moment? If that's the only thing you have, can it be something? Sure. But it's not going to fix the deficiency. That's the point. You really have to the fix deficiency." They're not usually therapeutic. They are kind of a nice to have, but it is not fixing a deficiency, one big key takeaway that I have is you have be fixing the deficiencies first.

And then second is doing a mini inventory every now and then. I do think that you have to like do some check-ins because it's really easy to keep moving. Like when you're feeling really good. And I just got into this problem myself, I've been recovering from burnout and I'd gotten into a really great groove and feeling great mentally and emotionally. Then I kind of start hitting the gas again. Yup. I was like, oh, but I had all of this energy and motivation. And then for two days I'm like nope, I can't do anything.

Protein Intake, Maintenance, and Practical Takeaways 29:25

I've burned myself out again. So I think having check-ins to check yourself is really important to correct the deficiency, check in with yourself regularly. and I want to ask you, are there things that people can do as a maintenance or things they can be proactive with their amino acid levels? Just make sure you're getting enough protein and that you can actually digest that protein. So, I mean, we want to get most of this is from Whole Foods as much as possible. So let's go back to those. Let's start eating, adding some hemp seed to your yogurt or whatever it might be, something that's got some really sound amino acid profile to it.

And the animal proteins are going to be your best option. Please, please, eat animal protein. If you don't want have steak, get some good high-calorie yogurt, do something. But you need to get in that protein content every single day. Not necessarily a rule of thumb, because I don't like to give rules out, but on average, 30-ish grams of protein is a sweet spot for your body to absorb. And the new dietary guidelines does prioritize protein more than it did in the past, which is fantastic. It's so important.

But to your point, animal proteins have more variety of that amino acid profile. So when you're eating animal, proteins or other protein, those proteins are built of what it breaks down in your gut. It's breaking it down into these precursors that we need to absorb, to rebuild back up into all of these things. Animal protein has that variety. 30-ish grams is a sweet spot for a lot of people. I've seen people try and load their protein in one or two meals, and that's not the most efficient way to intake protein.

It's really throughout your day you want to be taking protein, because then your body can break it down and use it. There's so many people who think that I can sit down, eat all this protein and one sitting. And it starts, your body only has the capacity to break down so much and rebuild it into the building blocks that you need. All that extra protein that it's not able to do that with goes to other things like creating energy. So when you're looking at protein intake, having it throughout the day is probably the most beneficial.

Three to four times a day, if you can get in 30 to 40 grams of protein, animal protein is going to have the more variety of amino acids. There's a few protein shakes that we have at Forum Health that actually use very specific protein blends because of the amino acid profiles. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we don't want people relying a ton on those protein powders, but they are, again, just like, some of those functional foods, they're helpful, especially when you're recovering, repairing your gut, trying to rebuild your brain, overcoming anxiety and depression.

I never want to be afraid to use those because those are very therapeutic as well. Yeah. For me, I use protein powders because physically I just feel like I cannot eat that much protein in volume. And I also get texture fatigue from meat sometimes. The other night I was eating chicken and I had to stop three-fourths of the way through my chicken breast. I'm like, okay, the texture's finally gotten to me. Almost a full chicken breasts, but I can't do the rest of it. There's definitely times and places for it, it is there to fill gaps, not replace real food.

Yep, I agree. I personally find the benefit too of just like things like the Perfect Amino, i'll have like a scoop of this once a day just again to have that like covering my foundations. Absolutely, absolutely. And when your brain is balanced and you've got the therapeutic doses in you are better able to do that. Laurie, it has been such a pleasure talking with you today and I appreciate all the insights that you shared with me and our audience today. Can you tell the audience how they can find you if they want to learn more?

Absolutely. Go to laurahammer.com and you'll find information on there. You can schedule a free 15-minute consult with Check out and see if I can help you. Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And I know amino acids are a big part of what we do at Forum Health. It's part. How we treat patients. and I'm so glad to hear more practitioners are out there and also practitioners have access to trainings with experts like you, because there's certainly a, there is magic to this. You shouldn't be doing it on your own.

Find a practitioner like Lori or practitioners at forum health to help support you through this journey. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, man.