I’m thrilled to introduce THINK+SMART, Metabolic Mind’s new free tool to help you fuel your mental health.

THINK+SMART is a community-inspired resource that provides a framework for ketogenic and metabolic strategies like those that have helped our son and so many others recover mental wellness.

THINK stands for Therapeutic Integration of Nutritional Ketosis and describes any medical keto protocol used to improve mental well-being or treat a psychiatric illness. SMART stands for Sleep, Move, Avoid, Rebuild, and Track and describes additional lifestyle practices and therapies our community members have found useful in improving metabolism to fuel their recoveries.

A bit of background on the why of THINK+SMART: When our son, Matt, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder type I at age 19, our family spent five years searching for answers. Matt tried dozens of medications and many other conventional and experimental treatments, but he still wasn’t himself. Then we learned about ketogenic therapy - or a keto diet - from Harvard-trained psychiatrist Dr. Chris Palmer. The theory underlying this therapeutic approach is that mental illnesses are metabolic disorders affecting the brain and that nutritional ketosis – with 100 years of evidence of efficacy in epilepsy – could address the root cause of these illnesses in many people.

We were cautiously optimistic the approach might help Matt, but I was personally overwhelmed by the idea of another complex intervention that might not work. I had dozens of questions I wanted to ask those who had tried it:

• What do you eat?

• How high are your ketones?

• Is keto sustainable and safe for the long term?

• And most importantly, could a nutritional intervention really work to put a chronic mental illness into remission?

It seemed too good to be true.

There was no community at that time to which to pose these questions. But we were fortunate to receive guidance from experts, and in early 2021, Matt started a medically supervised therapeutic low carbohydrate ketogenic diet, with my husband and me going along for the ride.

After four months, Matt’s bipolar cycling stopped, and he started to put his life back together. We launched Metabolic Mind to help families like ours learn about the promise of nutritional ketosis and other metabolic therapies for brain health.

But even now, I continue to get messages from individuals and families who have devoured the content on Metabolic Mind, yet still have questions about Matt’s specific experience: What foods does he eat? When does he test ketones? How long did it take to work? What kind of exercise does he do? What about sleep? Is he still on meds?

Matt has started his own YouTube channel that answers many of these questions. But what if we could collect answers like this from hundreds of people who are using metabolic therapies to improve mental health?

THINK+SMART is an effort to consolidate answers to those questions, not only from our family, but from the growing numbers finding success—and to do it in a systematic way.

­With this initial pilot launch, THINK+SMART includes community profiles and videos, a worksheet, and lists of specific strategies and tactics that have been helpful for others. These growing lists form a collective data source designed to help you develop a metabolic mental health program of your own.

We designed this tool to help our community address metabolic and mental health pillars, including therapeutic nutrition, circadian rhythm management, stress reduction, exercise, movement, and substance and medication management. We hope THINK+SMART will also provide ideas for finding community and purpose, and rebuilding your life.

THINK+SMART is free and open source, and we invite you to dive in, explore, and share it with your care team, your family, your support groups, and your mental health communities. If you’re a clinician, feel free to offer it to your patients and to adapt it in any way you see fit. If you’re conducting research, these real world experiences may be useful to you in framing scientific questions about the interplay of metabolic and mental health.

For those of you who have improved your mental health with ketogenic and metabolic therapies, we would love for you to submit a profile detailing the strategies that worked for you.

Whatever your journey, I hope our new tool will help you and inspire you to help others. Together, I truly believe we can fuel a mental health revolution.

Sincerely,

Jan Ellison Baszucki