It's incredible that despite the publicity campaigning that has gone into promoting the health benefits of Omega 3 for heart health, many people still aren't aware of why a daily dose of Omega 3 fish oil can do wonders for your mental health too.

Omega 3 is in fact a natural mood booster and studies continue to reveal how fish oil can be effective for the treatment of many different types of mental health problems. Some professionals maintain that if we were to include more Omega 3 in our diet fewer people would be suffering from anxiety, stress and depression.

Yes we are encouraged to include fish in our diet but there is a certain amount of fear surrounding fish because at the same time we are being warned about the dangers of eating too much due to the toxins they contain. This of course leaves us with quite a dilemma.

If we are aware of the benefits of eating fish we may choose to have it on the menu once or twice a week at the most. However, if we aren't aware of how important fish is, or if we aren't keen on fish, we may decide to avoid eating it altogether and this could prove disastrous not just for our mental health but our physical health too.

What will a daily dose of fish oil do?

A daily dose of fish oil has been clinically proven to help reduce the symptoms associated with depression. No one knows exactly why but what is known is that Omega 3 is necessary for efficient functioning of the brain throughout our entire lives.

The following includes just some of benefits of taking fish oil on a daily basis, validated by countless studies.

- Improves brain function and has proved helpful in the treatment of many different types of depression and mental health problems including Bipolar disorder, Schizophrenia, Post Natal Depression, Anxiety Disorders and Stress
- Can enhance children's performance in school as it aids concentration and focus, improves memory and in some cases has proved more effective than Ritalin in the treatment of children with ADHD
- Helps the blood to flow easily throughout the body and to the brain bringing important nutrients to where they are needed
- Facilitates better inter-neural network connectivity allowing for faster information processing and better learning

At the same time there are other benefits to taking a daily dose of fish oil

- Helps prevent against heart disease and reduces the risk of dying from a heart attack in people who have already had a heart attack
- Lowers blood pressure, triglyceride levels and the so called bad cholesterol
- Reduces the pain and inflammation associated with arthritis
- Soothes inflammatory skin conditions
- Helps prevent against some types of cancer including skin cancer

Which fish oil is the best?

One mistake that people often make is that they think fish oil is fish oil so it doesn't really matter which one they choose to take. It does matter. Fish oil can vary significantly in their strength and quality so it's important to look for one that contains high amounts of the Omega 3 fatty acids known as Eicosapentaenoic acid or EPA as this is the kind used in many of the studies into depression.

Can't we find Omega 3 in plant sources?

You can find Omega 3 in vegetable sources too such as walnuts, hemp seed, flax seed, and in dark green leafy vegetables, but it is in fish, particularly fatty fish such as sardines, herring and salmon, that we find the Omega 3 fatty acids known as Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) both of which are essential for brain development as well as brain function.

The kind of Omega 3 in plant sources is ALA or Alpha linolenic acid. In an ideal world our bodies would be able to covert ALA into the more beneficial EPA and DHA and this is what many believe but in practice our ability to do this is severely limited. Basically we just cannot eat enough of the vegetable sources of Omega 3 to give us enough of the right kind of essential fatty acids we need to make a difference to our mental health.

Some researchers believe that it is our lack of EPA and DHA that is causing most of the mental health problems we see today. Indeed it is interesting that people suffering from mental health problems have been found to have lower than normal levels of these Omega 3 fatty acids in their blood.