How Toxic Mold Can Mess With Your Mind

Have you ever spent time in someone’s home or in a building that made you feel….off? Maybe it felt like you had the energy sucked right out of you. Or perhaps you felt an intense surge of sadness or anxiety. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it but something about setting foot inside the place just made you feel different.

If so, you’re not alone. As it turns out, mold lurking within the hidden nooks and crannies of homes and buildings can have intense mind-altering effects – impacting your mood, emotions, and cognitive function.?

Today we’re going to explore the perplexing psychological symptoms caused by mold, how exactly mold exerts its brain-bending effects, and what steps you can take to protect yourself. Let’s dive in.?

How Harmful Is Mold Exposure?

Mold is a fungus naturally found in our environment where it functions as a sort of “clean-up crew” in nature – breaking down and decomposing dead plants and animals. There are thousands of different types of mold, but they all reproduce in the same way – via itty-bitty reproductive cells known as spores. These spores are released into the air where they float far and wide – meaning we are regularly breathing them in.

These mold spores can also sneak their way into our homes and other buildings where they can attach and begin growing – subsequently releasing a steady stream of mold spores indoors. Now, exposure to low levels of mold spores isn’t necessarily a problem. But when exposure is prolonged or excessive, it can spell trouble for your health.

Let’s zoom in on some of the troubling symptoms that mold can cause.

What Are the Symptoms of Inhaling Mold?

When you inhale free-floating mold spores that are suspended in the air, they make their way into your body – potentially triggering a barrage of bizarre symptoms such as:1,2

• Allergy-like symptoms: The most common and mildest reaction to mold can resemble allergies – triggering things like coughing, irritated eyes, a runny nose, or a rash.
• Severe allergic symptoms: If you already have allergies or suffer from a respiratory condition, you may react more significantly to mold. You could experience difficulty breathing, persistent coughing, and sinus inflammation. Mold may also trigger intense headaches or persistent fatigue and lethargy.
• A constellation of vague, system wide changes: Long-term mold exposure can lead to a barrage of difficult to pinpoint symptoms like digestive issues, hair loss, joint pain and stiffness, and tingling or numbness in your hands and feet to name a few.
• Chronic disease: If left unaddressed, long-term mold exposure can disrupt your body to the point that you can develop a number of chronic conditions. Hepatocellular carcinoma, internal organ damage, respiratory infections, and Reye’s syndrome have all been linked to mold exposure. In some rare and unfortunate instances, mold exposure can even lead to death.

But there’s another vexing side effect that can be caused by mold exposure that’s often difficult to pinpoint and easy to overlook. You see, mold can have a frighteningly potent impact on your brain – hindering your ability to think clearly and throwing your emotional stability out of whack.

Can Mold Cause Thinking Problems? And Does Mold Affect Emotions?

The answer to both of these questions is – absolutely! Many people who encounter mold begin experiencing strange, unsettling mental and emotional symptoms that seem to appear out of nowhere. In fact, different strains of toxic mold can even be linked to specific emotional and psychological changes. Just some of the mind-bending effects mold can have include:3,4

• Anxiety, irrational fears, and/or panic attacks
• Brain fog, difficulty concentrating and forgetfulness
• Changes in your sleep patterns (like insomnia or intense sleepiness)
• Compulsions and/or obsessions
• Decreased tolerance to pain
• Depression, feelings of hopelessness, or feelings of impending doom
• Detachment from reality
• Feeling out of control of your emotions
• Psychosis
• Relentless brain fog?

So how on earth can the itty-bitty spores from a fungus possibly cause such intense changes to your mood and cognitive function??

How Mold Messes With Your Brain

Exactly how mold exerts its mind-bending effects is complicated and oftentimes, multifaceted. Let’s look a little closer at what happens inside your brain when toxic mold spores make their way into your body:5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12

• Immune system activation: Once inhaled or ingested, mold spores can be flagged as foreign invaders by your immune system – triggering specialized immune cells (like macrophages and dendritic cells) to initiate an immune response.
• Inflammatory cascade: Once your immune cells sound the alarm, your immune system releases a cascade of proinflammatory signaling molecules known as cytokines and chemokines to initiate an inflammatory response. These inflammation-stoking molecules recruit additional immune cells and begin ramping up inflammation in an attempt to neutralize the mold spores.
• Blood-brain barrier penetration: These inflammatory molecules produced in response to mold exposure are able to cross the blood-brain barrier – a protective layer that separates the bloodstream from the brain.
• Neuroinflammation: Once these inflammation-promoting molecules cross the blood-brain barrier, they trigger neuroinflammation (inflammation in your brain tissue) which can disrupt normal brain function.
• Neural communication disruption: Neuroinflammation can also interfere with the communication between neurons (brain cells) and their signaling pathways. It can also hinder processes known as neurogenesis and synaptogenesis, or your brain’s ability to form new neural pathways.
• Neurotransmitter imbalance: Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that transmit signals between the neurons in your brain. The neuroinflammation triggered by mold can lead to imbalances in how neurotransmitters are released, utilized, and reabsorbed.
• Limbic system dysregulation: Mold-related neuroinflammation can particularly affect what’s known as your limbic system. Your limbic system includes brain regions like the hippocampus (which is heavily involved in memory and learning) and the amygdala (which is linked to emotional responses and fear).?

This combination of effects on your brain is what can lead to the intense emotional and mental dysregulation that many people experience in response to mold exposure. And what’s more concerning, is that it’s not just specific strains of mycotoxin-containing mold that can potentially evoke these emotional changes.

Exposure to Any Strain of Mold Can Activate Your Immune System and Alter Your Mind

When it comes to mold, not all strains are created equally. You see, certain strains of mold produce harmful compounds called mycotoxins – microscopic poisons that can be incredibly harmful to your health. These mycotoxin-containing mold spores can wreak havoc on many different aspects of your well-being and typically steal the spotlight when it comes to talking about mold’s impact on health.

It makes sense that the tiny toxins found in certain strains of mold can activate your immune response and alter how your brain functions. But as it turns out, all strains of mold can potentially spark your inflammatory response and incite significant inflammation in your brain. That means that exposure to any kind of mold can potentially trigger a barrage of unsettling psychological symptoms.13

So what can you do to protect yourself from the mind-meddling effects of mold?

How to Protect Yourself From Mold

I’ve written extensively about the exact steps you can take to heal from mold exposure, tackle hidden mold, and prevent further mold growth in your home. You can dive deeper into all of these topics in the following articles:?

• Struggling With Unexplained Symptoms? Toxic Mold Exposure Could Be to Blame
• How to Get Rid of Mold – Definitive Mold Removal Guide
• The Low Mold Diet: What It Is and How to Follow It
• Limbic System Retraining: The Key to Truly Healing from Mold Illness?

I’ve also got some helpful supplements, protocols, and lifestyle suggestions that can be immensely helpful when it comes to addressing mold-related imbalances which include:

• My Miracle Mold Detox Box: My Miracle Mold Detox Box is a comprehensive detoxification kit designed to specifically target exposure to toxic mold. This 30-day mold detox is scientifically proven to help your body detox from mold while supplying a plethora of healing nutrients to help your body return to equilibrium.
• My Detox Bundle: My Detox Bundle is a broad-spectrum detox protocol that utilizes a strategic 3-step process that helps your body quickly and efficiently remove accumulated toxins like mold.?
• My book Unexpected: Finding Resilience Through Functional Medicine, Science, and Faith: I have experienced the frightening emotional impact of mold exposure first hand – so I know how challenging and overwhelming it can be. In my new book I detail my own experience with mold to give you not only practical strategies to begin healing, but also some often overlooked ways to address the emotional turmoil that mold can cause.

While these resources are all an excellent place to start, I have dozens of additional mold-related resources available to you on both my blog and my YouTube channel. And I regularly release new content with the latest news and research so you can stay up-to-date? – so be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter so you don’t miss a thing. All you have to do is enter your name and email address in the form at the bottom of this page!

Resources:

1. Long Term Effects of Black Mold | Black Mold Symptoms (sanitred.com)
2. CPSC Statement on mold and mycotoxins health effects
3. Mold Toxicity: A Common Cause of Psychiatric Symptoms | Psychology Today
4. Mold inhalation causes innate immune activation, neural, cognitive and emotional dysfunction – PMC (nih.gov)
5. Impact of mold on mast cell-cytokine immune response – PubMed (nih.gov)
6. Transport of enniatin B and enniatin B1 across the blood-brain barrier and hints for neurotoxic effects in cerebral cells (plos.org)
7. Binding of mycotoxins to proteins involved in neuronal plasticity: a combined in silico/wet investigation | Scientific Reports (nature.com)
8. The mitochondrial protein Bak is pivotal for gliotoxin-induced apoptosis and a critical host factor of Aspergillus fumigatus virulence in mice | Journal of Cell Biology | Rockefeller University Press (rupress.org)
9. Mitochondrial dysfunction underlies cognitive defects as a result of neural stem cell depletion and impaired neurogenesis | Human Molecular Genetics | Oxford Academic (oup.com)
10. IJMS | Free Full-Text | Mechanisms of Mycotoxin-Induced Neurotoxicity through Oxidative Stress-Associated Pathways (mdpi.com)
11. Possible Mechanisms for Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: The Limbic System and Others – Multiple Chemical Sensitivities – NCBI Bookshelf (nih.gov)
12. Mold inhalation causes innate immune activation, neural, cognitive and emotional dysfunction – PMC (nih.gov)
13. Mold inhalation causes innate immune activation, neural, cognitive and emotional dysfunction – PubMed (nih.gov)

* These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The product mentioned in this article are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. ? The information in this article is not intended to replace any recommendations or relationship with your physician. ?Please review references sited at end of article for scientific support of any claims made.