I was never the kid that was good at taking their Vitamins.  I mean I’m from the era of the chewable Flintstones vitamins, but there was one flavor in the bottle that always made me gag just at the thought of chewing it.  Usually by the time I got to only having the grape ones left, I would stop taking them no matter how much my mother would try to force me.

They were gross.  It was what it was.

I’m still not a big multi-vitamin taker.  I don’t really get the point if you’re eating relatively healthily and you’re relatively healthy. Plus, I still suck at swallowing pills these days (have you seen how ginormous multi-vites are?) and gummies are usually gross.

My living contradiction, however, is that I take two (well now, three) vitamin supplements every morning.  Devon claims our counter corner has the makings of an old lady corner and that by the time we’re 60, I’m going to be taking up the whole counter.  Hater.  He does, in fact, take a multi-vitamin every morning.  He’s one of the ones who is all, “just take one thing, why take all these things separately?”

This is my little corner:

That’s not a lot.

All of it has it’s purposes.

I am vitamin D deficient, after all.  My doctor recommended 5000IU of D3 a day.  It’s near the upper end of acceptable by the body, but since I’m not out in the sun too much, I don’t think it’s a huge issue.  Vitamin D is mainly used by your body to help process calcium and boost your immunity. Considering I work with germ factories, I’m not really mad about that.

Given my hair issues, I take a super potency Biotin every morning.  The bottle claims that it does help with metabolizing fat, but there isn’t really any scientific evidence that it does more than help thinning hair. Given how fast my hair has grown in the past year, I would say it’s doing something to help.  My hair does feel stronger, too.

I just re-started taking Vitamin B-12 about a week or so ago.  There are a couple of reasons why I take B12.  Physically speaking, it’s good for your heart as it helps to replenish red blood cells and keep your blood moving.  It’s also an energy and metabolism booster.  It helps your body metabolize certain foods better and faster to keep you running better throughout the day.  I do notice I have a bit more energy this past week since I started this again.  It’s helped for all the graduation festivities I had to do.  And I’m not mad about the metabolism boost, either.

Mentally speaking, B12 has been shown to have some benefits to helping anxiety and depression.  I’ve battled minor (what I consider to be minor) anxiety issues since I was a teenager.  I’ve had anxiety attacks for as long as I can remember.  I don’t take medication for this.  I could, but I choose not to.  Despite being a counselor, I’m someone who is usually a little wary of psychotropic medications.  They can work, I’m not doubting their effectiveness.  But I’m never going to suggest it as a first step in treatment, nor am I likely to take them myself unless all other options have been exhausted.

B12 has seemed to work for me before for my anxiety.  B12 has been shown to help regulate your nerves.  There could be some placebo effect there, but it worked for me before.  My anxiety has been peaking again a bit lately (not sure why, though most anxious people are usually unsure what triggers their attacks), so I decided to try B12 again.  While my anxiety seems to just be at a slow bubble and my last full blown anxiety attack was Thanksgiving weekend last year, I don’t want it to bubble over if I can avoid it.  That one at Thanksgiving, I think, was the worst I ever had.  I literally thought I was dying for a minute.  I knew it was an anxiety attack but my chest was tight, I couldn’t breathe, I felt like I was going to throw up.  It was bad.  I woke Devon up by jumping out of bed so fast because I thought I was going to hurl (didn’t, though).  I spent the next 30 minutes sitting on my bed, sobbing, trying to remember how to breathe, squeezing the life out of Devon’s hand and asking him to talk about anything to distract me (all  I remember was a brief conversation about roller coasters…I don’t know).

I’m hoping before I get back to that level that the B12 will do some work at regulating me out so I can calm this low-level anxiety I’ve had for the past couple weeks.  It’s annoying.  Anyone who experiences anxiety would likely agree with me.

But, to my original point; that’s all I take.  I don’t see a need for a multi-vitamin because I don’t need everything they have and I can’t swallow them anyway.

Are there any vitamins you take on a regular basis?