While food alone cannot treat or cure depression, anxiety, or stress, eating a diet rich in a variety of nutrients will surely help support our mental health.
Diets rich in antioxidants, vitamins (e.g., B vitamins), minerals (e.g., zinc, magnesium), fiber, healthy fats (e.g., omega-3s), and other bioactive compounds, such as probiotics are linked to better mental well-being.
While taking these products may reduce stress and support your mental well-being, a particular diet should never replace prescription medications or other treatment methods, such as therapy. Rather, your diet should be one piece of the puzzle to better mental health.
How can food affect mood?
Knowing what foods, we should and shouldn’t be eating can be really confusing. Nevertheless, what we eat surely affects the way we feel.
Improving our diet may help to:
- Improve our mood
- Give us more energy
- Help us think more clearly
How to manage our mood with food
Eating regularly
If our blood sugar drops, we feel tired, irritable, and depressed. Eating regularly and choosing foods that release energy slowly will help to keep our sugar levels steady.
Slow-release energy foods include whole grains, rice, oats, nuts, and seeds.
This surely helps:
- Eating breakfast gets the day off to a good start
- Instead of eating a large lunch and dinner, try eating smaller portions spaced out more regularly throughout the day
- Avoid foods that make your blood sugar rise and fall rapidly, such as sweets, biscuits, sugary drinks, and alcohol
- Make positive lifestyle changes to try and live as happily and stress-free
Staying hydrated
If we don’t drink enough fluid, we will find it difficult to concentrate or think clearly. Constipation can set in and that puts no one in a good mood.
This surely helps:
- Let’s drink between 8– glasses of fluid a day.
- Water is a healthy and cheap option almost free of cost
- Tea, coffee, juices, and smoothies all count towards your intake (keep a watch on caffeine or sugar).
Consume more Fruits & Vegetables
Vegetables and fruit contain a lot of minerals, vitamins, and fiber. Eating a variety of different colored fruits and vegetables every day will get us a good range of nutrients.
This surely helps:
- Let’s incorporate 1 vegetable bowl and 1 Fruit in every meal.
- As a general rule, one portion is about a handful, a small bowl, or a small glass.
Looking after your gut
Most of the time our gut can reflect how we are feeling emotionally. If stressed or anxious this can make our gut slow down or speed up. For healthy digestion, we need to have plenty of fiber, fluid, and exercise regularly.
Healthy gut foods include fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, beans, pulses, yogurt, and other probiotics.
This surely helps:
- It may take our gut time to get used to a new eating pattern, so make small changes and slow changes to give yourself time to adjust
- If feeling stressed, we can try some relaxation techniques or breathing exercises.
Getting enough protein
Protein contains amino acids, which make up the chemicals your brain needs to regulate your thoughts and feelings. It also helps keep you feeling fuller for longer.
Protein-rich foods are lean mealean meat, fish, eggs, cheese, legumes (peas, beans, and lentils), soya products, milk products, nuts, and seeds.
This surely helps:
Let us include some type of protein in every meal in significant amounts.
Managing caffeine
Caffeine is a stimulant, which means it will give us a quick burst of energy. At the same time, then may make us feel anxious and depressed, disturb our sleep (especially if we have it before bed), or give us withdrawal symptoms if we stop suddenly.
Caffeine is found in tea, coffee, chocolate, cola, and other commercial energy drinks.
This surely helps:
- Switching to decaffeinated versions.
- We can feel noticeably better quite quickly if we drink less caffeine or avoid it altogether.
Eating the right fats
Our brain needs fatty acids (such as omega-3 and -6) to keep it working well. Avoiding all fats is incorrect, it’s important to eat the right ones.
Healthy fats which can be consumed are oily fish, poultry, nuts (especially walnuts and almonds), olive and sunflower oils, seeds (such as sunflower and pumpkin), avocados, milk, yogurt, cheese, and eggs.
This surely helps:
We should avoid anything which lists ‘trans fats’ or ‘partially hydrogenated oils in the list of ingredients (such as some shop-bought cakes and biscuits). They are tempting for sure when we are feeling low, but this kind of fat isn’t good for our mood or our physical health in the long run.
