When you hear or read the phrase, “food is life,” what comes to your mind?
Food and health go hand-in-hand. However, is it possible to same the same between food and mental health? The answer, is YES. There are emerging studies and evidence suggesting that an individual’s diet impacts his or her mental health wellness.
Do you have those days wherein you feel so down that you drown everything in food? Well, that is a great example how the things you eat can impact your mood.
Nutritional Psychiatry
For most people, nutritional psychiatry is the practice of using food to treat mental health conditions or disorders. In this concept, food is an alternative treatment to traditional resources like medicine and expert counselling or treatment.
These days, the field of nutritional psychiatry is expanding. Instead of just using food for treatment, there are experts studying how it can improve and strengthen mental health. This field of study also aims to better understand how food going in our gastrointestinal system or gut affects our neurotransmitters.
Food & Mood Tips
There is still so much to be uncovered in nutritional psychiatry, but, there are things you can do in terms of using what you eat to enhance your mental health.
- Balance your diet – This is an oldie but goody. Balancing one’s diet isn’t just to improve one’s health and physique. People who eat better and healthier acquire the essential nutrients that boosts their cognitive function. Many experts are encouraging parents to feed their newborn babies healthy meals as they grow up. Doing so, the child gets better cognitive development. So, if you’re eating habits are really unhealthy, then you might consider changing things up.
- Avoid or stop unhealthy diet or overeating – This one is aligned to balancing your diet. Have you ever seen those quotes about how food brings a lot of happiness to people? Well, that’s true. Eating something delicious can make one happy and satisfied. However, that doesn’t mean it also improves health. It is very true that the best-tasting foods out there are also very unhealthy. So, if you are guilty of this, consider hitting the brakes.
- Give Mediterranean diet a go – Mediterranean diet has a lot of benefits to the body. It can prevent type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. But, scientists believe that this type of diet can improve brain function and mental health. A Mediterranean diet is rich of legumes, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. As mentioned above, what goes in the gut can highly impact the brain. This type of diet is very good for your gut and that itself is a strong sign. So, if you haven’t before, why not give Mediterranean diet a go and see if it actually improves your mood?
- Steady blood sugar, better mood – It is a well-known fact that when your blood sugar drops, you tend to feel more irritable sluggish, and even stressed. So, regulating your blood sugar can actually help you maintain a better mood throughout the day. Foods or ingredients you mostly get from Mediterranean dishes can keep your blood sugar steady. So, fruits, vegetables, and nuts. But remember, eating too much healthy food can also have negative effects on the body. So, make sure to monitor your blood sugar daily. There are many wellness technologies you can choose from that will allow you to measure your blood sugar easily.
It is true that the food we eat can impact our mood, maybe not in a big way. But, no matter what information you learn, eating healthier will definitely lead to you feeling much better about yourself. So, make sure to always consider what you eat because it might just determine how you feel.
