Understanding the link between our daily moods and the foods we eat

Did you notice that people show rude behavior and are in bad moods much more frequently than 20 years ago?

Two reasons come to mind immediately: our lives have gotten more stressful and jam-packed with obligations, and our eating habits have given way to convenience rather than nourishment for mind, body and soul.

Not surprisingly, research has shown many times that there is a strong ‘mood-food connection’. So the foods we eat do seem to play a significant role in how we feel every single day. Diagnoses like depression, anxiety and panic disorder, to name a few, have grown in numbers at the same rate as our exercise and eating habits have gone downhill. Exercise is one part of the equation. As our activity levels dropped over the years, so did our self-confidence which in turn has an effect on our daily mood and approach to life’s daily tasks. Of course, there are many benefits to exercising regularly but specifically to this topic, exercise releases endorphins that make us feel good. Lack thereof leaves us more and more self-conscious and depressed. (That is why exercise if often prescribed by psychologist to patients dealing from depression.) Foods in a sense work the same way. If we provide our body what it needs, everything functions better, including our hormones that control our moods. So, let’s look at the food aspect a little bit more in detail.

The mood-food connection comes to down to the basics. Simple carbohydrates (sugary foods or drinks that are not coming from whole grains or fruit) raise your blood sugar levels almost immediately but are also followed by a significant drop in blood sugar levels soon after. That correlates with a spike in energy followed by a drastic drop shortly thereafter… So what does that have to do with your mood? Well, after you eat, high blood sugar levels make you sleepy. During high blood sugar levels, a chemical in the brain called Orexin, which is responsible for alertness, is inhibited, leaving you tired, depressed and/or lethargic. On the other hand, once blood sugar levels get low again, hunger tends to make us irritable, impatient and physically weak. Then, to get rid of the irritability, we tend to satisfy our emotional needs with even more sugar, only to repeat the cycle over and over again. This continuous process of ups and downs in your blood sugar levels leads to poor glucose tolerance, a precursor for diabetes. The good news is however, that there is a fairly simple solution to this problem. It is recommended to eat smaller, more frequent meals and to pay close attention to an appropriate balance of complex carbohydrates and proteins in every meal or snack. Doing so will stabilize your blood sugar levels, slow down your digestion, and keep your metabolism at its best while keeping you full longer and in an overall better frame of mind. For most people, these are the basic first steps to take to correct the mood-food connection.

Another point to consider is your overall intake of healthy fats such as Omega-3’s. Take the Mediterranean diet for example. People consuming foods based around healthy oils and fish, generally are faced with much less health complications such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, etc. Aside from the physical health benefits, it is also believed that Omega-3’s and Uridine have a positive effect on the brain chemistry and have been shown to reduce depression in research studies performed on rats. Therefore, it is recommended to try to eat high fat fish such as salmon or herring about twice a week.

(Here is one short article on a research study that examined the link between processed foods and depression: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091102/hl_afp/lifestylebritainhealthresearch)

Without going into any more scientific details, it simply comes down to this: Better nutrition along with a consistent exercise program lead to a healthy body, mind and soul, and therefore, an improved mood-food connection!

 

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