Good Mood Food

Eating always makes us happy. As it turns out there's some actual science behind the effects that food has on your feelings.

We all know there is a strong correlation between our emotions and food. I mean, who hasn't reached for the take out menu in lieu of a healthy dinner when the impacts of stress, fatigue, as well as a plethora of negative emotions tornado through your life? While your feelings might be soothed temporarily by the warm glow of a burger, your burger is likely a recipe for feeling physically worse later on.

This symbiotic bond can make it difficult to identify what came first: the feeling terrible pre- or post-burger. However, if you can take a beat before impulsively ordering, there is a way to use food as the emotional fuel to improve your mindset and your mood.

Recent research demonstrates that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between the gut microbiome and mental health, how we choose to feed our bodies can have a significant impact on how we feel day to day.

Harnessing the nutritional capabilities that food provides help our bodies in stressful situations, rather than hinder them. This is the key to lifting our spirits and mood while doing our bodies a solid in the process.

Gut Feeling

The digestive tract is a core component to your overall happiness. A healthy gut can boost the body's ability to balance moods, fight off infection, break down hormones, as well as regulate body weight. A healthy digestive tract is dependent upon a balanced microbiome, or our own customized "ecosystem" of bacteria. With gut bacteria producing about 95% of the body's supply of mood-boosting serotonin, it's easy to comprehend how an unbalanced gut can negatively impact uptake and, therefore overall mood.

Giving our gut bacteria a fighting chance is strictly dependent on how we feed it and ourselves.

Stacking our daily eating plans with a diverse and colourful supply of fruits, veggies, healthy fats, complex carbs, and good quality proteins ensures the bacteria will thrive. Plant based foods in particular pack a punch when it comes to gut health because they are loaded with different dietary fibers, prebiotics, and polyphenols, all of which provide nutrients to the microbiome.

Balanced nutrition plays a crucial role in our thinking and behaviour.

The better we nourish ourselves, the more supported our mental health will be.

Food Therapy

When I reference food therapy, I do NOT mean start talking to a bag of chips about your feelings.

Medicine is starting to recognize the importance of nutrition and how it affects our overall health.

Nutritional psychiatry (I had no idea this even existed) is a fast growing holistic approach using food and natural supplements to manage mental health conditions.

According to Harvard Health Journal, studies have found a correlation between an eating plan high in refined sugars and impaired brain function, as well as heightened symptoms of mood disorders, such as depression. Iron deficiency has demonstrated altered emotional behaviours, increased anxiety, as well disrupting neurotransmitters.

The rise in this innovative form of therapy proves that society is starting embrace and educate ourselves on just how interconnected our mental is with what we are ingesting.

*Credit to: Dr. Megan Rigby, DNP & Nutrition consultant; The Best Body Guide; vol 4,strongfitnessmag.com

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