Feeling blue? Turns out the saying “you are what you eat” is actually true when it comes to the relationship with the food you consume and how you feel.
Nearly 1 in 5 adults, or around 46.6 million people, in the United States live with some level of mental illness. A mental illness can be defined as a condition that affects a person’s thinking, feeling, behavior or mood. Good news, just as diet can help to keep most bodily functions in top shape, like cardiac health, research shows that improving your diet can also boost your mood by increasing energy levels, maintaining cognitive ability (or brain function), and helping to ease anxiety and depression.
Finding the right fuel
Imagine your brain as a car and food as gasoline. Like a car, it needs fuel to move from one place to the next. The fuel for our brain comes from the food we nourish our bodies with. Our brain functions best when we eat an overall nutritious and balanced diet. The brain performs at its best when it has the correct fuel to carry out our everyday tasks, right from going about your day to falling asleep at night. The food we consume gives our body energy. The nutrients we choose to put into our body can affect our brain chemistry, which has a major impact on our mood.
Eat the Rainbow
We know that 1 in every 10 adults in the United States meets the federal guidelines for fruit and vegetable intake. It is recommended that adults consume 1 to 2 cups of fruits per day, and 2 to 3 cups of vegetables per day depending on your sex, age, weight and physical activity. Fruits and vegetables contain key nutrients to help keep our body and mind happy.
As many of you have probably heard growing up, eating the rainbow allows you to incorporate a variety of different fruits and vegetables to your daily meals, making for the best diet to improve mental health. Fruits and vegetables contain an abundance of vital nutrients that are needed to boost our mood and keep us feeling happy.
Healthy Fats
Fat, one of the three macronutrients, is needed in order to provide adequate energy, absorb vitamins, and fight fatigue for our body. There are many different types of fats, so it is important to clarify which ones we should be consuming regularly.
The most optimal fats to add to your diet are the healthy fats known as unsaturated fats. These types of fats can be found in olive oil, nuts and seeds, avocados and fatty fish such as salmon.
Fiber
Fiber is the indigestible part of food that helps to feed the good bacteria in our gut. There are two types of fiber we can get through our diet – soluble and insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber slows digestion and attracts water. Insoluble fiber adds bulk to your stool and speeds up digestion throughout the body.
Research has shown that a high fiber diet is associated with reducing the symptoms of depression. New ways to treat mental health issues are now being researched through our “gut-brain” connection. Studies have found that the microbiota, where the good bacteria live, produces serotonin, regulates stress hormones, and decreases inflammatory responses when we nourish it well by adding fiber to the diet.
If you want to learn more about how diet can improve mental health and what changes you can make to start feeling better, talk to a Health Loft dietitian virtually via our telehealth platform across the United States.
References
- Chrysohoo, C., Panagiotakos, D. B., Pitsavo, C., Das, U. N., & Stefanadis, C. (2004, July 7). Adherence to the Mediterranean diet attenuates inflammation and coagulation process in healthy adults: The ATTICA Study.
- Folate. (2016, April 8). Retrieved from Mental Health America
- Galland L. (2014). The gut microbiome and the brain. Journal of medicinal food
- Nutritional psychiatry: Your brain on food
- Mental Health Conditions. (2020). National Alliance on Mental Illness
- Mental illness statistics. National Institute of Mental Health
- CDC Fruit and Vegetable Consumption Report (2017)
- Opie, R., et al. (2017). A modified Mediterranean dietary intervention for adults with major depression
- University of Eastern Finland. (2013). Diet is associated with risk of depression.
- Phillips, M.M. (2020). Soluble vs. insoluble fiber
- Xu, H., et al. (2018). Exploration of the association between dietary fiber intake and depressive symptoms