Nutrition & Mental Health

According to the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, a journal of scientific articles applying nutrition to the overall wellbeing of human health, nutritional psychiatry has emerged as important discipline of study. Lauren Owen and Bernard Corfe write in a 2017 article that, “Over the past decade, there has been a steady increase in epidemiological studies investigating the relationships between dietary patterns and mental states.”

This September, we are reminding our partners about the importance of self-care and how it can change your life. Taking care of yourself involves mindfulness about what goes in your body. In this context, nutrition can have a lot of influence over your mental health, so here are some tips to help you manage it.

“You are what you eat,” is truer than what you would think of the old saying. Your brain health is directly influenced by the foods and drinks you put into your body. The more you pay attention to your nutrition, the better your brain performance will be. The brain is a complex system that needs the right type of energy to run, and it all starts with balanced meals.

Without a proper diet, certain functions of the brain can begin to deteriorate, including memory, rationalizing and critically thinking. After a while, these same functions can begin to influence your mental health.

Based on information from the Harvard Health Blog, about 95% of your serotonin — the neurotransmitter that helps regulate sleep, appetite and moods — is produced in the gastrointestinal tract. This system has millions of nerve cells, some that are in charge of digesting food and others that influence your emotions based on your nutrition. If you haven’t had anything to eat in a while because you’re stuck cramming for a test, studying is going to get a whole lot harder because the serotonin influences your ability to focus.

The nerve cells are also influenced by the amount of “good” and “bad” bacteria in your system. The “good” bacteria can be found in nutritious foods, and help with a lot of the functions that keep your body healthy. Too much “bad” bacteria can literally cause stomach aches, influencing the amount of serotonin produced in the intestines and effecting your mood accordingly.

High school biology taught us all about glycolysis, the Krebs cycle and oxidative phosphorylation: ways that the body converts food into energy. What it didn’t teach us is which foods give us more energy to make it through the day. The type of food and amount of food that you eat play a key role in determining how alert and focused you are throughout the day.

Fruits, like bananas, goji berries, oranges, strawberries and apples, have a lot of essential antioxidants and natural sugars, providing a ton of natural energy. Drinking water is also a must; being dehydrated can lead to exhaustion. Leafy green vegetables, fatty fish, brown rice and sweet potatoes are more foods that can leave you feeling energized for the day ahead, and happier overall!