There has been an increase in research to determine the link between the food that we eat and its effect on our mental health, which has led to the rise in nutritional psychiatry as a growing practice.
The phrase ‘follow your gut’ now has a literal meaning. What goes inside your gut has a profound impact on your mind. Your brain is always working, and this constant effort to keep your body functioning requires fuel. This well comes from the food that you intake.
What constitutes this fuel makes all the difference between your irritable mood and the person’s smiling face beside you. The association between a person’s mood and food has been calculated to reach a medical world. Some researchers have criticized the medical world for separating the connection between the body and the mind. For a long time, the body was considered a separate unit that required nutrients to function correctly. The brain was a completely different unit, which led to a profound distinction. This researcher wanted to bridge the gap between the two and bring out new studies that looked into the connection between the body and the mind and how the food we intake for normal bodily functions profoundly impacts our mental health.
Other research, mostly nutritional psychiatrists, has done an extensive research to show how nutrients have to power to contribute to the myriads to mental health issues like anxiety, schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, and Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
The pharmaceutical companies haven’t yet tapped into the potential of good nutrition as such a therapeutic approach.
Exactly how much influence does the food we intake have on our feelings?
There are hundreds of studies that have been conducted on this matter. A 2018 literature review of 4 lessons on a diet has been critical in this field. The report concludes that a proper diet provides specific resistance against mental health issues. Mainly avoidance of unhealthy foods like white bread, processed meats, and refined sugar has been prescribed. The benefit of a Mediterranean diet has also been highlighted.
What constitutes a healthy diet for good mental health?
A typical Mediterranean diet with high fiber content with lots of vegetables and low saturated fats and simple carbohydrates is an ideal anti-inflammatory diet.
The Western diet especially is to be blamed for the shrinking of the brain’s part that regulates our emotional responses. The dependence on food supplements is also to be blamed for this problem. Our bodies need raw food material that is only obtainable by proper food. The reliance on refined food items is extremely harmful to the body as well as the mind.
Foods that contain processed and refined ingredients are not suitable for adolescence and children’s development. Many parents give children processed sugary cereals for breakfast, which is not right in the long run. The colorful packages of processed food with the fake proclamation of nutritional benefits are absolute scams.
Check the labels of some food items and decide on vegetables and raw fruits. You can also snack on dried fruits or nuts. Even if someone wants to eat fast food like french fries making it at home with healthy oil is a better option. Processed food items contain lots of sugar and have a high sodium content, which causes inflammation in the body. Such food items are the worst for good mental health and should only be indulged on special occasions.
What does a brain-optimizing diet include?
As mentioned earlier, the Mediterranean diet is the best researched and most fruitful one to achieve a brain optimizing diet. Wilson has given several examples of significant food that compromise the Mediterranean diet to make it clear for everyone. Anybody who wants to follow such a diet needs food that is rich in fiber (whole grains, root vegetables, cooked starches), polyphenols (brightly vegetables, leafy greens, tea, coffee, berries, dark chocolate), oily fish, olive oil, and legumes, beans and nuts, and free sugars, that are present in particular sugar-sweetened brews, fried foods, and treated meat. One can try some Japanese diet with oily fish and vegetables. These diets are considered two of the best in the world to try out for better mental health.
