How food affects your mood?
When you think about food you think about your body, your waistline, your weight, but food impacts greatly your mental health too. There is connection between what you eat and how you feel. Just as the body needs the right nutrition for health, so does the mind. The first level of nourishment for the mind comes through the food we take in.
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How food affects your mood?
There are thousands of diseases caused by food and we treat them with medications instead of just changing the diet. We easily adopted “one pill per ill” mindset. We see constantly ads for chocolate bars, sodas, or chips but why there isn’t any ads for broccoli or sweet potato. Have you seen them?
To feel that effect that food has on your mood I want to you to do a little experiment.
Imagine you are a scientist. You build your theories through experimentations, and then you test them. You will need a piece of paper and a pen.
- Experiment 1 – eat your regular lunch
- Experiment 2 – make a healthier version of your lunch, without cheese or meat with more vegetables and grains
Think about the quality of the foods and how they make you feel. How did you feel afterwards? Observe how both meals affected your physical body and your mind.
Did you feel tired, light, sleepy, lethargic, energetic, good, clean, satisfied, grouchy, gloomy, low-spirited, radiant, heavy, delighted …
Write all your feelings and emotions down.
What you eat & what your body absorbs, becomes you.
When you eat refined sugar, you feel happy but only in short term. When you eat a sweet potato, you feel satisfied and fuller in longer term.
Research shows that increased fruit and vegetable consumption increases happiness, life satisfaction and well-being.
I rarely eat ice-cream. One of the reasons is that I can’t stop eating it. I can finish an entire pint in one sitting before my body sends signals to stop. On the other hand, when I eat broccoli, I get “I am full” signals much more quickly. Why’s is that? Here is my theory.
Ice-cream is not something your body needs to function optimally. Broccoli is rich in fibre, vitamins and minerals, you body needs those nutrients, so it works in symphony with your body.
Food you eat has an enormous impact on your life. When I started eating healthier, I realized that everything good for my body is good for the planet too. Double satisfaction!
Nourish your body nourish your brain!
When you experience mood swings or anxiety, fibre is your friend not a donut.
Food addiction is a real problem. Sugar, fat, and salt is a perfect combination for food addiction It triggers the release of dopamine, the “feel-good” hormone. The more dopamine the more pleasure. We like it better, so we eat more of those foods.
Artificial flavours mask the real taste of the food. They are engineered in a certain way. They do everything to make foods more addictive. They don’t care about your health. They are in a profit business not in a health business. They’re really good at that because it’s their job. To sell the product.
Every choice you make brings experience. The food you eat will affect who you are, how you think and behave.
three primary qualities of the food
According to Yoga and Ayurveda nature consists of three primary qualities. These three energetic qualities are presented in everything (food, actions, body, mind). They affect your energy levels and how you feel on a daily basis. They are called gunas in Sanskrit. Sattva is the quality of goodness that creates harmony, balance and stability. Rajas is the quality of activity that creates turbulence and disequilibrium. Tamas is the quality of dullness that creates inactivity.
Sattvic foods are fresh fruits and freshly cooked vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and nuts. They bring the feeling of lightness and calm to your body and mind. It’s also important how you cook them, neither too spicy, nor salty or sweet. Sattvic diet will improve your mental health and energy levels.
Rajasic foods are cheese, alcohol, sodas, coffee, excessively spicy and seasoned foods, fast foods, meat, chocolate, eggs, onions and garlic … They overstimulate your mind and body. You feel anxious and stressed, have insomnia and problem with overeating.
Tamasic foods are refined grains, canned foods, alcohol, meat, artificial sweeteners, deep fried foods, frozen foods, leftovers, margarine, condiments, all refined sugar …Those foods are heavy to digest so they make you lazy, sluggish, and dull. You feel heavy and lethargic physically, emotionally, and mentally. You also lack motivation and purpose.
The key is to learn how to balance rajas and tamas and use these energies in positive ways. Consume all foods but in moderation. Rajasic food in moderate quantities stimulates creativity and activity. Tamasic food in moderate quantities brings stability.
What you eat is as important as how you eat. Don’t eat when you’re stressed or upset. Don’t start hard topics at the table. You need to feel happy and content when you’re eating so that your body gets maximum health benefits from the food.
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