Improve Your Mood With Food

Jul 5

Our body’s systems are intricately connected. The two systems where this is most evident are the nervous and digestive systems, also known as the gut-brain axis. What we eat affects how we feel, and how we are feeling affects how our body is able to digest our meals. It’s a two-way street that has major implications for how we feel on a day-to-day basis.

Beginning in the gut, there are TRILLIONS of microbes living happily. These friendly microbes have a multitude of functions. They help us digest food, synthesize vitamins, and protect us from not-so-friendly microbes while simultaneously having the ability to impact our moods and stress levels.

4 Tips For Adequate Gut Health

1. Consume Fermented Foods

Fermented foods not only feed the trillions of good gut “bugs” in our system, but they also produce additional enzymes in the body that are fantastic for health. They do everything from improving cardiovascular health and bone density, reducing inflammation and chronic disease, inducing cancer cell death, and decreasing insulin resistance, which has the effect of improving blood sugar regulation and overall body weight.

2. Eat more Omega-3 Fatty Acids

EPA and DHA are two forms of omega-3 that reduce the risk of depression and other mental health disorders. The best and most easily absorbed way to get your dose of omega-3’s is through fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, and oysters or plant-based sources which include olives, flax seeds, chia seeds, eggs, avocados, and walnuts.

3. Prioritize Protein w/ Every Meal

Protein is an extremely important macronutrient and one we should be consuming at every meal (especially as we age). It is broken down into amino acids, which play a vital role in the production of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. These hormones are critical for optimal mental health, affecting mood regulation, our sleep and wake cycles, cognitive functions, and stress reactions.

4. Ensure Adequate Fiber

Fiber, along with the fermented foods above, feeds our gut microbiome and allows our bodies to digest properly. Fiber is fermented by our guts, creating metabolites like short-chain fatty acids. These SCFAs, while having a variety of effects on different hormones throughout the body, trigger our endocrine receptors to release peptides that lead to insulin secretion, which has a major impact on proper blood sugar regulation. Eating adequate fiber is key to keeping our energy levels and mood stable, our hunger cues in check, and our digestion functioning optimally.

Inversely, how we are currently feeling has a major impact on the types of food our bodies (and brains) crave. The nervous system drives cross-talk between several systems that coordinates responses to stress and emotion. These allow the brain to influence intestinal function through a variety of neurotransmitters. The Vagus Nerve plays an important role here, carrying feedback from the intestines to the brain. This bridge has the ability to carry stress signals between the two systems and is responsible for our relaxation response, aka rest-and-digest. Harnessing the power of the Vagus Nerve may reduce symptoms associated with chronic stress and inflammation, such as lowering heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol levels. Ways to activate the Vagus Nerve and move from a state of fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest are slow deep breathing exercises, meditation, humming or chanting, and walking.