I have always believed that food is the ultimate tonic and nourishment; if we eat the right daily diet very little should go wrong with your physical or mental health bar some genetic link making you predisposed. There is plenty already out there regarding all the physical and obesity issues and body image but not so much about how equally important the right choice of certain foods are to our mental health.
It’s not just day to day life, work environments are notorious for sending workers over the edge; in kitchens I have seen tragedies. A new generation now is not accepting the school of hard knocks ethos. Food and mental health are inextricably linked.
Of course food is a trigger and can be a comfort for psychological struggles but getting into the habit of eating for better mental health is something that needs more airing. We really are what we eat and they say we have another brain in our stomach, that gut feeling and nothing could be truer. If we keep our tummies in rude health, all roads will lead easier to happy health and well being. If we do not make time for our wellness then illness will make us find it for sure.
There is a drive now then to get our gut health in order. The nutritional link with our mental health has been fully recognized with science showing it causes less stress and a better brain to work with. The chemicals that we break down from foods directly impact how we feel and act so all that good bacteria that’s talked about really is our secret crucial fuel to our moods and actions. We just need to get it in to us and keep it topped up. Our bad eating is really killing us however and we then depend more and more on drugs to mitigate against the problems created when the solutions are to be found naturally if we just make the extra effort.
Everyday items like tea, chocolate, nuts, fruit, green vegetables, oily fish, seeds, yoghurt, fibre rich and fermented food to name a few all contribute to the magic mix of the good bacteria that keep you in the right place. The problem is that we also eat a lot of the foods that work against all this positivity. Processed and fast foods have the opposite reaction in the gut and lead to the risk of other associated diseases. Our modern diet has caused this conflict in our gut micro biome hence the battle of the bulge literally is that. The choice is ours when we walk down the supermarket aisle, do we pick the good stuff or the bad? The public are hypnotized when shopping.
The other weapon in our mental health protection is education and training and getting your life style in order by reading up on it from reliable sources or chatting to one of the many good properly trained advisors out there who will steer you in the right direction.
The pandemic has knocked a lot of people out of sync and it’s a good opportunity to take a step back and reassess our whole selves starting with the food we eat and what it is doing to us. I get asked a lot about diet and I am amazed by the poor standard of even basic knowledge such as the food groups and what they do for the body.
The mind is a mysterious place and it is in the part of the body still the least known about so anything we can do to actually help our headspace we should be jumping at. Food can be one of those keys so maybe it’s time we let our tummy brain look after our other one, two heads are better than one after all. There’s food for thought.
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