Nutrition and Mental Health
Based on an article from Harvard Medical School, “what you eat directly affects the structure and function of your brain and, ultimately, your mood.” It’s so easy to be caught in a vicious cycle of daily life, not realizing how the things you put into your body affect the way that you feel and function. In this post I am hoping to unpack a little bit about how nutrition can be manipulated to improve and maintain mental health and mood.
I’ve already written on gut health, but it’s super relevant to touch on it when talking about how food impacts mental state. Approximately 95% of serotonin (a neurotransmitter) is made in the GI tract. The production of neurotransmitters is highly influenced by the good bacteria in your gut and the health of your gut microbiome. When there are not enough good bacteria present in your GI tract, your body is unable to absorb nutrients as efficiently, and as a result, the body absorbs less. Additionally, neural pathways that run directly from the gut to the brain are activated only with a healthy gut microbiome.
When considering omitting foods to benefit mental health, the big category to limit or cease is anything processed. Processed meats, processed sugars, fried foods, candy, baked goods, and high fat dairy can lead to higher levels of anxiety and depression. These foods should be replaced with fruits, veggies, fish (and healthy proteins), and fiber-rich grains. Additionally, fermented foods like greek yogurt, kimchi, kefir, kombucha, certain cheeses, and tempeh aid in growing a healthy gut microbiome.
Not to go off on a tangent, but a large part of my story with fitness and nutrition comes from my own personal struggle with a mental health crisis (totaling about 18 months), which ended up being due to celiac disease that was undiagnosed. Unaddressed celiac disease will totally destroy the gut, making it impossible to absorb nutrients. Despite desperate measures to improve my mental health, nothing worked until my diet was free of gluten. During that time I also cut sugar out of my diet and saw such improvement that I limit the amount of added sugars in my diet to as close to zero as possible, with some room for dessert here and there. The important part is learning to adapt your lifestyle to fit these changes rather than acting like this new diet isn’t the norm.
The best way to determine if your food is impacting your mental health is to omit certain foods and see if it makes a difference. Generally speaking you would need to eat something and see how it makes you feel same day and next day before writing it off as safe. Certain foods have a lasting impact - ie gluten for a celiac patient can last days or weeks physically, and even longer internally. Foods to consider omitting or limiting are: sugar and processed foods, and also gluten and dairy, which are inflammatory foods (even for the general population). If you have any medical conditions, food trials should be done under the care of a physician. The average person will have no problem with an elimination diet. Try to eliminate one thing at a time to see which foods make a difference and which foods are fine. Even if you aren’t finding food to be problematic for your mind or the way that you feel, chances are it’s having the same negative impact on the inside of your body, and is therefore worth considering further.