Dieting is primarily associated with weight loss. Few people know that the food they eat has a negative or positive effect on their mood. What is the best way to eat to feel happy?
There is much more to the term diet than just weight loss. It is a daily diet and eating habits. All of these have a huge impact on a person’s physical and mental health.
A properly balanced diet provides many micro and macro elements necessary for the body. An improper diet has a negative impact on health:
Physical and mental health are intertwined. Few people know that gut bacteria have a huge impact on neurological connections. The gut and brain are connected by the vagus nerve, or vagus ─ the longest and largest nerve in the human body.
A huge influence on mood is the hormone serotonin. People who are deficient in it suffer from:
As much as 95% of serotonin is produced in the gut. Therefore, what we eat makes a huge difference in mental health.
Processed foods with lots of preservatives and additives have a very negative impact on mental and physical health. Most of the colorings added to sweets and beverages have stimulating effects and trigger aggression, among other things. Colors that negatively affect emotions are e.g:
Eating too much sugar and its derivatives also has a negative impact on mental health. The most harmful to health is:
Consuming products that have these artificial sweeteners in them leads to large fluctuations in blood insulin and elevated neurotransmitter levels. This causes:
An old Polish proverb says that “a hungry man is a bad man”. There is some truth in it. When the blood sugar level is too low, it causes quarrelsomeness and fits of aggression. When sugar levels begin to drop, the hypothalamus begins to produce the hormones leptin and ghrelin, which block the happy hormone (serotonin).
There is a theory among vegetarians that eating meat in excessive amounts can result in an increased tendency to aggression. This theory is true to some extent because there are substances in meat, mainly red meat, that contribute to increased levels of testosterone, which is responsible for, among other things, excessive aggression and tendency to use violence.
British scientist Robert McCarrison conducted a study in which he showed the negative effects of fast food on behavior. In his study, he proved that rats that were exclusively fed fast food were more aggressive than individuals fed normally.
The diet of happy people includes foods rich in tryptophan (an amino acid), which is necessary for the synthesis of serotonin. Foods rich in this amino acid are:
Providing the body with adequate amounts of vit. B6, which can be found in:
Fatty acids, especially Omega-3 fatty acids, play a very important role in the proper functioning of the nervous system:
Vitamin D deficiency causes irritability and lethargy, so especially during the fall and winter season, you should introduce into your diet:
Main article photo: photo by Julien L, source: unsplash.com
