Good foods help moods
You’re mostly stuck inside, your children might be home from school, and the coronavirus pandemic is making the future seem less certain by the day. You might be seeking comfort in a familiar place: the fridge.
Food can be one of the easiest and most immediate ways to make ourselves feel better in stressful times. While enjoying our sustenance is a good thing, experts say emotionally eating lots of food with little nutrition can weaken our immune systems and worsen our moods at a time when protecting our bodies and staying positive is important.
‘‘If we want to be able to feel better, given the situation that we’re in, we have to think about how we want to fuel our body in ways that we can stay more at ease,’’ said Eva Selhub, a physician with expertise in stress, resilience and mind-body medicine.
Selhub said eating highly processed foods and snacks with a lot of sugar can cause bodily inflammation that increases fatigue, anxiety and depression. Various pathways connect our stomachs to our brains, she said, so putting nutritious foods into our system helps to control our moods.
Eating as a result of stress tends to be an automatic instinct, said Deanna Minich, a nutritionist. Physical hunger lasts longer and is more receptive to a variety of foods, rather than just foods with little nutrition.
Although food makes us feel better by releasing dopamine and serotonin in our brains, Selhub said the effect wears off quickly. To stop emotional eating, she suggested doing a gutcheck before you reach for a snack: ‘‘Am I about to eat because I’m physically hungry, or because I feel stressed or sad?’’
If the answer is emotional, Selhub said you should consider turning to other sources of comfort: breathing exercises, movement, spirituality, social interactions, hobbies, time outside, among others. Stick to your normal eating schedule, even if your daily routine has changed, she said.
Although many people eat extra when they feel anxious, you may have trouble eating at all. Stress can trigger in your body an elevated physiological state as if you were facing an immediate danger, like early humans may have felt when being chased by a lion, Selhub said.
To digest food properly, we need a relaxed digestive system, Minich said. Warm teas can help your body loosen up, while protein shakes and electrolyte packets provide energy.
At the very least, Minich said you should drink a lot of water. To return to regular eating patterns, though, she said it’s important to address the underlying stress, like by physically moving or doing a simple meditation.
Making good food choices starts when you’re scanning the grocery-store shelves and deciding what to take home, Minich said. To the extent that you can buy fresh, colourful foods, you should, she said.
Minich also suggested using spices to reduce stress-inflicted inflammation and eating foods with vitamin C.
Ultimately, Minich said eating well heightens our sense of wellbeing, increases our curiosity and makes us happier.
‘‘And I think this is the time that we need more wellbeing and happiness,’’ she said.
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