EAT TO BEAT ANXIETY
SUMPTUOUS PULLOUT INSIDE
FEELING stressed? Are your worries getting on top of you? Like many of us, perhaps you’ll pop open a bottle of wine, hoping it will calm you down. Or you may curl up on the sofa with ice cream or a slice of cake. It’s called comfort food for a reason.
But what if I told you that your sweet treat or nightly tipple could be making your worries worse, not better?
The chemical make-up of everything we eat can change our brain chemistry, hormones and mental state. Did you know that anxiety often comes with the ‘crash’ you get after eating sugar?
So, if you’re one of the increasing number of us who feel overwhelmed by worry, let me show you how just a few simple tweaks to your diet could help halt your anxiety.
It’s part of The Anxiety Solution, my new book being serialised exclusively in the Daily Mail. Drawing on my expertise as a clinical hypnotherapist and nutritionist, on Saturday I told how simple changes I made to my lifestyle healed my own worries. Today and tomorrow, I’ll reveal how you can conquer your anxiety, too. As well as dietary and lifestyle advice, this series is full of easy but effective tips and mental exercises to restore you to serenity.
I can promise you it works — it cured me of the anxiety that had me in its grasp from childhood. I became tormented by worries: everything from my career to my health. I was in meltdown when I began The Anxiety Solution.
Now, I am freed from the worries that used to haunt me. And you can be, too — no matter how long you have suffered or how intense your anxiety seems.
Today, I’m going to show you small, but important, changes to your diet to help you achieve that precious sense of calm. With that in mind, we’ve created nine specially tailored recipes ( see overleaf) to help you relax and leave your worries behind.
HOW IS DIET LINKED TO ANXIETY?
THERE is a scientific reason why we have ‘gut feelings’. Your gut houses 100 million ‘ brain cells’ — a network of neurons lining your stomach, which can exert control over your mood and appetite.
No wonder your thoughts and what is going on in your tummy can seem inextricably linked.
The activity in your gut can have a serious impact on how you think and feel. Most of your serotonin — the ‘happy and calm’ hormone — is made in the gut. are
And a recent study found that gut bacteria has a positive effect on the production of gammaaminobutyric acid (GABA), the neurotransmitter that calms the brain. So a healthy gut really is a healthy mind!
I don’t want you to view the following advice as a ‘diet’ — there is nothing like prescriptive eating rules to set your anxiety levels to maximum. But there
some tweaks you can make to your diet to minimise any anxious feelings. I’m going to take you through how keeping an eye on sugar and other foods will help you feel calmer, and how boosting certain nutrients such as vitamin D, as well as eating more prebiotic and probiotic foods, can reduce your worries.
WHY GUT BACTERIA REALLY MATTER
A LOT of gut health comes down to the balance of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria. The gut is home to more than 100 trillion bacteria, and many are essential for digestion.
Studies suggest that good bacteria in your tummy can affect your mental health, which is where prebiotic and probiotic foods come in.
Probiotics introduce good bacteria into the gut, while prebiotics act as a fertiliser for the good bacteria already there. They are known to help with digestive conditions, but are also important for your mental state. A recent study found that
Bifidobacteria, a probiotic bacteria, reduces anxiety and even improves memory.
Scientists have also found that stress in early life can alter our gut bacteria and may be a factor in anxiety later on.
happily, there are things we can do to influence our gut bacteria. I suggest having both prebiotic and probiotic foods in your diet, as well as considering a probiotic supplement.
I recommend a tablet, rather than yoghurt drinks — the latter are full of sugar, which can feed ‘bad’ bacteria. To reduce these, you should limit your sugar intake to starve them.
FOODS TO EAT TO REDUCE STRESS
AS WELL as feeding good bacteria, prebiotic foods lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Great sources are garlic, onions, leeks and chives, as well as peas, avocado, asparagus and