Stress less by eating walnuts

Being in college may be portrayed as a carefree time for fun and games away from parents’ critical gaze (“Animal House”), but, in truth, it is relentlessly stressful. In fact, more than almost 88% of college kids say they are stressed — especially about exams, student loans, academic performance, homework and social life. And virtually all of them say that stress affects their mental health.

How do they cope? One survey of around 1,000 college students found that sleeping was the No. 1 way. Exercising (No. 2), eating (No. 3) and drinking alcohol (No. 4), meditating (No. 5) and ignoring stress (No. 6) rounded out the students’ favorite coping mechanisms.

Bravo for exercising and meditating! Study after study shows exercise and meditation dispel stress hormones, change your self-image, improve sleep and increases feelgood neurotransmitters like serotonin. Excess sleep — as opposed to healthful, restorative sleep — can fuel depression and make it harder to cope. And overeating and excess alcohol are shortcuts to the blues.

If you want a positive stress-buster, you can start with walnuts. I know that sounds a little, well, nuts, but a study published in Nutrients found that eating half a cup of walnuts a day — at the beginning of a semester, during exams, and two weeks after exams — improved the students’ self-reported measures of mental health, their gut microbial diversity (the researchers checked) and sleep quality.

Walnuts convey these benefits because they are proteinrich and loaded with omega-3 fatty acids and phytochemicals that protect against premature aging, inflammation and metabolic syndrome.

Health pioneer Michael Roizen, M.D., is chief wellness officer emeritus at the Cleveland Clinic and author of four No. 1 New York Times bestsellers. His next book is “The Great Age Reboot: Cracking the Longevity Code for a Younger Tomorrow.” Do you have a topic Dr. Mike should cover in a future column? If so, please email questions@ GreatAgeReboot.com.