The Link Between Nutrition and Mental Health

Food plays a key role in how well your brain operates. By eating foods packed with essential vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that support optimal brain functioning, your mind will thrive at its optimal best.

Studies have demonstrated that eating healthily can help alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression, including mood swings. Furthermore, eating well could improve sleep quality.

Mood

Mental health is essential to our emotional, cognitive, communication, learning, resilience, hope and self-esteem wellbeing. It plays a pivotal role in relationships, personal and emotional health as well as contributing to communities or societies.

Everybody experiences moodiness from time to time, but understanding your moods can help you feel better faster. Additionally, understanding moods will enable you to manage health and lifestyle decisions more effectively as well as avoid triggers of negative moods, working towards improved quality of life overall.

Your moods can fluctuate rapidly over short or extended periods, from short term events such as an exam to months or years afterward. They can either be positive or negative depending on factors in the environment and your response to them.

An upbeat disposition can be promoted by being physically healthy, getting adequate restful sleep, and experiencing minimal stress or anxiety in life. But if your mood remains consistently depressed or low-spirited, this could be a telltale sign of more serious mental health conditions that require medical intervention.

Anxiety

Anxiety is a normal and natural human response to fear, worry or stress. Feeling anxious can actually be helpful as it enables us to react swiftly and appropriately when faced with potential threats or situations that could potentially be dangerous.

But excessive or irrational anxiety can become even more of a source of discomfort in daily life and cause people to avoid activities and situations altogether.

Your symptoms could even interfere with your work or relationships. Consult a medical provider about how they’re impacting you.

Anxiety disorders can be treated through various types of therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), for instance, is one such therapy which can teach you strategies for recognising and countering distressful or anxious thoughts. Medication may also be prescribed in order to alleviate symptoms associated with anxiety disorders.

Depression

Nutrition plays an integral part in mental wellbeing, yet studies show its impact. Certain foods and nutrients have direct bearing on how we think, feel and act.

Eating a diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish can make an enormous difference in your life. Eating this way also ensures you get enough essential vitamins and minerals like B1, B3 and B12; folate and selenium.

Your brain and nervous system require various nutrients in order to function optimally, so consuming enough of these essentials will improve your mood and decrease symptoms of depression.

Consume less refined and processed foods that may be harmful to your body. Diets high in sugar or processed fats may exacerbate depression symptoms.

Sleep

Sleep plays an essential part in maintaining all aspects of human health, from heart and lung function, metabolism, immune function, mood stability and disease resistance to overall mood balance and disease resistance.

Wellness is also essential to mental health, and its absence can leave you vulnerable to negative thinking and emotions, even contributing to conditions like anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder.

As there are ways to both improve sleep and protect against mental health conditions, including changing habits such as creating a consistent bedtime ritual and practicing relaxation techniques, there are solutions available to you that may help.