As someone who has struggled with anxiety her entire life, I am very interested to read up on medical studies exploring ways that our diet impacts our mental health (I’ve blogged for you in the past right here about foods that increase anxiety, and yep, gluten was on that list!) because this also provides natural, holistic ways to help reduce anxiety and depression — by simply reducing or eliminating gluten.
That’s just one example of how our mental health can be shaped by the foods we choose to eat. Last week I told you how a keto diet has been found to be incredibly powerfully healing for folks who struggle with eating disorders — including anorexia, bulimia and food addictions. Hop over here to read it.
So today I want to take that one step further and give you a variety of different ways you can shift your next meal to make a big difference in your mental health — a difference that has been medical studied and found to actually work. Here we go:
5 Ways To Boost Your Mental Health Through What You Eat:
1. Try a Keto diet.
As discussed last week, keeping your carbs under 20 grams a day might do more to boost your mental health then all of the most intensive, in patient therapies have been able to do combined.
Interested in giving a Keto diet a try? Focus on:
- a high quality, high fat diet (coconut oil, olive oil, organic butter, avocado are all wonderful fats)
- high quality proteins (like grass fed beef, wild fish, eggs, nuts, seeds)
- and colorful vegetables.
Intimidated by going keto?
Consider cutting your gluten and sugar intake in half for one month and see if you feel more clear headed, energetic, less depressed and less anxious. It’s been my experience that patients who are experiencing a brain fog or feelings of depression can feel dramatically better in just a few short weeks of reducing carbs and gluten.
You might also feel more confident if you snag some keto friendly cookbooks — Eat Happy, written by Anna Vocino, is the one in my kitchen right now!
2. Take A Multivitamin.
Can something as simple as being sure you consume vitamins actually make a difference in our brain? Yes.
A study published Sept 14, 2022 in Alzheimers & Dementia, is the largest randomized clinical trial on multivitamin use in healthy brain aging. It’s a three year long trial following annual cognitive assessments on over 2,250 patients that were randomly assigned either a daily multivitamin, a 500 mg daily flavanol supplement (from cocoa extract) or a placebo supplement.
What researchers found was that not only did taking a daily vitamin help preserve cognitive function, but it actually helped significantly improve it. Meaning it didn’t just help prevent cognitive function from declining with age, but it actually helped improve cognitive function long term. Cognitive tests included word list, story recall, verbal fluency, number span, digit ordering and more. The results show that the daily multivitamin improved memory, executive function and global cognition over time. The researchers conducting this study estimated that the multivitamins potentially slowed brain aging by about 60%.
So if you have difficulty sticking to a keto diet (or if you are already doing a keto diet and want the next step to add additional brain benefits) focusing on essential nutrients that help support mental health is the next step. To help you find the highest quality supplements depending on your unique mental health goals, I’ve created different totally free protocols for you, and you can find them right here:
3. Eat Yogurt.
You already know that your digestion and your thoughts and feelings are directly linked.
You know that sudden feeling when you are scared and you become instantly nauseous? As a mom I got that feeling all the time when my kids were younger and I lost sight of them for a moment in a public place. It’s a horrendous feeling… it doesn’t matter how hungry you were or how long since your last meal… in life-or-death situations, hunger immediately evaporates and the rest of your senses are heightened (heart pounding and ears and eyes on maximum alert) and you scan the crowd looking for your precious child.
Or… have you ever had nervous diarrhea before a big test, a blind date, a job interview?
Or… what about a dry mouth as you stand up to give an important speech to your peers, act in a play, sing your solo at a choir concert? Your dry mouth isn’t a true reflection of your hydration status… matter of fact you just drank two cups of water before stepping out on that stage… it’s your body’s immediate response to emotional stimulus.
While we all *know* on some level that our digestive state and our bowels are connected to our mind and mind frame, you may not know that your gut actually plays a big role in your mental health. Clinical studies suggest that the gut microbes in depressed individuals are decreased in both amount and in variety. And that if the natural flora of the gut is diminished in depression, then restoring the natural vitality and variety of healthy organisms in the digestive tract might be a very powerful way to improve outcome in depression (and other mood disorders, such as anxiety.)
And indeed it is. Many studies now have shown improved mood after taking probiotics: one study showed decreased depression when participants received probiotic supplements for 30 days, and another study reported clinically significant improvement in mood when participants ate probiotic-containing yogurt for just 3 weeks. And this might apply to other neurological conditions as well. A large meta-analysis examining the intestinal flora of patients with Parkinsons Disease, researchers found that there was widespread decrease in the microbiome of those patients. A follow up study, published in Nature Communications in 2022 found that the gut microbiome had such a powerful impact on Parkinson’s diseases that they suggest Parkinson’s might actually START in the gut and then SPREAD to the brain. They found that up to 2/3rds of the metabolic pathways in the gut of Parkinsons patients are dysregulated, and urgently recommend future research in improving the gut biome to help treat Parkinson’s, and possibly even detecting Parkinson’s before it becomes symptomatic disease with a gut biome analysis.
Hate eating yogurt? You can add probiotics to your supplements for the same benefits. I share all of my very favorite probiotics right here — choose any one you like and feel the difference:
4. Eat Colorful Fruits & Veggies.
Because brain inflammation is specifically linked to depression and mental health mood disorders, it makes sense that eating anti-inflammatory flavonoids (the natural pigments found in fruits and veggies) would protect your mental health, and it does. So much so that one study found that new mothers who ate flavonoid rich foods had less post-partum anxiety than mothers who did not. Another study found that young adults who drank flavonoid rich orange juice every morning had a significantly improved gut microbiome as well as boosted brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), suggesting something as simple as drinking flavonoids may potentially help treat depression.
Here are foods rich in flavonols that help reduce brain inflammation and boost your mood:
- apples
- asparagus
- broccoli
- cabbage
- kale
- lettuce
- onions
- spinach
- chives
- dill
- oregano
- blueberry
- cherry
- cranberry
- black tea
- red wine
5. Decrease Your Food Triggers.
If you find that you are eating sugar and gluten because of emotional triggers, this is likely making your emotions worse as the brain inflammation aggravates and depresses mood, heightens anxiety, and decreases motivation.
So to end this list of ways you can modify what you eat in order to improve your mental health, I want to share some tips I’ve come up with for helping you overcome emotional eating triggers.
Look over this list to see if you can identify which emotional eating pattern describes you best and get some tips on working with your eating patterns in a healthier way:
- You eat for SECURITY:
For some folks, food represents safety and security. So when they are not eating, deep fears of safety and panic may arise. There may be worries about food scarcity and needing to know when and what your next meal will be. If you notice you overeat, it may be an attempt to feel secure and reassured that all is well. You may crave comfort foods such as casseroles and home cooking and baked goods, or foods that remind you of childhood.
The solution: reach for high fiber foods. To provide comfort and a deep contentment to security-type eaters is to include lots and lots and lots of fiber, so that you feel full, satiated, safe and grounded for longer.
- You eat to feel PLEASURE:
For some folks, food isn’t just about the nutrition, food is about the entire experience… the smell, the feel, the texture, the flavor, the delight in chewing it. Food is pleasurable and even sensual. If this is your style of eating, you may find you are eating because you want the feel of food in your mouth, not because you are hungry. You may also find a love/hate relationship with food… often pleasure-seeking eaters have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) or lactose intolerance or celiac disease and need to find a balance between the foods they love and the foods their body hates.
The solution: focus on pleasurable drinks you enjoy & consider chewing gum. One great idea for pleasure eaters is to enjoy drinking (coffees, teas, water, fresh squeezed juices…) or chewing gum throughout the day to experience that sensual pleasure of having sensations in the mouth without necessarily reaching for food.
- You eat to fee POWERFUL:
For some folks, eating food is an issue of control or power. These control-based eaters are the ones most likely to try to strictly monitor what they eat and submit to horrible restrictive diets that they absolutely hate! Healthy eating is not about what you restrict but rather what you eat. So for people who see food as power, diets are particularly offensive because restricting food intake feels like a loss of power or a loss of control… two things these types of eaters hate!
The solution: develop a grazing habit (eating smaller quantities more often). Focusing on high quality foods and eating them more often, instead of restricting quantity, tends to be kinder than dieting and allows your body to feel healthier.
- You eat to feel LOVED:
Some folks enjoy food that releases endorphins and provides a rush, similar to falling in love. Any of my blog readers who know how often I blog about eating chocolate will recognize… yep, I’m this type of eater. Romantic foods like oysters, red wine, chocolate… it’s not so much that these eaters care about food, they care about the way the food makes them feel. Dieting feels atrocious for love-seeking eaters and restricting food is equivalent to being dumped by a lover.
The solution: eat with others & make your place setting beautiful. One great idea for love-seeking eaters is to focus on enjoying the people you are eating with more than the food — if possible, avoid eating alone (which typically leads to over-eating) and instead really focus on making eye contact with the people you are enjoying a meal with, the conversation. This will allow you to enjoy what foods you do eat — for example, appreciating a lovely glass of wine and a small piece of dark chocolate instead of three plates full of food you do not actually love or even enjoy. Also, focus just as much on creating a lovely place to eat as you do what foods you are eating. Add a fresh flower to your kitchen table, bring your lunch outside to eat in sunshine the middle of a work day, or browse thrift stores for beautiful, vintage glasses and plates to mix and match, or hand sew some beautiful cloth napkins to use as a treat.
- You eat to feel HAPPIER:
Some people just love to enjoy a wide variety of foods and this is one of their wonderful strengths with eating. My son is a joy-based eater and even at a very young age he was amazing at trying foods most children wouldn’t even think of… exotic foods, spicy foods, unusual vegetables that kids traditionally hate. He was open to trying it all and got so excited as he watched me prepare an interesting meal from scratch. Because joyful eaters are so open to food, dieting or any type of food restriction at all feels like a huge loss and may even bring deep sorrow.
The solution: increase food variety & make meals from scratch. My favorite recommendation for joy-based eaters is to focus on trying new and unusual foods to satisfy their cravings, instead of over-eating a large quantity of boring foods. Keep a stash of different spices, hot sauces and healthy seasonings to make each bite taste exciting and invigorating instead of needing larger portions to bring joy. Joy eaters also tend to actually enjoy preparing food, so if you are a joy eater build time into your day to focus on trying new recipes, browsing new cookbooks, and preparing healthy meals from scratch. Joy-based eaters can feel guilty that food brings them joy — but I say this is a strength! Food brings joy! So choose your food selection based on how much joy it brings you and do not waste your time (or calories) on food that does not bring joy.
- You forget to eat, then BINGE:
Does this sounds familiar: forgetting to eat, not making the time to eat, feeling dizzy because you skipped lunch, reaching for a quick snack and then getting right back to work, forgetting to hydrate? Some folks find it easy to ignore their bodies needs or lose track of time. While sporadic eaters are usually not so bothered by going on a diet, the danger here is that they often don’t take the time to eat healthily so that when they do eat, they are ravenous and don’t make smart food choices, or they don’t even get the needed nutritional building blocks at all.
The solution: schedule meals & drink water often. The best thing these eaters can do is to schedule in their eating so that they eat at regular intervals, stay hydrated, and make great food choices… instead of not eating all day long and then binging in a drive through on the way home. Setting an alarm on your phone to remind you to eat every 3 hours throughout the day sometimes can totally transform a binge eater into a routine eater. Another great tip is to carry water with you at all times, so that even if they you not taking the time to properly eat, you stay well hydrated. This goes for everyone, but to sporadic eaters most of all.
What Else? 5 Bonus Ideas:
What else can you do to help boost mental health today? Something you can literally do right now, in the next few minutes, to make a noticeable shift in your mental well being?
I’ve got you. Pick one of these 5 things to do right now, in addition to the food suggests above.
Bonus #6: Exercise.
Researchers looking at how movement helps to boost brain function found that there are literally immediate benefits to your memory function after exercising just once. ONCE! Published September 2020 in Scientific Reports, this study finds that one session of exercising (cycling on a stationary bike was the exercise used in this study) significantly improved motor sequence memory — immediately!
This is super encouraging, because it was not looking at just the long term benefits from exercise but suggests that even if all you can do is one single episode of exercise, you will get immediate brain benefits, that very day.
And although just one session of exercising provides benefit, ideally it would be even better to sprinkle movement throughout your entire day. It could be as simple as standing up and walking around a bit every hour or two, getting in some gentle stretching routines in throughout the day, walking up and down your stairs if you have them, and/or doing a before-bed yoga routine to reap massive benefits.
So see if you can come up with a way to move your body:
- upon waking in the morning
- as a mid morning break
- as a mid day break
- as a mid afternoon break
- and end with a before-bed stretch.
Today try to use movement as a way to boost your brain function before a difficult mental task. Some examples might include:
- walking up and down a flight of stairs quickly before giving a presentation at work
- doing a few jumping jacks in the office before writing an important email
- playing a game of frisbee with friends just before settling down to study for college exams
- encouraging your kids to jump on a trampoline before heading out on the school bus each morning.
Bonus #7: Take 3 Deep Breaths.
Deep breathing actually helps provide increased nutrition to your brain and boosted removal of toxic metabolic waste because of the increased movement in cerebrospinal fluid that deep breathing creates… so taking a couple intentional deep breaths actually means you have conscious control over your brain’s environment! That is so cool.
Can you take a deep breath while grounded outside and/or on an organic indoor grounding tool? Combining grounding with a few deep breaths to immediately support the nutrition and oxygen going to your brain as well as decrease inflammation, which as we talked about in #4 above, boosts mental health as well. Win-win.
Watch this video where I go into more detail on the link between breathing and brain health:
Boost Nutrition To Your Brain In One Breath (Dr. Laura Koniver, MD… The Intuition Physician)
And if you prefer TikTok, I would love to have you follow me on TikTok here!
Boost nutrition to your brain:
Bonus #8: Reduce Job Stress.
Job stress may cause as many as one out of every seven new cases of depression, anxiety and other common mental disorders, suggests a study published in Lancet Psychiatry. Researchers looked at over 6,800 participants, ranking job strain at age 45 with risk of mental illness at age 50. The results were astounding.
- Having a job that is highly demanding increased mental diagnosis rates by 70%.
- Having a job that causes high strain (moves at a fast pace, or is highly risky, for example) increased mental diagnosis rates by 220%.
- Having a job in which the employee had very little control over decisions increased mental illness rates by 89%.
- All in all, researchers estimate that simply having higher job stress increased the overall likelihood of subsequent mental illness significantly, accounting for 1 out of every 7 new cases of mental illness in midlife.
Forget the usually-thought-of triggers such as divorce, bereavement and serious medical issues… job strain alone can put you at significant risk for mental disorders.
What constitutes a stressful job? A job that requires high intensity, a job that moves at a fast pace, a job that has high risk, a job that gives you very little control over your duties, and/or a job that doesn’t allow you to make your own decisions were all factors that contributed to job strain.
If you are thinking… yes my job is stressful but I really love it, it’s not enough. Job satisfaction is not protective of the strain that job stress can put on mental health.
Although ideally we would all have meaningful soul satisfying jobs… even when they are super fulfilling soul careers, they can actually still be toxic, stressful, high paced, and put us at high risk for mental illness. And let’s face it, many times jobs simply are not in the slightest bit soul fulfilling at all and yet still are so stressful that they raise mental illness diagnosis, all for a job you don’t even enjoy.
But there are ways to help protect yourself and your mental state. Hop over here to read up on ways to decrease work-related stress to safeguard your mental health today:
Bonus #9: Go Outside.
If you feel run down, tired, discouraged, sad, anxious, or any other mood that you just want to shake, getting grounded outside for a few minutes is probably the quickest way I know how to do it. Exercise can help, a really good night of sleep can help, even medications (when appropriate) can help, but if need support right this very minute, grounding can shift your mood by supporting brain function — literally in just seconds — as this study published in 2011, this study published in 2015, and my favorite, this important study, published in 2018, show by looking at EEG measurements of the brain.
I think of grounding as hitting a reset button. And you can reset any time of the day or night in just a few minutes.
Grounding is good thing to know about (and share with others) because all day, every day, around the clock, we are bombarded with horrific world events, distressing local news, stressful and overwhelming government changes and so much more, that reasonably leave us feeling discouraged or even defeated. It’s normal to feel stressed out, unsure, depressed and anxious over these current events, but it’s also possible to find relief and hope through the power of grounding.
By connecting with the earth, we can release tension from our muscles, shift the brain from high strung beta waves to calming alpha wave patterns, decrease the stress signals in our body by supporting vagal nerve function (which helps loosen that knot you feel in the pit of your stomach pretty quickly) and boost your mood, all naturally.
And the best part is that the earth is free and always available to you. If you are feeling utterly overwhelmed, all you have to do is walk out your front door, step out of your office, or pull over your car at the nearest rest stop and touch the earth.
Hop over here for a few ideas to get you started today:
Bonus #10: Take A Nap.
Published in The Journal Of Neuroscience on June 26, 2013, reasearchers found that if you have anxiety, sleep deprivation actually impacts you even more than it impacts other people. Sleep loss has been shown to decrease our ability to judge social interactions and social threats accurately (making you more likely to be hypersensitive and more emotionally reactive) as well as impair emotional control (making you more likely to have outbursts or impulsive behavior.)
This study furthered our understanding of the impact sleep has on anxiety by demonstrating amplified activity in the amygdala and anterior insula of the brain, which exacerbates anxiety. And those that had the worst anxiety had the most overstimulation of those areas of the brain in response to poor sleep. Meaning that people who have anxiety issues in the first place will suffer greater harm from sleep deprivation than folks without baseline anxiety issues, although in all cases the brain becomes overly sensitized and prone to hyper-reaction.
So if you are feeling anxious, let’s take a nap for 20 minutes right now… or at least commit to prioritizing your sleep tonight. Here are 12 tips to help you do just that:
You absolutely can feel your mood boost and your brain work better and better and better… all by taking a few completely natural and simple steps — like reducing gluten, adding nutritional supplements, going on a walk, taking 3 deep breaths, and touching the earth.
Share these tips with others that you love and keep each other on track.
xoxo,
Laura Koniver MD
