When things are hard and you’re feeling down in the dumps, it’s easy to turn to food to make you feel better. However, beware of over-indulging in foods that are high in sugar and calories that may end up having detrimental effects on your health. Instead, consider turning to the ‘good mood diet’, which is essentially a list of nutritious foods that research has shown may help improve mood disorders and boost overall health.
Keep reading to find out what these mood-boosting foods are and how they can help lift your spirits.
Why it works:
Eggs and spinach both contain tyrosine, an amino acid that significantly improves reflexes and reaction times as soon as it’s digested. The effect is due to tyrosine’s role in the production of dopamine and epinephrine, two neurotransmitters that are crucial for keeping the brain alert.
Just make sure you use the whole egg to make the omelette, because tyrosine is only found in egg yolk.
Tip: When you’re shopping, choose a bag or bunch of spinach from the front of the shelf, where it’s been exposed to the most fluorescent light. After three days’ exposure to bright store lighting, levels of key nutrients in spinach increase by as much as 100 per cent!
Why it works:
It reduces the amount of stress hormone circulating in your bloodstream. Highly stressed people who ate 40g of dark chocolate a day as part of a US study experienced a significant drop in their stress-hormone readings after 14 days, thanks to the chocolate’s cocoa content.
And don’t worry about eating too many kilojoules as a result – dark chocolate is not only more filling than the milk variety, it also helps to reduce cravings for sweet, salty and fatty foods.
Tip: To lower your stress levels, choose a dark chocolate that contains at least 75 per cent cocoa solids.
Why it works:
Sundried tomatoes are a valuable source of non-haem iron, the variety that’s found in plant-based foods, rather than the haem iron found in meat. Women who diets are packed with non-haem iron-rich foods lower their risk of developing PMS by up to 40 per cent, according to US researchers.
And combining the sundried tomatoes with a pasta will give you a hit of carbohydrates, which stimulate the body’s production of the mood-enhancing hormone, serotonin.
Tip: Drink a glass of orange juice with your meal. A dose of vitamin C helps the body absorb up to six times as much non-haem iron from food sources.
Why it works:
The mix of quick- and slow-release carbohydrates will give your blood sugar levels an instant boost that’ll last for a couple of hours.
And that’s good news for your relationship, with low blood sugar levels pinpointed as an accurate predictor of increased aggression between partners, in a recent US study.
The researchers say it means you should never have a difficult conversation with your significant other when you’re hungry.
Tip: Consider eating the muffin and honey for breakfast. Compared to people who regularly skip their morning meal, people who do eat breakfast maintain much better control over their blood sugar levels, as a result.
Why it works:
Kiwifruit provide 146 per cent more vitamin C than the recommended daily requirement. People who ate two kiwifruit a day as part of a six-week New Zealand study experienced significantly less fatigue and had more energy compared to people who ate just half a kiwifruit.
The difference came down to vitamin C intake, which activates a number of the body’s enzymes involved in energy and brain neurochemical production.
Tip: Don’t be tempted to create the same effect with a supplement. The vitamin C from a kiwifruit is absorbed up to five times more effectively than ‘synthetic’ vitamin C.
Why it works:
The fruit’s antioxidant flavonoids make the body’s blood vessels wider, which increases blood flow to the brain and helps improve cognitive performance in the hours after you eat some, as a result.
When people drank a 200g-sized blueberry smoothie for breakfast, their concentration increased by as much as 20 per cent during the day.
Tip: The cooking process lowers blueberries’ antioxidant content, so while raw blueberries boost concentration, those used to make muffins, breads and desserts won’t be as effective.
Why it works:
Grass-fed beef is a source of mood-boosting omega-3s, which could help explain why women whose diets are deficient in lean red meat are twice as likely to experience anxiety, according to researchers in Victoria.
In fact, just looking at a piece of red meat has a calming effect, most likely because we associate it with sharing time with friends and family over a meal, say Canadian scientists.
Tip: Eating too much red meat isn’t a good idea either – overindulging has also been linked to an increased risk of anxiety. Stick to three or four palm-sized serves of lean red meat a week.
Why it works:
Salmon is packed full of the omega-3 fatty acids that have a positive impact on mood. As well as proving the fatty acids’ antidepressant effects, research has shown how omega-3s physically increase the size and improve the structural components of areas of the brain directly involved in mood and emotion regulation.
Tip: Avoid fast food. Not only does it bump your risk of depression up by 36 per cent if you eat it regularly, just being exposed to well-known fast-food brands causes an instant drop in happiness levels.
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Text: bauersyndication.com.au, Additional reporting: Elizabeth Liew
