I always hear how important nutrition is in mental health & feeling your best, how true is this?
I’ll share my anecdote
I have an anxiety disorder. Earing fast food, processed foods, sugary drinks, etc I’ll have a panic attack once a week and spend all week miserable and overthinking everything
Cleaned up my diet. Water only, lots of veg, only home-cooked meals 95% of the time. I don’t even cook that healthy, just no preservatives/additives and cooking lots from scratch. Now I go weeks without panic attacks (actually I think my last one was over 2 months ago at this point) I wake up feeling amazing, my mood is significantly better and I can recover from anxiety and stress so much easier now
Of course it is disingenuous to say this is all from diet - I am more active and creating new exercise routines, I am learning other methods for coping with anxiety and different things I can do in my life to help overall. But the biggest change I made was diet and immediately notice mood shifts when I eat like shit for a meal or two. There’s definitely a correlation.
I’m currently reading a book called “Anatomy of Anxiety” and it’s super informative and helpful. One of the first things the book addresses is diet, because it’s the most important thing you can do for your mental health.
Massive role. Sleep as well. People tend to get a little offended when this is brought up. I think because it seems like a “simple” remedy or fix for a complex problem. I promise you no one is belittling your mental heath. Nor will those two things completely cure anything. But maaaan I gotta tell you from personal experience. It can help sooo much more than you might realize.
My therapist explains that good food and regular exercise keeps my body functioning at a healthy baseline. If I don’t eat or if I dont move my body then my body goes into stress mode and no matter how much therapy I do, I’ll always be operating from a stressed out body. So in order for me to use the tools properly I need to try to maintain a normal functioning baseline in my body if I’m going to see results.
It’s important to your mental health. But hyper focusing on it to the extremes this subreddit can do is often very harmful for mental health and can lead lots of patients to eating disorders. Nutrition in eating disorder treatment is a whole other ball of wax that is a separate type of nutritionist for a reason.
It can be absolutely crucial for your mental health to be on top of your disorders via nutritional means, and it can be next to inconsequential to you as the root cause of your mental well being lies somewhere else, like exercise, faith/hope/good perspective on life.
Nutrition plays a huge role in all our bodily functions, including brain function and mental health. There’s a lot of research happening about the gut brain connection. We also need to consider that whole foods are our number one source of the vitamin and minerals our bodies need to work optimally. For example B vitamins are great for our mental health and can help with things like anxiety. Magnesium is another one that is important to mental health, and it’s found in so many foods (dark chocolate, bananas, kale and other leafy greens).
A lot of people with social anxiety and OCD have food sensitivities that they are unaware of. These sensitivities are causing inflammation in their gut. 90% of our serotonin is produced in the gut, so if there’s fluctuating levels of inflammation due to what we eat, you can see how people end up with mood fluctuation and strange thought patterns that are labelled as social anxiety and OCD.
In my experience, very important. I’ve reversed depression twice by taking vitamin D. Low levels of vitamin D are associated with depression and other health issues.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/15050-vitamin-d-vitamin-d-deficiency
THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON FOOD written by Dr. Uma Naidoo MD amazing book. I listened on audible. She discusses all sorts of mental health issues that are affected positively and negatively by food. I have a niece with severe mental health issues and I have also battled depression. This book was highly informative and presented well.
Most anti-inflammatory foods can help with depression and anxiety.
They do this by decreasing the number of inflammatory cytokines in the brain.
Some of these cytokines can inhibit neurotransmitter release. Inflammatory cytokines can cause tryptophan to be converted to quinolic acid, which is a toxic substance, instead of being converted to serotonin.
Foods that contain fatty acids, with sources of epa, help to decrease the inflammation caused by these cytokines
Food is energy and sustenance. Eating the right macros and calories for your lifestyle is just the start, but gut health, exercise, and micronutrients should also be considered. Vitamin D deficiency for example has been linked to Depression - this can be addressed through diet and or lifestyle changes.
Depression can be caused by poor nutrition, but not all depression is.
So you’d have to look at the actual research
ITT everyone saying it’s super important. Sure, a lot of people with terrible diets might feel an impact. But many people with depression do not have terrible diets. It has many causes, nutrition being one potential cause.
Some people also have terrible diets and are super happy.
Nutrition is a big player but exercise is equally important. personally I would say that nutrition and exercise make up 60% of your happiness and overall well being.
I’m convinced that at least half of the people who say there depressed aren’t actually and just treat there body like shit and except it to not act like shit.
Bruhhhhhh
The right amount of food is important along with the kind
I have seen my stress go away when I have had pro biotics immediately but don’t use it as an get away from Jail card.
Deal with stress is important as the diet
Also excess food causes acid reflux which = anxiety, stress for me
I like to tell my veterans it’s all connected and if you don’t want to eat healthy that’s fine but the minute you start getting off the couch the minute you start getting into your life you start to realize how much your body wants to be healthy you eventually stop eating all the bullshit because you want to do more so I would say it plays a really big role.
It’s very important to mental health and depression. Coming from someone that had it, eating healthy foods and taking in the right supplements cleared the brain fog, built up my confidence especially if you are working out daily. What it created was discipline
It’s hard to get any good data on this because it’s impossible to double blind the intervention. Just telling people they’re taking an antidepressant and giving them a sugar pill improves deression symptoms almost as much as an SSRI.
Erik Bakker in YouTube for example, has good stuff about Inflammation and gut problems (sibo/candida/ibs) etc…
Eat blueberries and Fatty fish. Clove, ginger and Turmeric makes good tea.
I know, i know…. it seems there is nothing new under the sun .
Mental health and gut are major.
Like they say ; there is our second brains, in our gut.
I am finding that if you connect the dots, everything that goes into your body has an effect on every aspect of your life: including mental health. Everything is interconnected. If you have a poor diet, you get poor physical health. Poor physical health leads to poor mental health as well. If your body feels good, chances are that your mental health will improve too, when you are equipped to deal with life stressors, etc. This will cascade over into your sleep quality, which is another important aspect of good mental health.
pretty important role, but unlike what some people will tell you, good nutrition won’t 100% fix all your mental health issues. good nutrition isn’t a magic bullet, and poor nutrition isn’t the only cause of mental health problems. genetic disposition, quality of upbringing, traumatic events (singular or persistent), financial status/responsibilities, alternate sexual orientation, sleep deprivation, and many other things play a role.