How Eating Can Lift Your Spirits

Many individuals went to their favourite comfort foods—ice cream, croissants, pizza, and hamburgers—as people all across the world struggled with increased levels of stress, despair, and anxiety this past year. However, despite how soothing they may appear, current research indicates that the foods high in fat and sugar that we frequently crave when we're worried or sad are actually the least likely to be good for our mental health. Rather, it could be wiser to stick to entire foods like fruits, vegetables, fish, eggs, nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, and fermented foods like yoghurt.

The results are based on research in a new area of study called nutritional psychiatry, which examines the connection between mental health and nutrition. It may seem reasonable to assume that eating specific meals can improve brain health in the same way that eating particular foods can improve heart health. However, rather than emphasising how our food choices impact our mental health, nutrition research has historically mostly concentrated on how our physical health is affected. As one group of experts recently stated, food's possible effects on happiness and mental health were "virtually ignored" for a very long time.

However, a growing corpus of research has offered fascinating clues regarding the potential effects of food on our emotions over time. The gut-brain axis is the pathway by which a balanced food supports a healthy gut, which in turn communicates with the brain. Neurotransmitters that control our mood and emotions, such as dopamine and serotonin, are produced by gut microbes, and the gut microbiome has been linked to mental health outcomes. A group of researchers stated in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry last year that "an increasing amount of research indicates that the gut microbiome plays a shaping role in a variety of psychiatric disorders, including major depressive disorder."