The Food Mood Connection: Where Diet Meets Depression?
Are your eating habits bringing you down? Here's what the science says.
Everyone knows what it’s like to have a down day. But feeling down more often than not is a very different story.
I sometimes think you have to be crazy NOT to get depressed given the state of our world today, with war, super-storms, rising prices, and an increasingly hostile undertone in society in general. But our state of mental health is not simply a product of our environment, personal situation, or outlook on life, even though that’s what we’ve been told for years (Just Be Happy dam it!).
Depression ultimately lives inside you – in your body. That means things that affect your physical health are impacting your mental health, and vice verse. All things are connected.
And one of the most important things you do each day is eat in order to stay alive. Your eating habits (or lack there of) might actually be bringing you down . . . . . way down. It’s time to take a closer look the food you are eating.
Let’s dive into recent research on the link between what you are eating and how you are feeling – also known as the food mood connection. In particular, I want to explore the food mood connection and depression today, and end with some ideas on how you can put the latest research to work in your life (or at least ask better questions of your health care providers!).
How does food influence mood?
Part of the reason I started The Naturalized Human is because I’m fascinated with the mind-body-food connection. For folks who have been with me for awhile, you may have noticed I temporarily hit pause on my mind-body-food and your senses posts. I’m thinking of ways to better structure and present what comes next in that series. In the meantime, I hit this food-mood research, and well, I just couldn’t help sharing this right away.
Our bodies send signals to our brains about our condition and wellbeing. Most of us have been taught that these signals are ONLY about the physical status of our body. Are we hot? Cold? Hungry? Are we in pain?
Many of us know that stress also gets signaled from our bodies to our brains. Our eyes (or other senses) detect danger – like our friend angrily coming over to talk to us – and we react automatically with our ancient fight, flight or freeze stress mechanisms. This is why I love the phrase ‘ancient humans living in a modern world’. Because we still function from a point in our human evolution when we lived much different lives than where we find ourselves today.
Knowing that your body talks to your brain constantly, is it really that much of a leap to consider that our bodies help dictate our moods and emotions? We may think we are happy, depressed, joyful or sad all based on our thoughts and circumstances, but that isn’t the whole story.
Thanks to an expanding frontier in research called Nutritional Neuroscience, we are learning more about the food mood connection.
In short, the food mood connection refers to the interaction between your daily dietary intake of food and the way you feel as a result of this diet. We all know that a food allergy can make you miserable and even be life-threatening. But the undersupply or oversupply of specific nutrients can also contribute to your emotional state of being. In particular, the lack of certain nutrients is being linked to depression, and when it comes to life-threatening states, depression can become very serious indeed.
