Mood and Food: A Connection

Feeling low? Pour yourself a tall glass of milk. Can't focus? Reach for a handful of walnuts. Need a lift? A little chocolate won't hurt. Nobody disputes that what we eat shapes our physical health. The meals on your plate affect your energy, your weight, your nutrient stores. What gets less attention is that those same meals reach into your mental health. Nutritional psychiatry gives the old line "you are what you eat" a second meaning.

When food goes in, the body pulls it apart, extracts the nutrients it needs, and routes them toward specific jobs. Some get stored, some get spent, the rest leaves as waste. The whole operation runs without any conscious effort on our part. Still, there's a case for paying closer attention to how we fuel the part of us that does the thinking.

The brain is an organ. Treat it like the liver or the heart, because it has the same basic requirement: the right raw materials to work properly. It runs your concentration, your emotions, and a long list of background processes you never notice. Starve it of what it needs and the effects spread through everything you do, capping your potential and stalling any growth.

Here is the rough mechanics. A response happens when two neurons pass signals between them, a process called neurotransmission, and the cells themselves are built in part from hormones derived from nutrients. Take myelin, the fatty sheath that insulates and shields our neurons. It depends on vitamin B12, which you get from red meat, dairy, and seafood.

Neurotransmitters steer mood, too. Serotonin, the brain chemical tied to feeling good, requires iron and tryptophan. Tryptophan is the amino acid people blame for the post-turkey drowsiness, and it carries a lot of weight in our happiness. It drives the production and release of serotonin, sometimes called the "happiness hormone." Studies have linked low tryptophan to sagging mood, weaker memory, and more aggression.

Plenty of people with mood disorders take tryptophan supplements to lift mood and memory while easing stress and irritability. You don't have to open a pill bottle to get it, though. Nuts, cheeses, red meats, beans, eggs, and poultry all supply it.

Nutritional psychiatrists treat diet as a real lever against mental illness. Dietary approaches have been folded into therapy for depression, dementia, attention deficit disorder, anxiety, and schizophrenia. Researchers have also seen that diets loaded with fat and sugar can suppress neuron growth, especially in the hippocampus. That part of the brain handles memory, and it tends to run smaller in people with clinical depression.

Sugar in particular pushes mood around. Picture the brain as an engine burning glucose, the sugar carried in your blood, to keep running. The byproduct of all that burning includes free radicals, which damage cells through oxidation. Clean, healthy neurons are what let the brain communicate well, so mental well-being rides on keeping them intact. Foods rich in antioxidants help fend off the damage done by free radicals and oxidation generally.

Eating a brain-friendly diet is only half of it. How you live dictates both what you eat and how your body puts nutrients to use. Skimp on sleep, for instance, and you drift toward processed food that's fast to make, or you eat on the move, which usually means fast food and packaged snacks. To stay awake you load up on caffeine and sugar, then crash and feel worse than before. Add exhaustion that keeps you off any kind of exercise, and you've built a set of habits that wear down your mind. The payoff is poor focus, flat mood, fatigue, and sometimes depression.

The idea of overhauling your diet might feel like a lot. Maybe you figure you're healthy enough already and don't need to bother. Even so, giving your brain the right fuel can be the spark behind a real shift in how you develop as a person. Paying attention to what you eat tends to open the door to other kinds of attention. Guarding your mood and mental health deserves the same care you give the rest of your body, and the change it brings can reshape you.

To eat for a better mood, lean toward fermented foods such as soybean paste, sauerkraut, or probiotic yogurts; whole foods like raw vegetables, fruit, unprocessed meats, and nuts; omega-3 sources including salmon, albacore tuna, lake trout, walnuts, and flaxseed; Mediterranean staples such as legumes, cereals, fish, fruit, and vegetables; folates from dark green vegetables, citrus, beans, and lentils; vitamin B12 from beef, cereals, tofu, and shellfish; vitamin D from cheese, egg yolks, salmon, and beef liver; selenium from seafood, legumes, lean meat, and whole grains; tryptophan and protein from poultry and eggs; and antioxidant-heavy foods like fruit, nuts, and green tea.

On the other side, go easy on caffeine. Watch the carbohydrates, but don't cut them too far; pick fruit and whole grains over the rest. Skip junk food, the processed kind packed with sugar, fat, and carbohydrates.

One more thing: slow down when you eat, and stop using food to manage stress. Find healthier ways to decompress, treat food as part of a deliberate plan for your own growth, and the good habits will carry through your whole system.

Melissa Lavery, M.S.