Can a Diet Reduce Your Stress?
“In 2013, Cryan and Dinan published a study identifying a set of microbes that could improve mood - psychobiotics. A psychobiotic diet forgoes fast food, highly processed food, and sugary food. These all promote bacterial growth of the wrong kind and in the wrong places. On the contrary, you should add whole grains and fermented food as well as fiber-filled veggies, fruit, and beans. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is akin to a Mediterranean diet, which scores highly on the psychobiotic scale.
One thing to note: The reduction of stress was only observed during the study; it vanished afterward. Thus, the psychobiotic diet is not a cure, but a therapeutic lifestyle: You must continually feed the good bacteria for your brain to maintain the benefit. From the article, the psychobiotic diet “included consumption of fruits and vegetables high in prebiotic fibers (e.g., onions, leeks, cabbage, apples, bananas), oats, grains, and legumes, as well as fermented foods (e.g., sauerkraut, kefir or Kombucha).” If you have a demanding life, this study shows that simply changing your diet can improve your perceived stress. Luckily, it’s easy to love a Mediterranean diet. Embracing new eating habits is a small price to pay for some peace of mind.
Key Points:
- Our gut microbes moderate our mood via the gut-brain axis.
- The food we eat alters our gut microbial profile
- A Mediterranean-style diet can improve our perception of stress.”
Read the whole article at Psychology Today
#Health #Mood #Diet #Nutrients
💬 What are your thoughts on this article? Would you give this strategy a try?
@globalBraid3744
Thank you for posting, there has been a lot of research about how your diet can affect your mood & mind. I would love to give something like this a try for at least 30 days.
@Josh3889
I wonder what other research articles on this topic show. In this article, the stress reduction was only observed during the study and vanished afterward. Perhaps it is a good idea to try it for one month and see its impact on health! It can motivate someone to turn this into a habit and improve overall well-being.
@globalBraid3744
Yes I think you have some very good points, I don't know if I could make this into a habit it would be super hard.
@Josh3889
It is definitely not easy to change the whole diet. However, it has been shown that developing a habit can take as little as one month. Personally, I think also just aiming to include more of these ingredients can be helpful.
@globalBraid3744
Yes I would have to agree!