Gut feeling: How food affects your mood and mind

Leading a healthy lifestyle has numerous benefits. It affects your physical, mental, and emotional well being, as well as your daily moods and thought processes. With the pandemic still at large, traditional schooling has been mostly replaced with online classes and homeschooling. While there are certainly advantages to online learning, it can be quite stressful and makes staying fit more challenging.  

One of the most vital components of staying healthy is food and nutrition. It’s not wrong to say that you are what you eat, and the timing matters just as much in your emotions and decision making. Let’s take a closer look at your gut feelings!

How Important Is It?

While you might be sceptical of your gut’s influence in your everyday life, there’s a good reason it’s referred to as the second brain of the body. The extensive network of neurons lining your digestive system connects directly with the ones in your brain and is partly responsible for your mental state as well as your immune system. It contains more neurons than the entire spinal cord and 95% of the body’s serotonin. While the network is mostly involved with digestion, it also regulates everyday emotional stability. Stomach nerves and the gut nervous system are why you get butterflies in your stomach when you’re anxious and why your mood sours when you have a problem with digestion.

Focus Foods

Eating different foods can have different effects. For example, you probably know that drinking coffee can keep you alert and focused due to the caffeine. A glass of fruit juice provides the necessary glucose for a short term boost in memory and thinking. Green leafy vegetables are essential for increased brain power, health, memory, and clarity. Other foods like fish, nuts, and seeds work in the long term and prevent cognitive decline as you age. The most important thing is to ensure you have a balanced diet and drink lots of water. Try not to overdo any of the focus foods as too much can have an overall negative effect.

Less Everyday Stress

There’s no denying that we live in stressful times. While there’s not much to be done about the external factors, we can still minimise our everyday stress levels. Eating dark chocolate releases endorphins and serotonin, which can lift your mood and make you feel good. Some other foods known to have de-stressing properties are garlic, sweet potatoes, eggs, and chickpeas. Fermented foods like yoghurt and kimchi also have some of the best probiotics and are loaded with good bacteria. A high fibre diet is also beneficial to your gut health, which helps in keeping you stress-free.

Sleep Schedule

Regular sleep and sleeping patterns are crucial to lead a healthy lifestyle. It reduces stress, lowers your risk of heart disease, and helps boost your mood, concentration, and productivity. Some of the foods that help you sleep well include white rice, turkey, kiwi, almonds, and walnuts. Tea’s like chamomile and passionflower are also helpful. Don’t stay up too late studying and leave a few hours between eating and falling asleep for a good night of rest.

What you eat will always affect the state of your body and mind in ways that you probably don’t expect. Studies show that the longer it has been since you’ve eaten, the more conventional and less risk-taking you become. This finding has drastic effects on an individual as well as societal level. Your physical well being affects your mental health, changing mood, as well as your decision-making ability. 

Staying healthy and taking care of yourself at home is extremely important. Online schooling gives you a lot of freedom regarding choosing the best timings for eating, exercise, and sleep.  If you’d like to continue with homeschooling and are looking for a fun and engaging internationally recognised curriculum, go with your gut feeling and check us out at Vineyard Academy.