Are There Foods to Help Me Feel Less Depressed?

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Are there foods to help Me Feel Less Depressed? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert, and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. Serena G. From the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research asks, are there foods that can help me feel less depressed? Hey, it's JJ and today I've got nutritional psychiatry pioneer Dr. Uma Naidoo with me. So Michelin starred chef David Boulay describes Dr. Uma Naidu as the world's first triple threat in the Food is Medicine space. She's a Harvard trained psychiatrist, professional chef, graduating with her culinary school's most coveted award and a nutrition specialist. And fun fact, as a child she was fascinated by space travel and wanted to be an astronaut. She'll be right back to answer this question. Stay with me.

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So JJ in my book this is your brain on food, I try to make it easy, easier for everyone by providing food lists at the end of each chapter. This is where I've taken the research that is current Summarized foods based on this and include Ask people to include these in your diet to help different mental health conditions. So if someone is feeling somewhat down, a little blue, feeling depressed and not really their optimal self, nutritional strategies can be extremely useful to feeling better. I always say to my patients it's a marathon, not a sprint. So by incorporating slow and steadily healthy habits into their diet, they are going to feel emotionally better over time. And I've seen this happen in individuals that I've worked at with my clinic where they make small strategies and small changes and they really buy into this idea when they feel the impact in terms of their mood lifting, feeling better, starting to feel less depressed and less fatigued. I do believe very strongly in an integrated psychiatric approach which includes a holistic sense of how we incorporate the mind body connection. So for depression I like to explain it this way. First and foremost, by eating a healthy whole foods balanced diet, your brain will be obtaining certain nutrients it needs to help your mood and some of these vitamins include vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamins B1, B6, B9 and B12, all of which you will obtain from a healthy whole foods diet. Next, I ask my patients to include healthy fats from things like olive oil, nuts and seeds. But remember to pay attention to portion sizes. So for example, a quarter cup of nuts daily is really what you need and you might decide that you want this as part of a healthy snack mix that you make for yourself. Or perhaps you add it to a side of vegetables that you make for dinner or to a healthy salad that you have had at lunch. But the calories do add up when you go beyond a recommended portion size for a day. Next, I tell them to load up on foods that are rich in prebiotics and probiotics, and I prefer to suggest that my patients seek these out in food as this can directly impact your diet. One way to think about these foods is that prebiotics is the undigested fiber from vegetables that help feed the good bugs in our gut. And probiotics are found in foods like yogurt with active cultures, and they also support a healthy gut. But again, by eating many different healthy foods, you are creating what we call biodiversity in your gut. And this means that you're adding different foods that are natural, that are whole, that are wholesome for your body and that are different. And so you're feeding different good bugs in your gut and creating a really healthy environment in your microbiome. By taking care of your gut, you are taking care of your brain. It's as simple as that. And so good foods for your gut are also good foods for your mood. You might ask at this point, jj, well, why is she saying that it directly affects our mood? Well, the simple fact that our gut and brain are directly connected anatomically is really helpful to understand when trying to understand conditions in mental health that can be directly affected by what we eat. And one of these conditions is depression. The gut and brain, embryologically, so from pretty much when we were born and conceived, are connected. As our bodies develop from the stage of being an embryo until our organs in our body develop, the vagus nerve actually grows and connects our brain directly with our gut. And this anatomical connection also has physiological and science based impacts in terms of how chemicals travel between your brain and gut and how they impact mental health conditions such as depression, as well as several others. So the reason I will often refer to the gut brain connection or the microbiome is because of this direction link and foods that impact these in a positive way. The healthy diet that we've talked about, including fruits and vegetables, which are rich in vitamins, minerals and fiber, but also including things like prebiotics and probiotics, which help the biodiversity in your gut. And all of these things we can actually get through food.

This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com.

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