Stress & Anxiety - What To Eat, When & Why! | Health, Diet & Weight Loss | JJ Virgin
JJ Virgin presents a practical, food-centered approach to lowering chronic stress and anxiety. She frames stress as widespread and harmful (citing several prevalence statistics), argues brain health depends on diet (quoting Dr. Daniel Amen), and recommends stabilizing blood sugar and lowering inflammation primarily by "eating by the plate" (protein first, non-starchy vegetables, healthy fats, slow carbs). Key tactics include starting the day with a protein-fat-fiber meal ("dinner for breakfast" or a loaded smoothie), prioritizing clean animal proteins (grass-fed meat, pasture poultry, wild fish) for amino acids, supporting the gut microbiome with fiber and fermented foods, avoiding high-glycemic and pesticide-heavy processed foods, using intermittent fasting (12–14+ hour overnight fast; stop eating ≥3 hours before bed) to lower stress, and supplementing with magnesium, vitamin C (she suggests ~2 g as a baseline when stressed), B vitamins, and omega-3s. She also emphasizes hydration (small dehydration harms cognition), moderating caffeine, consuming high-cacao dark chocolate sparingly, sleep hygiene, movement (HIIT or walking), and mindfulness practices.
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Isn't it great when you're stressed and someone tells you to calm down and you just instantly calm down? Because that happens never. We're all under stress, more stress than ever. But there are ways you can decrease the impact of stress and anxiety on your body by reducing the stress your body is feeling and by making your system more resilient when it does get hit with it. Because we will get hit with it. And guess what? It starts with food. Let's talk about how. Hey, it's jj. Thanks for joining me. And thanks for your interest in getting healthier. I love that. Hopefully you'll learn a lot of stuff here that's going to help. So like and subscribe to get more. This is part of a series about how to use food to heal and feel better fast by improving what's at the end of your fork. And in this episode, we're going to talk about what to eat, when to eat, and why. For stress and anxiety now, it's hard to find someone who isn't stressed these days. Give it a second. Think about it. Can you think of anyone? Yeah, me neither. I mean, stress and anxiety are at epidemic levels. Now. Listen to these stats, but don't let them stress you out. Help is at the end of your fork. So according to the American Institute of stress, about 33% of people say they feel extreme stress. 77% of people experience stress that affects their physical health. And 48% of people have trouble sleeping because of stress. And the Global Organization for stress reports that 75% of Americans experienced moderate to high stress levels in the past month. 80% of people feel stress at work. And stress is the number one health concern of high school students. And honestly, that one's, to me, the most upsetting. So stress can affect how you feel, how you think, and how you behave. And there doesn't even have to be an obvious cause of it. With everything that's going on right now, we're all feeling it. And when you can't shake it, it's really bad for you. Stress can cause you to gain weight. It can age you. It lowers your immune system. It raises your blood sugar. And that, of course, can bring on inflammation and insulin resistance. It makes your gut leaky, which of course then leads to food intolerance. And it wreaks havoc on your hormones, starting with your thyroid. I mean, that is a huge wrecking ball. The risks are simply too big here for your health to try to ignore this. Now, I'm talking chronic stress. I'm not talking about a good Stress, like physical stress that comes from a workout, the kind of stress that makes your body stronger, chronic stress is what breaks it down. Chronic stress triggers you built in survival mode where your body thinks either you're about to become part of the food chain or you're going to die of starvation. And because of that, your body cranks up the stress hormones especially, especially cortisol. And when that happens, you can't sleep well, then you're irritable and you're impatient and that makes you hungrier. And I always say you're hungry, but it's not for salmon and brussels sprouts, right? And I'll tell you, if stress has its hooks in you, there's relief. I'm going to help you with some strategies that help you and your body handle it better. And we're going to start with food. What you eat can be powerful medicine and what you don't eat can be just as important. So nutritional tweaks can help you connect the dots to see the impact food is having on your stress and anxiety levels. First, it's all about supporting your brain. Your brain runs everything from your health to your happiness. I talked with an expert on that, my good friend, the world renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Amen. And he believes that if we ate better, we would have an immediate decrease of 30% of the mental health challenges around the world. That is huge. He says if you can get your food right, you think better, you're happier, you hurt less, and you're less angry because your brain is about 2% of your body's weight, but it uses 20 to 30% of the calories you consume. So in a large part, your brain is what you eat, right? And if you eat crap, you begin to think like crap, you begin to feel like crap, and you begin to act like crap. And that is a direct quote from Dr. Daniel Amen. So to fully support your brain and the messages it sends to your body, you need to stabilize your blood sugar, you need to lower inflammation, and you got to reduce the surge of cortisol your body releases in response to stress. The number one way to do this is to eat by the plate. Now I have covered eating by the plate in my other videos, but basically what you need to know here is that when you eat by the plate, you are making sure that you are starting with protein first, because protein is so key for good satiety and blood sugar balance. Then you're adding in your non starchy vegetables, then you're adding in your healthy fat and then you'll Get a little bit of fiber from slow, low carbs. What's the result? You've got protein, protein, fat and fiber. That trifecta for blood sugar balance, for satiety and for a healthy metabolism. Now you can start with your first meal. When you break your fast, it's so key critical to start this way with that trifecta of protein, fat and fiber. Because that good breakfast with this is going to help you with that blood sugar stability for the whole day. In fact, there's this thing called the second meal phenomenon that says what you ate on your first meal is going to impact how your body responds to your second meal. So if you eat your first meal and all of a sudden you're hungry right away, and now all of a sudden you're wanting some more carbs, that's because you didn't nail it with the protein, fat and fiber on that first meal. And it's making you hungrier and it's making your blood sugar go crazy and it's making you hold on to store fat. So start the day, break your fast. Right again. Protein, fat and fiber trifecta. So one of the fun twists my friend Trudy Scott, who's a nutritionist and an author and a food mood expert, recommends is having dinner for breakfast. And I want you to think about this. Think about like the weird breakfast foods that we have here. They're really dessert. That muffin and a latte, that cereal with milk. Right. That toast with jam, so much what we have is just a gluten, sugar, dairy hit that activates all of your opiate receptors in your brain. So think instead of this dinner for breakfast. So soup or stew or leftover dinner. Now, if you're a little more traditional, you can break your fast with my go to loaded smoothie. And again, what I love to do is a loaded smoothie. And I'll put in my Reignite wellness all in one protein powder. Add in some nut milk, unsweetened. I'll add in a little bit of avocado or freshly ground flaxseed meal and maybe put in a little bit of berries or a little bit of a slightly green frozen half of a banana. But again, protein, fat and fiber. Now you gotta make sure you're getting clean protein at every meal. This is so key critical because that is gonna help stabilize your blood sugar and your insulin if you've got blood sugar swings going on all over the place. And it is just going to feed into this anxiety, it's going to make you more irritable and you're going to have a lot of trouble with focus, right? And it can even make you depressed. So vegetables can have some protein. Broccoli and spinach, they'll have some. But remember, they're really carbohydrates, proteins just a little bit. So you're going to, if you are a vegan or vegetarian, you got to be more vigilant about really getting in that protein. Now if you eat animal protein, it's interesting. Red meat's often made out to be the bad guy, right? But Trudy shared a study with me and like blew my mind. It was done in 2010 by Felice Jaka and it showed that the strongest connection to good mental health was someone's grass fed meat intake. Crazy right? Now important to note here, that was clean meat. That was grass fed meat. You want all your protein to be clean. Remember you are what you eat ate. And grass fed grass finished meat is very different than what I call junk food meat, right? Like bologna or salami or a burger at a fast food place. Junk feed meat is from animals eating GMO corn and grain and soy and it totally changes what you're eating. Now they have a bad fatty acid profile, they're very pro inflammatory and and you know, again, if they're getting pesticides and hormones and everything else it's storing in that fat, remember, you are what you eat, ate, you are eating everything they ate. And sadly, their living conditions can be horrible. They can be stressed and there's something called xenohormesis that says their stress, their stress hormones are now in the meat. So their stress becomes your stress. So grass fed and finished meat has these healthy amino acids which are the building blocks of neurotransmitters. And it also has zinc which also helps make neurotransmitters. And neurotransmitters regulate your moods. So that can have a huge impact on your stress, right? Also, grass fed and finished meat has higher level omega 3s and these are hugely beneficial for mental health and inflammation. So it's a big, big, big difference. So again, I hope I've hit home for you that the quality of meat is everything. It's either grass and finished or think of it like junk food. Now also you can think about including pasture raised poultry and cold water wild fish like salmon and smaller fish like sardines because they are less likely to accumulate some of the heavy metals and toxins. And what you'll get from these wild seafood, wild fish is some healthy fats, omega 3 rich fats which are great for Lowering inflammation, which again connects to brain health. Now, there's a lot of research showing that the countries that have the highest consumption of fish have lower mental health issues. And in fact, if you think about, like, the happiest countries in the world, Norway, Finland, Iceland, and is Sweden one of them? Anyway, it's all of those ones over there that eat a lot of fish. And you would think because they're in areas that are dark a lot of the time, this wouldn't be the case. So the fish is doing something. Now, if you're getting some animal protein, that will also check the box on another need for managing stress, and that is eating foods in B vitamins. If you're not getting animal protein, then you can get some bees from leafy greens and some legumes, but you won't get B12. That's only found in animal food sources. So you'll definitely need to supplement with it or you're at risk for deficiency. And you need B12 for maintaining healthy red blood cells and nerves and normal brain function. So do not put yourself at risk for that. Again, vegan or vegetarian, make sure you're getting your B12 supplementally. All right, let's talk fruits and veggies. So of course they're a good thing for you, but you have to choose wisely. Fruit is not a free food. You don't want to overdo the fruit because too much sugar. Fruit is sugar. Now, granted, it comes with fiber and phytonutrients, but too much sugar can actually spike your blood sugar and increase your stress. And carbs can fall into that category, too. But what Dr. Daniel Amen likes to say is there are smart carbs and there are dumb carbs, and that really is important because that then doesn't demonize all carbs, right? Like example, broccoli and non starchy vegetables are smart carbs. Right? They're obviously a good choice. But processed carbs that are high glycemic, low fiber, you know, white bread, white pasta, those would be dumb carbs. Yeah, I'm right there with you, Dr. Daniel Amen. Now, I mentioned eating by the plate, and eating by the plate also lowers inflammation fast. Our Western junk food diet is associated with a high incidence of depression and anxiety. So getting back to real whole foods is super important. If you're sensitive to any of my seven highly inflammatory foods, I call them my high five foods. For high food intolerance, particularly gluten or dairy, they could be at the root of your anxiety and depression. So if you want more on how to test for possible food sensitivities, be sure to check out my book, the Virgin Diet. And it has a three a three week easy program to help you figure out which foods work for you and which foods don't. By having you do some simple swaps. You swap the hurting foods for healing foods that you. Boom. Feel better fast. Okay, you got to support your gut, your microbiome. The health of your microbiome is key to stabilizing your mood because 95% of your body's serotonin is produced in your gut. It's called your second brain for a reason. Now you have 100 trillion bugs in your gut. That is 10 times the number of bugs in your gut. As cells in your body. Your microbiome protects your intestinal lining, it helps you make neurotransmitters, it helps you make hormones, it digests your foods, it helps you absorb nutrients, and it detoxifies your body. So focus on focusing on eating organic, gut supporting foods, foods that are high in fiber, foods that have got good pre or probiotics, fermented foods. These are going to be super duper duper important. So what are some of these foods that look like this? Because I've really been working on how do I get a little bit of fermented food in every day. Maybe it's something like a coconut kefir, maybe it's something like an almond yogurt. Maybe you're eating a little bit real sauerkraut. But try eating a little bit of that for the pre and probiotics. Make sure that you're getting a wide variety of fibers. I like to get that from food first and then I always supplement with my extra fiber as well. But you'll get that from things like nuts and seeds, avocados, legumes, apples. So get a wide range of fiber as well. All of this again is super important for feeding the good bacteria in your gut and having a really healthy gut microbiome. And also to have a healthy microbiome. You want to make sure you're staying away from foods sprayed with pesticides. So when you look at the crops that are really sprayed with pesticides, gluten, of course, all the gluten containing grains are getting hammered with glyphosate gmo, because one of the things happens with GMO crops is they have been genetically modified to be able to handle all those pesticides, to stay strong amidst the pesticides, which means they're getting absorbed into those crops. So gmo, corn and soy. Now what happens in when You've got crops that are sprayed with these pesticides. Well, you can't wash all of it off. It's been absorbed. And if it's absorbed in them, it's absorbing in you. And if it's absorbing in you, these pesticides can get in and they can disrupt your neurotransmitters like your calming GABA and your happy serotonin. When you have low GABA levels, you're going to feel anxious. When you have low serotonin, you're going to worry more and not sleep as well. What do pesticides kill? They kill bugs. So if you're getting pesticides in your food, guess what else is going to take a hit? Your microbiome. The other thing that hurts your microbiome are artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners to me are just a science experiment that went wrong. Like, I can't even believe they're legal. When you look at artificial sweeteners, to me they're poisonous. But I bring them up to share a little bit of good news around sweets. Now, when you're stressed, you probably want chocolate, right? Well, why is that? It's because your serotonin is probably low. And when your serotonin is low, you get anxious and irritable and then you can't sleep, which just makes you more stressed. Well, here is the good news. The flavanols in dark chocolate boost brain function and can lower stress hormones. So they can actually help you stay more focused and calm. So I want you to take that as permission. However, you want to make sure that you're using something that's got high cacao count and ideally it's got no sugar added or very, very little sugar. One of the key things here is the higher the cacao count, like, you know, 85, 90, 95, 99, you'll have very little sugar. Or I use one of the brands that's sweetened with either Lakanto Monk Fruit Stevia. Right. So look around, there's so many great options. Now if you really love this stuff too, I'm just going to do a shout out FX Chocolate has a great chocolate, no sugar added, and they actually have one that helps you sleep. So there you go. Bonus there. All right, so I've given you a bunch of suggestions. Now these are the ones that are usually most successful, but again, we're all different. There's, you know, no one size fits all approach here. So. So you might have some outliers that may be causing issues, like you may be sensitive to high histamine foods. Or oxalates. And those are, by the way, if you're like, what? Those are compounds that are in some of the foods, like beans and spinach. There may be some things that you want to tweak on your own. If you've done this and it's gotten you this far and you go, okay, I need more. So again, take this as foundational. Try these things, and then see if you need to go further. There's also some nutrients that can help you de stress. Some you'll get from your clean, lean protein and healthy fat sources. But supplementing can really support your body's response to stress. So here's a couple ones that I really, really love. Number one, I love doing Epsom salts baths is one way that I get my magnesium, but I also take magnesium. Body Calm from Reignite Wellness. Every night before I go to sleep, I take three of those. Vitamin C is another big one. So when you're stressed out, your adrenal glands need vitamin C. And so it is the number one vitamin used by your adrenal glands. So often when we're under stress, we're blowing through it. And I find that when you're under stress, kind of 2 grams of vitamin C is a bare minimum. And I like to do this in divided doses, but I find people under stress tend to do better with more. Maybe they do 2 grams twice a day. Okay. B vitamins. Another thing that we tend to use up a lot more during stress are B vitamins. So a good B complex that should be in your multivitamin, super duper important. And then Omega 3s, so dampen the inflammation, get rid of the fire. But also, they're very calming. They can help as well. So all of those things are things that I love to do as foundational for stress. There's other. There's other ones, too, but those to me, are the foundation, along with a good healthy diet and good lifestyle stuff. And of course, obviously, along with food, I want to make sure that you're staying hydrated, especially for your brain. 80% of your brain is water, and when you're dehydrated, you just don't think as well. And here's what's crazy. Even 2% dehydration can stress your cognitive abilities and your spatial abilities by 20%. That's crazy. So let's talk caffeine. It is one of my favorite food groups, and it can be great for helping you with clarity and focus and cutting through the brain fog, but it can also be dehydrating, and it can Also make you more anxious and jittery if you're genetically more sensitive to it. So just kind of see, notice what you're noticing there. Now, if the idea of cutting out coffee gives you anxiety, keep it, but give decaf a try, too. I'll tell you what I do is we do coffee in the morning and we do half decaf, half regular. And then if I'm going to do it, I'll switch to green tea in the afternoon. So again, just see how you are. I'm a faster caffeine metabolizer. See how you do with it. Some people have to only have it first thing in the morning or it makes them, you know, difficult to sleep that night. Now, same thing with green tea. If you don't already drink green tea, you have to get it on green tea. Green tea just makes you feel good. In fact, I have it right here. This is my green tea. Makes you feel good. It does a ton of good things for your health, from fighting heart disease and obesity to preventing type 2 diabetes and for fighting stress. It has an amino acid called L theanine, and L theanine naturally reduces blood pressure and anxiety. In fact, L theanine helps your body produce gaba, and GABA is the number one calming neurotransmitter. So now you got the right food on your plate or in your smoothie, right? That's it. First thing. You got the right food on your plate or in your smoothie. When is the best time to eat for stress and anxiety? Okay, first of all, I can tell you it's not late at night and it's not all the time. All right? So let's just say right here we'll all agree that constant grazing and snacking are off the table. Okay? And eating late at night. Can we agree now, when you snack or anytime you eat, your body restarts digestion, so now it's not absorbing and utilizing food, and it gets stored as fat. So your insulin levels increase, which means you're raising your risk of insulin resistance and sabotaging your metabolism. Your entire system is just more stressed and potentially inflamed, especially if you're packing on weight. A lot of important things happen when you're not eating. There's something called the migrating motor complex, and this happens in your small intestine when you're no longer digesting food, like after about four to six hours. Basically, it's cleaning time. And it goes in there and takes care of undigested food particles and bacteria, sweeps them out of your stomach and small intestine into your colon. So you gotta give that a chance to work. So that leads to the real secret weapon. One of the most immediate ways to de stress your body is with intermittent fasting. It's just giving your body a rest. Start by slowly stretching the time between meals until you can go at least four hours and you no longer need that snack as a crutch. Your fasting window is when you're going to heal your inflammation. You're going to stabilize your blood sugar and you're going to burn stored fat for fuel. So you want to stretch the time between dinner and your morning meal until you get to at least 12 hours and 14 is better. Now here's the easy thing. You're going to stop eating at least three hours before bed. And bonus points if you can get that walk in after dinner because it helps lower your blood sugar. And it's, that's another great thing for lowering stress and anxiety. Now here's the deal. Lowering your stress and anxiety is really life or death important. Chronic stress and anxiety creates systemic inflammation and that can lead to chronic disease. But the yin to the yang is that in order to get the full benefit of eating to reduce stress and anxiety, you also have to not eat things that are going to increase it. So you'll want to avoid foods that have a high stress impact on your body, especially sugar. You knew I was going to say it. If you're a stress eater and you soothe with sugary snacks. And it can become a vicious cycle that just keeps you stressed. Because when you're stressed, your hunger hormones are high and cortisol is high. And cortisol increases appetite and increases cravings for more sugary foods. Sugar stresses your system more so you keep craving the foods that are hurting you. And around and around and around we go. So I want you to jump on the intermittent fasting bandwagon and wait till you see how quickly fasting can help. And then when it's mealtime, remember protein comes first and then we get those non starchy vegetables and fats. So we've got the protein, fat and fiber foods to help heal your gut along with those nutrients. I already mentioned. When you do eat, ideally you want to be sitting down and eating slowly and taking the time to actually enjoy your food. For speed de stressing, be sure to do other things that will help you address stress and anxiety as well. A couple things that come to mind, High intensity interval training. That's a great one. It's where you go all out and recover. So maybe you, you Sprint, and you walk it off. Sprint, and you walk it off. Sprint, you walk it off. Teaches your sympathetic nervous system how to handle stress better. Or you get mindful and you do some yoga and just kind of slow it down. Or you walk after a meal. Also, got to make sure you're sleeping. I want you to get seven to nine hours of solid, quality, uninterrupted sleep every night. Because being rested helps you have a longer fuse, right? It helps you crush cravings. It makes it so you're not as hungry. It helps your body burn fat. Now, here's the challenge. The challenge is stress can make it hard for you to get to sleep and especially to stay asleep. So if you're struggling with that, try my sleep candy. Also, a couple things that I love. I love little lavender on pillow or a lavender in a diffuser. And I love taking a hot Epsom salts bath before bed. Another thing that I do is meditation. I mean, this really works for me. This has been something I've done for the last year and a half. Now, there's other ways you can work on your mindset. Gratitude practices, journaling, or I got the best one of all. Pet your puppies. You know, no one likes it, but stress is here to stay. So the reality is we've got to have the tools in our toolkit to handle it better. And we've got to change our perception of it, too. Right? Perception becomes reality. I know these strategies will do that for you. They've worked for me. They've worked for thousands of other people I've worked with. So I want to know how it goes for you. Now, if you'd like more healthy goodness, be sure to keep tuning in here because I'm going to keep pushing it out here. And I'll see you next time in the next video where we're going to tackle what to eat, when to eat, and why for gut health.
