What Are the Best Foods to Eat to Beat Stress?

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What are the best foods to eat to beat stress? 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.

Sherry.

M. From Harvard Institute of Lifestyle Medicine Conference asks what are the best foods to eat to beat stress? Hey, it's JJ here. And today I've got nutritional psychiatry pioneer Dr. Um Uma Naidu with me. So here's what's cool. Michelin starred chef David Boulay describes Dr. Uma as the world's first triple threat in the food is Medicine space. She's a Harvard trained psychiatrist, a 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 and wanted to be an astronaut. She'll be right back to answer this question. Stay with me.

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Thanks jj I think that's a great question because many of us talk about feeling stressed and what stress is doing to our bodies, such as the feeling of a tense neck or or back muscles. But what about our brain? Is a question that I would ask. We understand of course, that cortisol is one of the many hormones in our body that is related to stress. And I think that many people have an awareness of cortisol. But what I would say about nutritional psychiatry and stress and the way in which they are linked is that the rules about how we should eat healthy often fly out the window when we are feeling stressed. You know, you may know what you had planned to eat for dinner at the end of a stressful workday, but often when you get home, your cravings kick in. And I can speak about this for myself. You know, after a very, very busy day and a stressful one at work, at the hospital, I may return home, you know, having faced a ton of stress. And then I have to really remind myself not to start my dinner with ice cream. And I then have to remind myself to start with a healthy side salad or a tasty snack that I might have in the fridge like celery and hummus before I actually find myself leading to a sweet treat from the freezer. So what I would say about stress is that it has many poor effects on our physical body. The effects on our brain though, are extremely significant and one which we should try to work on to so this is where, you know, foods become important, lifestyle changes become important. You know, regular exercise, movement, mindfulness, you know, having a mindset that works towards overall lowering your stress levels. And simply said from brain science, stress traps you in habit circuits in your brain so you repeat learned habits. And if you have bad habits on a repeat cycle in your brain, you can imagine that this is not good for you. So what can you actively do to reduce stress? You might ask. Well JJ you won't be surprised to know that we'll start off by talking about leafy green vegetables like spinach, all of which contain folate, which really help to calm down our brain through the way that they work with neurochemicals such as dopamine. One example is that a study of college students published a few years ago show that they felt calmer and less stressed on days when they ate more veggies and fruit. You know, eating whole grains like quinoa will keep us feeling fuller for longer. They will not cause a spike in our blood sugar like a doughnut would. So these this evening out of our blood sugar levels is also what helps us remain on an even keel. I love to recommend prebiotic and probiotic foods for managing stress. And one simple way to incorporate that into your diet would be by eating probiotic rich plain yogurts which help to reduce the brain activity in regions that handle emotions such as stress. A study completed in young women at UCLA a few years ago revealed that consumers consuming probiotics in yogurt reduced brain activity in areas that handle emotion, including stress. And that's why I make the recommendation. There are also several non dairy yogurts that are available in supermarkets now that contain probiotics and you can be on the lookout for these. Other foods include things like salmon, lean cuts of beef and poultry which contain zinc. Now they contain many nutrients, minerals and vitamins, but I'm speaking about zinc because it's one of the nutrients and one of the components of these foods that actually help to reduce stress. I also like to speak about vitamin C rich foods which help to lower cortisol. So the more oranges, fresh fruit, citrus that you can add a squeeze of lemon to a salad, some lemon zest added to a side of of vegetables for dinner will help this along and other cortisol reducing foods. And the reason I mentioned cortisol reducing foods is that we know cortisol is related to stress. So obviously foods that we can eat to help low cortisol will directly be helpful to impacting our stress levels. And such foods include things like dark chocolate, certain black teas. But just remember black tea to limit it to one cup a day and really include including a lot of soluble fiber in your diet. So these are ways that I try to guide my patients around helping to lower their stress.

This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert.

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