Healthy Eating To Reduce Stress – All You Need To Know!

Healthy Eating to Reduce Stress article explained the importance of healthy food in the role of reducing stress. There are two aspects. The first is to eat healthy in order to make the body stronger so that it can handle stress better. It is well known that it is not stress that is harmful but the way in which we respond to stress. The second is avoiding the types of food that could lead to stress. 

Healthy Eating To Reduce Stress – Healthy Facts!

The concept behind eating healthy foods is to eliminate the symptoms of stress.

Four basic precautions are to limit the use of caffeine which is found in coffee, tea, sodas, and chocolate. High caffeine causes people to be more stressful and health practitioners recommend a gradual reduction in caffeine-containing foods. Using decaffeinated coffee and chocolates is a good alternative. 

The second precaution is to reduce the comforting numbness of alcohol in a stressful situation. If you must drink at all, limit alcohol intake to 2 drinks a day for men and 1 for women.

Mealtimes should be relaxed. It is better to avoid meals while running or while rushing to an activity. Mealtimes should be together with the family in a calm and relaxed atmosphere where every spoonful is savored and relished in peace. This act is in itself a stress-relieving experience. 

The food itself can lead to stress. There is a tendency to overeat during stressful situations and this can lead to obesity and related health issues such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

The challenge is to eat healthily and beat the craving for sugar-rich junk food whenever we are in a stressful situation. Stressful situations can be as light as being Caught in a traffic snarl to simply boredom to major stressful situations as a job loss or the loss of a loved one.

These diverse stressful situations lead to an uncontrollable craving for fatty foods and ultimately lead to addiction or simply a bad habit. Many people turn to smoke, alcohol, and drug abuse to try and beat stress 

The Harvard Medical School has studied these phenomena in detail. Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an instructor in the Harvard Medical School explains that cortisol is a hormone secreted by the adrenal gland in the body and controls both metabolism and blood sugar levels.

But when stressful situations result in more cortisol entering the bloodstream, there is a tendency within the body to stock fat in a primeval effect of the fight or flight syndrome. The fight to flight syndrome is a primeval human instinct when primitive hunters would fortify themselves with food and begin a chase with increased levels of metabolism to generate the internal energy for the coming fight.

In today’s scenario, there is no hunt or fight and the unutilized energy is simply converted to fat. 

The best way is to control cortisol levels in the body. One of the common stressbusters is an exercise to burn off extra fat. A simple 15-minute workout at home, a jog in the park, or a long walk can work wonders and will gradually reduce the craving for food. 

The next best way is to have at least 7 hours of sleep at night. Smartphones must be either switched off or kept aside at least an hour before sleep. The blue rays emitted from smartphone screens are now known to interfere with sleep patterns. 

An important way is to change one’s outlook. While this is also not easy, it can be done with practice and a will to improve. Finding a company with like-minded people and people with a positive outlook helps in a big way.

And then, there is a good amount of nutritious food with almost no fat content. Some of these have fibers and are rich in minerals. Some of the good ones are artichokes which are rich in prebiotics that feeds friendly bacteria in the stomach. Consumption of Prebiotic food has been known to reduce anxiety and depression levels. 

Parsley is a digestive herb with anti-oxidants, cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, chickpeas which are packed with potassium, magnesium, and other vitamins, garlic which is high in glutathione and the green vegetable Swiss chard are some of the foods recommended to beat stress and make the body healthier. So we can understand from this Healthy Eating To Reduce Stress article, having healthy food can reduce stress and make the body stronger.

The need is to eat healthier food and to systematically eliminate the conditions that build up stress in the body.