Understanding Food & Mood

Depression affects eating habits

A common warning sign for depression is changes in appetite and weight. Often low motivation for preparing food combined with low appetite leads to poor food choices and irregular eating patterns. For some people, there might be increased appetite for inappropriate foods and weight gain. Either way, these habits tend to intensify depression.

Food affects mood

Specific foods directly affect brain chemicals and eating patterns affect blood sugar levels, both of which play a role in mood levels. Also mood affects food choices, so vicious circles can get set up, contributing to the depression habit spiral.

How to eat yourself happier...

• Eat regular meals, especially breakfast

  • Stable blood sugar levels help to stabilise mood and prevent cravings. Eating regular healthy meals and snacks also boosts the metabolism, ensuring that energy is used effectively.
  • The ideal pattern is to eat breakfast, midmorning snack, lunch, late afternoon snack, dinner and late night snack.
  • It might help to complete a few daily meal plans initially until the habit is established. You could use this printable meal planner sheet, which includes some meal and snack suggestions.

• Choose tryptophan rich proteins...

  Tryptophan is an amino acid essential for the production of serotonin, which is the brain chemical which helps regulate mood. It is found in poultry, oil-rich fish, beans, baked potatoes, oats, nuts and seeds.

• ... combined with healthy carbohydrates

  • Carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals are needed to help uptake of serotonin in the brain. So eat healthy (whole food) carbohydrates together with the protein foods.
  • Ideas for snacks include a handful of nuts and raisins, peanut butter on wholemeal bread, or fruit with seeds or yoghurt.
  • A healthy complex carb supper or late night snack can be useful for helping to fall asleep.

• Eat enough omega-3 & -6 oils

  • Increasing evidence links low consumption of these oils to depression, as well as many other health problems*.
  • Omega-6 fatty acids are found in many vegetable oils, including soybean, safflower, corn, sunflower, flax and walnut oils. Omega-3 fatty acids are found in flaxseeds, hemp, pumpkin seeds, walnuts and oily cold-water fish.

• Avoid crash dieting or over-restrictive eating habits

  • Crash dieting sets up its own downward spiral contributing to the depression habit spiral:
    Self denial and obsessive dieting → low mood, depression, worry etc → binge/comfort eating → guilt, upset, self hate → self denial/obsessive dieting... and so on.
  • Along with increased exercise, the healthy eating patterns described above could help with weight regulation as well as depression.

• Check for any depressed thinking habits

  Unrealistic perfectionism about body image and all-or-nothing approaches to eating are very common in first-world consumer cultures. Use the strategies for challenging depressed thinking to make sure such habits aren't contributing to depression-inducing eating habits.
  
  

• Be aware of medication side effects

  Check with your doctor about how any medication might affect your appetite or food choices. Some anti-depressants react with certain foods, some increase appetite and some reduce it. Be extra vigilant about all the above strategies when on medication.
  
  

• Find out more about food and mood

  If you are interested in finding out more about food and mood, read the Mind Guide to Food and Mood Handbook (see link on other useful websites page).

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