Iran Press/ Europe: According to www.t3.com, We all know that exercising is a great way to improve mood as during workouts, our bodies release serotonin, the 'happiness hormone'.
You are probably also aware that having a healthy, balanced diet can help you lose weight and boost metabolism too. But what you might know is that you can reduce stress and improve mood by eating the right type of food. Is it possible to eat yourself happy?
Few people are likely to turn to diet and nutrition as a way to combat poor mood. The link between mental health and nutrition is well underestimated, however increasing evidence suggests that good nutrition can significantly support mental health. The food we eat can impact a number of mechanisms involving neurotransmitters, hormones, and other biological processes in the body.
To help us better understand the effects of our diet on our mental health, we asked James Collier, Head of Sustainable Nutrition and co-founder at Huel, to explain the ways in which food affects our mood and how we can use this knowledge to take better care of ourselves.
There are two hormones that play a major role in when and how much we eat: leptin and ghrelin. A research paper published in 2006 in Obesity Review tells us that Leptin is a mediator of long-term regulation of energy balance, suppressing food intake and thereby inducing weight loss. Ghrelin on the other hand is a fast-acting hormone, seemingly playing a role in meal initiation.
Basically, the body produces ghrelin to make you hungry and leptin when it's time to stop eating. It's important to understand that ghrelin is a signal hormone and it activates in regular intervals to remind you to eat. It is essential for us to eat and the body secretes ghrelin when you usually have food. It doesn't mean you need to eat straight away: ghrelin levels drop after a while, regardless if you have food or not. This is why you can feel really hungry but not eat and when you actually get around to eat, you aren't hungry anymore.
Leptin has an opposite effect to ghrelin: it signals when the system is 'full' so you stop eating. Leptin signals are slightly delayed so it is beneficial to eat slower to allow the body to react to nutrients.
Another hormone to mention here is dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that gives rise to positive feelings of pleasure. As James explains, "Dopamine causes us to seek pleasure and start ‘hunting’ for food, which these days, when food is available in abundance, means running to the snack cupboard for a chocolate biscuit.
Not only this", he adds, "but dopamine causes our brain to remember how pleasurable the chocolate biscuit was, causing us to want to eat it again and ultimately chasing foods that give us the highest dopamine surge. That’s why, when we feel stressed or sad, we seek foods that will give us the most pleasure and comfort eat.”
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