18 Jun Food for Thought? How Your Diet Can Impact Your Mind

Having a hamburger every once in a while might not affect your mental health as much.

But for someone who follows some very unfortunate eating habits, even one basic unhealthy meal can be enough to push them over the edge.

More of a fact than an overstatement, the food we eat can have a major effect on our mental and emotional levels. This is why it’s important that we adopt the right diet so that we can give our bodies and brains the nutrition it needs.

Learning from Food Science

Let’s take an example of just one common food, the highly processed kind.

Meals such as instant noodles, readymade meals, chips, microwave popcorn, sweets—all of these are low in nutrients and high in calories. Now, we know they’re also bad for our waist line since binging on any of these can lead to weight gain.

But here’s how such food affects our brain, and thus our way of thinking; according to a study on subjects who had visceral fat or fat around their organs, it was found that these people also suffered from damage to their brain tissue. Another study found that people whose diets were high in processed meats and fried foods also showed lower scores in memory and learning.

The way bad food and fat is able to impact our mind is because of its effect on the production of a molecule known as the brain-derived neurotrophic factor. This molecule is typically found in the hippocampus, and is crucial for the growth of new neurons, as well as our long-term memory and learning ability. The food we eat affects its growth and causes the production of this molecule to reduce.

And that in turn, not only negatively affects our ability to think clearly, it essentially slows us down, making it more difficult for us to respond and learn as we did before.

Turning the Course to Better Health

Understanding your food body connection is important. Bear in mind, we’ve only covered one factor of our diet and how one aspect of it can affect our mental and emotional health. Considering the general public’s dietary habits, there is plenty of information to unpack and resolve.

However, since every case is exclusive of one another, it’s crucial that we go to a reliable professional in the dietary field who can guide us on to the right path.

Searching for Nutritional Guidance?

MetaBody MetaMind, led by Dr. Roya Yazdani offers a number of holistic health services including information on nutrition to all in Los Angeles.

For all searching for a reliable holistic health coach los angeles, contact MetaBody MetaMind and take the right step toward improving your mental and physical health!