Eat Well And You Will Feel Happier: Change Your Diet To Lift Your Mood

I will be writing a series of articles on how diet and exercise can be helpful when trying to manage depression. Feel well and you will feel happier; this is my firm belief and I will be sharing my tips with you.

In this article, the first of a series, I cover food and drink in general. It is a guide to nourishment, in the form of hydration and food, that will make you healthier and consequently boost your state of mind. A diet change can lift your mood, make you feel more relaxed, and improve your health.

“You Are What You Eat”. We all know this phrase. It has been said for many years although its origin is unknown. It was written in both French and German in the nineteenth century and, in English, was first used in the 1930s.

Remember, feel well and you will feel happier. Try the following:

Drink Plenty of Water

You should stay hydrated. You might like to read my article “How To Obtain And Maintain A Flat Tummy With Good Nutrition And Exercises” where I talk about the importance of drinking enough water. Our brain contains about 75 per cent water. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that dehydration can adversely affect your mood. It’s recommended that you should drink 6 to 8 glasses or cups of water a day. And you should look at the colour of your wee! It should be very pale in colour, and very yellow or dark wee is a sure sign that you need to drink more water. I’ve found this chart useful:

Eight strips of colour ranging from almost clear to dark yellow, indicating hydration by colour of urine — Urine Colour Hydration Chart

And I’ve got a tip to help you manage to drink more water, something I discovered myself. I’ve always enjoyed a couple of glasses a day, carbonated sparkling water, cold from the fridge. It sounds enticing but it’s difficult to drink in quantity, both because of the bubbles and the chill as you drink it. Try still water, filtered if possible but straight from the tap will be okay, and have it at room temperature. It just glides down, no effort required, and it becomes easy to drink the quantity you need to stay healthy.

Another of my personal tips. Fill a litre bottle with tap water each morning and make sure you drink it all by bedtime. I find this takes the thought and effort out of drinking water. More hydration will come from my daily cup of tea and coffee, one of each, too, so that I will reach my daily quota.

Eat Regular Meals

Maintain your mood level by regularly refueling your brain. Eat little and often, and have a varied, balanced diet. It is important to follow the “five-a-day” rule with fruit and vegetables and to make sure you include protein, starchy carbohydrates, and fat. I’ll explain, simply, what they are:

Protein

Protein contains tryptophan. Tryptophan is an essential amino acid, and it produces a neurotransmitter called serotonin. Serotonin transmits messages between your nerve cells and brain. NHS UK, in an article about serotonin claims: “It’s thought to have a good influence on mood, emotion and sleep.”.

Almonds: light brown nuts, in shell, in shell broken to see nut, out of shell with peel, out of shell without peel — Almonds

Good sources of protein are:

chicken breast
minced lean beef
eggs
nuts (such as peanuts or almonds)
cheese
pulses (lentils, peas, chickpeas, and beans), and fish

Starchy Carbohydrates

Glucose, obtained in the form of starchy carbohydrates, keeps your brain working at its best. Eat starchy carbohydrates little and often to avoid the seesaw effect of mood-swings.

brown wholemeal bread on round breadboard, 5 slices and crust cut — Wholemeal Bread

Good food to eat for starchy carbohydrates are:

wholemeal pasta
wholemeal bread
rice
yams
potatoes

Fat

Healthy and unhealthy fat deserve an article of their own, and this will be coming soon. Here I’ll keep it simple.

UNHEALTHY FAT

Trans Fats

Brown chocolaty, squiggy cookie on white background — Warm Double Chocolate cookie

Fast food
Cakes and biscuits
Chocolate

Saturated Fats

Vegetable Fats

coconut cut in half, showing white cut side and brown hairy side - on grey background — Coconut

Coconut
Palm oil
Condensed milk

Animal Fats

pink and brown ice cream with thick cream cascading, wafer, in glass stemmed bowl - darker brown background — Ice Cream with Cream and Wafer

Full fat milk, cream and ice cream
Fatty meat
Butter or ghee

HEALTHY FAT

Polyunsaturated Fats

sunflowers, yellow with darker gold centre, green leaves, blue sky — Sunflowers

Oils – sunflower, soybean, corn
Cold-water fish
Seeds

Monounsaturated Fats

tall olive oil bottle, bulbous at bottom with tall narrow stem, containing deep yellow oil, green olives in white dish on left, black olives on white dish on right - white background — Olive Oil

Oils – rapeseed, olive, peanut, sesame
Avocado
Nuts – almonds, peanuts, brazils

CONCLUSION

If you can follow a healthy diet it will help, I know from experience. And I can definitely feel the difference now I’ve upped my daily intake of water. I’m not promising huge changes, but you will feel gradual, subtle differences. It’s true – feel well and you will feel happier.

Future articles will cover food and drink in more depth. I’ll also suggest exercises and activities that I find helpful. And you’ll be able to follow my recipes as I go from lovely but rather unhealthy food to nourishing, uplifting and delicious alternatives.

You might also find my article Strawberry, Blueberry and Redcurrant Smoothie Recipe, a nutritious and fragrant drink.

If you feel you’re looking better, it will lift your mood.