Anxiety can be caused by many different things, but is more and more common now, due to how busy people’s lifestyles are, juggling a busy home and work life, can be very demanding. But what if changing what you ate could help you with anxiety?
There is more and research being done on the role that the gut has with our health, and since the large majority of our immune system remains in our gut, getting a healthy gut must be a priority.
If you suffer from anxiety you sometimes suffer from gastrointestinal discomfort sometimes in the form of IBS.
Research done in 2015, and published in Psychiatry Research indicates that there could be a benefit to eating fermented foods to help with social anxiety. This could also apply to other types of anxiety.
A total of 710 students were asked about their eating habits and the food that they ate. When all things were taken into account such as exercise and healthy eating habits, the results showed that those that ate more fermented foods had less symptoms of social anxiety. It was also suggested that probiotics could help reduce inflammation of the gut which could help ease symptoms of abdominal discomfort that people from anxiety suffer with.
Magnesium is a vital mineral to be included in your diet, either by supplementation and through the food that we eat. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to obtain enough magnesium through our diet, since it comes from the soils, and our soils are a lot more depleted in magnesium than they used to be.
Also the way we process food has meant that magnesium has been taken out of foods and sometimes not put back at all or in small amounts. Over time the food that we eat is getting depleted in magnesium. For example, when bread and pasta is made, around 80-95% of the magnesium is taken out.
The main sources of magnesium we should be including on a daily basis includes foods such as beans and nuts, wholegrains such as brown rice, whole wheat bread– although this can have negative effects on the body for some people, due to the gluten content, and green leafy vegetables.
But even when we eat a diet rich in magnesium, we still might not be getting enough, and this varies from person to person due to the fact that some people are able to absorb magnesium better than others. So often supplementation is required.
This is especially the case if you suffer from anxiety, since magnesium works by calming the nervous system down. It is important for around 300 metabolic reactions in the body including mental stability.
Stress and a lot of exercise can deplete magnesium levels. Low magnesium levels have been associated with insomnia, anxiety, pain and seizures and other neuropsychiatric problems.
List of Magnesium rich foods include:
Halibut being the highest and then Mackeral
and then the others having a similar amount such as Almonds, cocoa, cashews, roasted pumpkin seeds, peanut butter, quinoa, soybeans, swiss chard, okra, tofu, bran breakfast cereal and spinach.
Please use this link if you would like to see the full chart:
Vitamin D may also help anxiety. The body makes its own vitamin D from ultraviolet rays from the sun, but this is not possible through the winter months. Being a fat soluble vitamin it is important have enough vitamin D food sources to store up in your body during the winter months, otherwise supplementation may be required.
Foods rich in vitamin D include eggs, and fatty fish such as salmon and mackeral, fortified cows milk, fortified orange juice and certain mushrooms, although they don’t naturally produce vitamin D, they are grown under ultraviolet lights that give them the vitamin d.
A good reference for information on vitamin D is the vitamin D council:
Omega 3 Fish oils
One study showed that supplementing with fish oil for three months resulted in less anxiety and anger. Good sources of omega 3 oils are from fish such as salmon, sardine and mackeral.
If you eat enough fish during the week you should not need to supplement with fish oils.