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Can These Foods Reduce Stress?

By December 12, 2014 No Comments

When you feel the pressure of daily life coming on, try to make wise food choices.

If you’ll recall our earlier blog about emotional eating, you read that oftentimes eating is used as a coping mechanism during a stressful time. Some folks use food instead of alcohol or tobacco to de-stress, and the results can sometimes be just as harmful. But did you know that there are a wealth of foods that can actually help calm your nerves and overthinking brain?

Without reaching for that pint of double fudge ice cream, you’ll find these foods are beneficial to physical as well as emotional well-being. Feel free to indulge in them when the world rests its weight on your shoulders.

Wholemeal foods

Although they often qualify as ‘comfort foods,’ stay far and away from refined, ‘white’ food such as breads, pasta and potatoes. Go for wholemeal versions instead. Why? The intact fibres of grains such as wheat contain B vitamins, which help keep your nervous system stabilise.

Wholemeal pasta, when combined with vegetables such as stewed or sautéed tomatoes, provides plenty of complex carbs which will help you burn energy more efficiently, as opposed to white pasta, whose sugars will lift you up and later make you crash. Wholemeal bread and pasta boosts serotonin, the relaxation chemical in your body.