subject: Maintaining A Healthy Diet Is A Way To Handle Stress [print this page] The fast-paced world today doesn't leave us much time for leisure, and as we try to keep up stress just builds along. A well-balanced diet is crucial in reducing stress and getting healthy. Managing stress with food can give your body the necessary energy to cope with life.
A healthy diet is one that's high in fruit and vegetables. This includes leafy greens, the primary one being spinach. The magnesium-rich chlorophyll centre, when eaten raw, instantly amplifies your energy levels allowing your body to battle stress. One of the best sources of vitamin C, oranges, cause your body to produce higher levels of antibodies thus enhancing immunity and consequently battling stress. The high content of Vitamin B and E in almonds is a great reason to pick up a handful for your next snack!
Sweet potatoes are another one of those unsung heroes of a stress relieving diet. Enriched in beta carotene, they have a high nutritional standing along with carrots. The fiber content assuages your hunger reducing intake of unnecessary stress-buster snacks.
Have you found yourself reaching for the toffee tray when stressed out? Studies have proven eating sweets actually does relieve stress. Though this may be great news for our tongues, the high sugar consumption will do more damage than good in the long run. Thus sweet potato, with its natural sugar content and sweet taste will stave off the craving, literally saving us from ourselves.
Dried apricots are another delicious way to curb that chocolate craving. The magnesium rich fruit relaxes your muscles when you are stressed allowing your body to recuperate into a calm state.
We've discussed all about fruits and vegetables. Let us now try something meatier! Our very own turkey contains an acid Tryptophan that brings a calm over the body.
Tryptophan serves as a precursor for serotonin, which helps the body regulate appetite, sleep patterns, and mood. Eating turkey when you're stressed relaxes your body involuntarily.. Thus the popular Thanksgiving myth that consumption of turkey leads to enhanced sleepiness, is actually not really a myth!
Crossing the veggies and meat sections, we quite obviously come to seafood. The ocean too brings us stress-busters in the form of salmon and white fish. The omega-3 fatty acids present in these fish normalizes the quantity of stress related hormones in the body, such as cortisol and adrenaline.
Few other stress busters include walnuts, avocados and brown rice. "You are what you eat". So when faced with stressful problems, the solution doesn't lie in junk food but in healthier options leading to a healthy you.
