You’ve likely heard the old adage “You are what you eat”, but have you ever considered that “You think what you eat”?
This may seem like a strange concept, but since the late 1990’s, scientists have been exploring the “gut-brain” connection and have confirmed that what you think and feel is directly affected by what you eat.
Eating the right foods has been proven to:
- Boost your IQ
- Improve your mood and emotional stability
- Sharpen your memory
- Keep your mind young
- Improve psychotherapy treatment outcomes
- Resolve or considerably relieve many mental health problems
Here are my top nutrition tips to improve memory, mood and mental health.
Optimize your glucose levels.
- Switch from refined carbs to ‘nature’s carbs’
- Eliminate sugary drinks and foods
- Eat balanced meals and snacks that contain quality protein, carbohydrates and fats
Eat plenty of essential fats to ‘oil’ your brain.
- Eat seeds and nuts
- Eat coldwater carnivourous fish like herring, mackerel, sardines or wild salmon
- Use cold-pressed seed oils and avoid all refined oils
- Minimise your intake of fried and processed foods
Support phospholipids – your ‘memory molecules’.
- Eggs, sardines and organ meats are high in phospholipids which help enhance your mood, mind and mental performance as well as protect you against age related memory decline.
Prioritise protein at every meal to ensure you’re getting the essential amino acids you need to support your brain and mood.
Watch out for brain agers – oxidants, alcohol, and stress.
- Remove refined oils like canola, sunflower, safflower, soybeancottonseed, margarine and Crisco
- Avoid foods containing chemical food additives
- Get to the bottom of any suspected food allergies and sensitivites
- Stop smoking and avoid second hand smoke
- Careful with alcohol – it is considered a ‘neurotoxin’ and your brain can’t detoxify it
- Work on managing your stress levels because stress will impare memory function
- Make sure you’re getting deep, uninterrupted sleep every night
Contact me if you’d like to learn more about how you can use nutrition to optimize your brain health.
© ONFORM coaching 2023
Photo by Marcel Strauß on Unsplash