Eating for Mental Wellbeing

The biggest and best things for mental health are to eat food and drink water. Whether it is the client who misses breakfast because she is always rushing to work, or the client missing out on parts of her lunch because she is following some kind of diet rules, if you are not eating regularly and enough your mental wellbeing can struggle. This is because your blood sugars are likely to be unstable (leading to increased anxiety & low mood amongst other things), you are more likely to be missing important mental health nutrients, and more likely to be low in energy. It is hard to feel calm and content if you feel like you are wading through mud, can’t concentrate or experiencing the physical feelings of anxiety. Equally, staying hydrated is important for keeping anxiety and low mood at bay as well as supporting memory and concentration. It is important to not over-hydrate, so keep listening to your body, but drinking water little and often can be a helpful tip. If you enjoy drinking juice, hot or fizzy drinks, this is all fine as long as you are not replacing water (including herbal teas and flavoured water) with these more “fun drinks”.

As all my clients know – I am always talking about the benefits and beauty of fats. Fats come in many forms, but saturated fats (from full-fat dairy, the fat and skin on meat & fish, coconut products) and phosphatidylserine & phosphatidylcholine (found in eggs, whole milk and liver) are just as important as omega fatty acids (oily fish, avocado and seeds). They all do different things to support brain health and the nervous system, but it is really unhelpful to restrict fats or to prioritize certain fats over others.

The nervous system utilises a lot of minerals from magnesium to potassium to selenium to zinc. While it is important to never take a supplement without professional support, eating a mineral-rich diet can be really helpful. Many minerals are found in greens and other vegetables, but vegetables are not the only miner