This Could Be The Reason Why
Hello everyone! If you are wondering why you have been feeling moody, irritable, or on edge without any apparent cause (and have had anything serious ruled out by your doctor), this article may help you pinpoint a reason.
Of course, many factors could be contributing to your changing moods. They could also be signs that your brain is not receiving the essential nutrients needed to function.
Brain food is not a new concept, of course, but there’s also food that spoils your brain. And it’s everywhere. Chances are, you may have had some recently.
This post highlights that you may be able to help yourself change your mood swings and irritability.
What Is Good Brain Food?
How Does Nutrition Affect The Brain?
What Food Affects Your Mood?
Does Junk Food Affect Your Mood?
What Do Ultra Processed Foods Do To You?
What Is Good Brain Food?
Now, I talk about good gut health equals good mental and physical health all the time, and it is a fact. Hundreds of studies show that a diverse microbiota in the gut is essential for the brain, hormones, and happiness.
Keeping chronic inflammation at bay is good for the brain. For leveling out emotions and moods and making you less irritable, anxious, depressed, and vulnerable to sickness.
There are bugs in your tummy that make you moody, irritable, and sick. The more that they are fed, the more they contribute to neuroinflammation. You feed them, and they increase, inflammation rises, and anxiety and moodiness stick around. It’s like a vicious cycle.
Also, happy, feel-good neurotransmitters like serotonin are not produced in an unbalanced gut. (95% serotonin is made in a healthy gut, and the rest is produced in the brain stem).
The brain-gut axis is a bidirectional communication system between the gut and the brain.
Low serotonin is linked to low moods!
Check out the articles: 4 Secrets To Feeling Good, Do You Often Feel Like Crying? and Depression Diet & Lifestyle Intervention.
Members, check the Depression & Anxiety Personalized Advice for comprehensive information about brain health.
What is also linked to mood swings, brain fog, and irritability is candida overgrowth, which leads to chronic inflammation and neuroinflammation. Make sure to read: What Kills Candida Fast, Naturally?
How Does Nutrition Affect The Brain?
Nutrition is essential for our brains and nervous system – our network of neurons that communicate and make thousands of connections with cells around the body.
Our thoughts and emotions represent a pattern of activity across this network through the neurotransmitters in the brain.
The brain and neurotransmitters are affected by what you eat and drink.
For instance, serotonin, as I mentioned, affects your mood (as well as so many other functions like sleep) and is made from amino acids. These amino acids need to be obtained from what you eat.
Their production, however, also depends on good micronutrients being present. Simply put, there’s a process that helps build and rebuild the brain and nervous system that involves vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids, for instance.
When you eat nourishing, nutritional food, which promotes a healthy gut and ‘feel-good’ neurotransmitter synthesis, it also reduces inflammation in the brain and supports healthy brain function.
What also happens is that when your gut-brain axis is beautifully synthesized, you have the best quality sleep. Lack of sleep is not good for the brain and can contribute to feelings of irritability and moodiness.
(Poor sleep quality could be something you are experiencing alongside your changing moods and anxiety).
Nutrition, stress-reduction exercises, and non-inflammatory movements assist in a better body core, healthy vagus nerve, better body composition overall, and reducing inflammation in the mind and body.
All this makes for a happier, even-keeled, hormone-balanced, less moody, and stressed you!
Keeping chronic inflammation at bay is also anti-aging. Protecting our bodies and minds can assist in reducing the risk of age-related diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s.
What Food Affects Your Mood?
Any food that causes chronic inflammation is not good for your mood and brain health. Many foods can cause neuroinflammation, and some you may be surprised at because they are promoted as good for you.
I am talking about foods that seem unprocessed. They are listed in the Food Lists on Eat Burn Sleep, Members. All other compounds that cause inflammation are there for your guidance.
These foods do not keep the brain healthy, preserve optimal brain integrity and mental and cognitive function, and can put the brain at a higher risk of neurological disorders.
Does Junk Food Affect Your Mood?
There are also ultra-processed ‘foods’ (UPF), which I talk about often, as members know.
Although ‘food’ is not a good description for UPFs. Food is a substance that enables people, animals, and plants to stay alive.
Food is meant to aid in growing and repairing tissue, providing energy, nourishment, essential nutrients, etc.
Ultra-processed ‘foods’ will be doing the opposite of much of that. In fact, UPFs can contribute to accelerated aging, opening the body up to disease, causing blood sugar to rise and fall rapidly, and turning on any genetic conditions.
They are junk foods that are so processed with salt, chemicals, fats, colors, emulsifiers, and flavor enhancers that you would not recognize them when they started out. Nor, if you saw the process, you would not want to eat them.
UPFs don’t contain nutrients and fiber that are important for the brain and body and contribute to mood swings, irritability, and low energy.
What Do Ultra Processed Foods Do To You?
Your body struggles to metabolize these types of substances. When eaten regularly, they are linked to many chronic inflammation conditions like obesity, type 2 diabetes, metabolic disorders, and neuroinflammation.
Neuroinflammation includes anxiety, depression, brain fog, memory issues, moodiness, irritability, cognitive impairment, anger outbursts, and behavior changes.
Ultra-processed foods have become everyday food for many people, and the food processing industry does not help. It is contributing to people’s chronic conditions. If UPFs form most of someone’s diet, they miss essential brain nutrients.
Considering the rise in mental health issues in adults and children, UPFs could very well be a significant contributor to this pandemic.
So, if you are moody, irritable, on edge, or under par, consider what you eat. Think about what you eat over time. Then, consider feeling happier, less irritable, calmer, and without anxiety and low moods because it can happen.
The sooner that you can optimally nourish your brain, the better!
Do get in touch with my EBS team with any questions.
Have a wonderful day!
