Food Helps You Have a Good Mood and Get Rid of Bad Emotions
A good mood, strong memory, and focused attention... these can all help you work efficiently. And you can achieve all of this by eating brain-boosting foods. Today, I'll share some dietary tips. Eating these foods not only nourishes your brain but also helps you regulate your emotions.
Focus
Many people struggle with an inability to concentrate.
Scientists explain that to concentrate, information must flow smoothly between brain cells. Brain cells need oxygen to send information, which they get from blood sugar.
Therefore, the simplest and most fundamental way to maintain focus and mental clarity is to ensure a sufficient and stable intake of calories daily.
However, this doesn't solve all the problems. Because after information is generated, it must be transmitted from one cell to another, which requires the involvement of nerve fibers.
Nerve fibers are like electrical wires; they must be insulated for information to flow. To give nerve fibers their "insulating sheath" (myelin), the brain needs a fatty substance called myelin. Omega-3 fatty acids (mainly found in fish oil, and also in walnuts, pumpkin seeds, and flaxseeds) help build and maintain myelin. This is why fish oil supplements seem to promote children's intellectual development, but this conclusion is still controversial.
Dietary tips: Eating regularly, ensuring three meals a day on time and in appropriate amounts, can help you concentrate. You can treat walnuts and flaxseeds as snacks, and eat more fish.
Improve Mood
Everyone has their down times. How can you quickly shake off negative emotions and brighten your mood?
The generation of emotions involves a series of "frenzied" exchanges of electrical information between brain cells. A chemical substance called a neurotransmitter is the carrier of this information, responsible for transmitting it between cells, and this is the key to determining a person's mood. A crucial neurotransmitter is dopamine: increasing dopamine levels can make you more energetic and happier, while a decrease in dopamine can make you feel empty, sad, irritable, and bored. Consuming high-sugar and high-fat foods causes a sharp increase in dopamine levels, but every peak is followed by a trough. Therefore, to maintain a pleasant mood all day, it's best to eat high-protein foods that allow for a slow release of dopamine.
Additionally, eating more foods containing phenylalanine (a main component of dopamine) can ensure a stable secretion of dopamine and maintain a positive mood for a longer time. These foods include beets, soybeans, almonds, eggs, meat, and grains.
People have always believed that chocolate can improve your mood. Is this true? Experts admit that chocolate is indeed the most effective food for causing a sharp increase in dopamine levels. Why is this? Because chocolate contains anandamide—a fatty molecule similar to the active substance in marijuana.
Another neurotransmitter, serotonin, helps people feel calm, satisfied, and reduces anxiety. A small snack containing carbohydrates can quickly increase serotonin levels in the body, but the peak can also make you drowsy, so it's better to keep levels stable. The brain needs tryptophan to produce serotonin, which is mainly found in eggs and meat. In fact, it's simple: as long as your breakfast includes bacon and eggs, you can maintain serotonin levels all day.
Drinking a small amount of alcohol can make people feel happy in part because alcohol increases dopamine levels, but drinking too much can lead to a hangover and worsen your mood. Long-term excessive drinking can damage brain cells, especially those related to memory.
Dietary tips: Switch your breakfast to bacon and eggs, and eat more almonds and soybeans.
Keep Your Brain Alert
Have a cup of coffee. When people feel drowsy, coffee (containing caffeine) is often the first thing they think of, but it must be used correctly, otherwise it may have the opposite effect.
A substance can shut down brain electrical activity and make people drowsy, while caffeine can bind some nerve endings in the brain together, preventing this substance from acting, thus making brain cells more active and re-energizing you.
However, it's important to note that excessive caffeine intake can have the opposite effect. Because the pituitary gland interprets the momentary abnormal state of activity caused by too much caffeine as an alarm signal for an emergency, leading to the secretion of insulin, which makes you even drowsier.
Dietary tips: An espresso can make you alert, but if you drink two more, it will make you anxious and confused.
Enhance Memory
Can't remember what you read or the key points your teacher explained? What should you do?
Memory ability mainly depends on brain cells establishing new connections. When brain cells are very excited, they can establish better connections, which is why we always remember things that touch us or inspire us. A substance in the brain called acetylcholine can keep brain cells in an excited state (a drug with a similar effect to acetylcholine has already been used to treat Alzheimer's disease). Acetylcholine is derived from choline, and choline is found in eggs, liver, and soybeans.