Another is the stress hormone cortisol, which can be helpful, because it enters
your bloodstream and triggers a surge of blood sugar. It does this by tapping into
stores and also tampering with insulin so that more blood sugar is available for
energy. How is that good? It provides you with energy, which works well when
you need to flee the beast or meet the deadline. But when you have chronic
stress, that increase in blood sugar—as you remember from chapter 2—is no
good for your circulatory system. You don’t use it up in the moment of fight or
flight. It’s just there, nicking up your arteries, for one. And it also creates a
vicious cycle, where blood sugar spikes, then plummets, and you wind up once
again reaching for those simple sugars. Your body jumps onto the merry-go-
round that doesn’t stop: messed-up hormones, messed-up hunger, messed-up
eating, messed-up body.
Blue Moods: Research suggests that two key hormones—serotonin and
dopamine—play roles in your mood. When dopamine and serotonin are high,
you feel good. And when you feel good, you want to keep doing the thing that
feeds that dopamine and serotonin rush. Take one guess as to something that
creates a rush of those feel-good hormones. Yep, sugar. The sweet stuff
stimulates dopamine in the rewards centre of the brain (just like other things do,
including social stimulation, sex, drugs, etc.), as well as indirectly boosting
serotonin. So when you feel down, it’s not uncommon to want to reach for
something that will make you feel up, aka sugary treats.
Eating sugar regularly may temporarily mask the down moments, but over
time, the same cascade of problems happens: higher blood sugar, more collateral
damage to your arteries, more weight gain, and so on.
So what’s the solution?
I absolutely want you to use food as a mood-lifter, but not in the typical way.
How do you eat to treat the problem, not the symptom? How do you use food as
a long-term prescription to make you feel better daily, to help quell stress, to be
happier? By now, it won’t surprise you that my prescription for matters of the
mind involves FIXES foods. Ideally, eating protein with slowly-absorbed carbs
(like sweet potatoes, nuts, and brown rice) will calm those sugar-seeking
moments.
Upping your fruits and veggies is part of the mood-boosting arsenal, too, as
we see in a recent study of fourteen thousand people done by University of
Warwick Medical School researchers. In that research, about one-third of people
who scored high in mental well-being tests reported having five or more portions
of produce a day, compared with just 7 percent who ate less than one serving.
The thought is that some fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants that could
influence parts of the brain associated with optimism.
pertamaxxx
(pertamaxxx)
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