There are many things that can make us feel down and blue and there are many things that can elevate our mood as well. But I’ll bet you never would have guessed that the things that will be discussed here had that much to do with the frame of mind you are in.
SadhGuru gives his spiritual view of this.
Around 21 million American adults – nearly one in ten – are estimated to suffer from mood disorders, and a staggering 40 million from anxiety disorders.
Psychologists point the finger at a wide variety of causes. But could something as simple as our food also have something to do with our moods?
The classic symptoms of depression include feelings of worthlessness or guilt, poor concentration, loss of energy, fatigue, thoughts of suicide or preoccupation with death, loss or increase of appetite and weight, a disturbed sleep pattern, slowing down (both physically and mentally), and agitation (restlessness or anxiety).
The quality and quantity of the nutrients available in our food play a major role on determining our emotional resiliency and stability because, fundamentally, what we eat affects everything from our production of neurotransmitters and hormones to our energy levels and the quality of our synaptic connections – all of which can determine how well we respond to the stresses and demands of daily living.
According to a study by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), women whose diet includes more foods that trigger inflammation—like sugar-sweetened or diet soft drinks, refined grains, red meat, and margarine—and fewer foods that restrain inflammation—like wine, coffee, olive oil, and green leafy and yellow vegetables—have up to a 41% greater risk of being diagnosed with depression than those who eat mostly the less inflammatory diet. The study was published online October 1, 2013 in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. It is one of the most comprehensive studies to date to link certain foods to inflammation and depression.
In an expert article for the Mayo Clinic, Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D. notes that, “Several studies have found that people who ate a poor quality diet — one that was high in processed meat, chocolates, sweet desserts, fried food, refined cereals and high-fat dairy products — were more likely to report symptoms of depression. The good news is that the people who ate a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and fish were less likely to report being depressed.”
Below, Sadhguru and Mark Hyman, American physician and bestselling author, explore the connection between the food that we eat and our physical and mental health, as well as possible approaches to change our food system.
Mark Hyman: One of the questions that came from the audience is about the connection between our mind, our mood, our emotional state, our mental health, and the food we eat. Everything from ADD to bipolar disease, to depression could be linked to that. So, what is the connection between our body and our mind?
Sadhguru: The yogic system does not identify body and mind as two different entities. Your brains are part of your body. It is just that what we generally refer to as mind is a certain amount of memory and intelligence. Between the rest of the body and the brain, which has more memory, which has more intelligence? If you look at it carefully, your body’s memory goes back millions of years. It clearly remembers how your forefathers were. The mind cannot claim that kind of memory. When it comes to intelligence, what is happening in a single molecule of DNA is so complex that your whole brain cannot figure it out.
In the yogic system, there is a physical body and there is a mental body. There is an intelligence and memory running right across the body. People generally think the brain is everything just because it handles the thought process. And because of this separation of body and mind, a large number of people in the West are taking antidepressants at some point in their life.
The Effect of Meat on the Mind
The type of food we eat has a huge impact on the mind. An average American is said to consume 200 pounds of meat per year. If you bring it down to 50 pounds, you will see 75% of the people will not need antidepressants anymore. Meat is a good food to survive if you are out in the desert or the jungle. If you are lost somewhere, a piece of meat will keep you going, because it provides concentrated nourishment. But it should not be a daily food that you eat when there are other choices.
There are many ways to look at this. One thing is animals have the intelligence to know in the last few moments that they are going to get killed, no matter how cunningly or how scientifically you do it. Any animal that has the capacity to express some kind of emotion will always grasp when it is going to be killed.
Image credit: Wikipedia
Learn how other foods affect your moods, SadhGuru
