Choose Your Foods and Choose Your Moods

The holidays can be a time of moods that go up and down. It’s easy to assume that changing moods are the result of what happens to you, or worse yet, just something that comes over you without any explanation whatsoever. Wouldn’t you like to have a way to choose how you feel? A way that works fairly rapidly, despite exte al stress? One way is to avoid automatic eating & drinking. Get off automatic pilot; instead, pause, think, and choose. For example, coffee and sugar may rev up your nervous system. This is not the same as having energy. These foods may make you highly motivated to do something – but is it the right and the reasonable thing to do? And do you need a lot of energy – maybe nervous energy – to do what you’re doing? Some tasks call for long, slow-bu ing energy. Others call for calmness. Here are some things you can select to help you choose more serene moods: If you want slow-bu ing energy and calmness, try complex carbohydrates, such as milk or oatmeal. Whole grains such as oatmeal or bran muffins, especially in the morning, will give you slow-bu ing energy that will stay with you for several hours, and decrease your appetite for the fats, sugars, and salts that we all crave when we are under stress. Try green tea, which has calming properties that outweigh the caffeine it contains by altering levels of the brain’s own anti-anxiety medication. Nuts, with their protein content, are always a great and satisfying portable treat. They are especially good if you eat the non-greasy, unsalted kind. And they can keep you away from the donuts, cookies, and other sweets that call to you when you’re tired. One nut in particular stands out: the pistachio. Who knew these nuts could actually calm you? The most recent finding is that these delicious nuts actually relax your blood vessels, lowering your blood pressure and helping you to feel calmer! Foods that contain lots of Omega 3 (salmon, mackerel, tuna, sardines, walnuts) can reduce anxiety and even pain, due to an anti-inflammatory effect. Ground flaxseed, another food rich in Omega 3, can be sprinkled on cereal or put into biscuits or breads for additional delicious flavor. And the great news here is that Omega 3 has been found to not only reduce, but to reverse the signs of aging! All this, just for choosing the right foods! See, when you recognize you have a choice, and deliberately choose what you put in your body, you are more in charge than you may have thought.