Imagine what might happen to a car if the owner filled the gas tank with something besides the intended fuel source. You shouldn’t be surprised if that vehicle stopped running properly. Your body and your brain also do best on their intended fuel sources and don’t run as well if they don’t have what they need. At Highland Hospital Behavioral Health in Charleston, West Virginia, we treat patients with mental health and substance use disorders, and we encourage them to utilize their diets as a way to support the benefits of therapeutic treatments.
Food as Medicine
Pills aren’t the only thing we can ingest to support our mental health. Research has also found that:
- A well-balanced diet provides vitamins, minerals, healthy fats, and fiber that reduce inflammation and enhance the production of natural brain chemicals known to reduce depression symptoms.
- Countries where people eat more fish, vegetables, unprocessed grains, and lean meats and dairy have also been shown to have lower rates of depression – 25-35 percent lower in some studies. Japan, Norway, and Mediterranean countries all have diets of this type. When people with depressive symptoms who lived outside those countries were given cooking lessons that involved those types of cuisines, they showed an improved mood after six months, at a higher rate than people who took antidepressants.
On the other hand, diets that are lacking the basic tools that humans need to be healthy are showing increasing connection to high levels of mental health disorders:
- Diets that contain a lot of sugary, processed foods and are low in omega-3 fatty acids led to high rates of mental illness in children and adolescents and were specifically associated with depression and ADHD. Diets like this are more common in Western countries, like the United States. Some foods that are considered highly processed include:
- Sugary beverages
- Chips, cookies, and candy
- Sweetened breakfast cereals
- Reconstituted food items such as hot dogs, fish sticks, and chicken nuggets
- Frozen meals, including pizzas and TV dinners
- Packaged bread, buns, pastas, and other grains
- Energy and protein bars and shakes
- Diets that don’t contain enough zinc or folic acid have been linked to more severe depressive symptoms. Low levels of folic acid have also been found in patients who didn’t respond well to antidepressant medications.
- Lower Vitamin D levels have been found in patients with schizophrenia and depression.
Why Food is a Powerful Tool
Medications can have amazing results for people with mental illness; however, food does have some advantages over pharmaceuticals:
- Some medications have side effects like dizziness, appetite changes, moodiness, and insomnia. Nutritionally dense foods don’t typically carry such risks.
- Medications can have interactions with each other that can render them ineffective or even dangerous. This doesn’t really happen with food.
- It is possible to grow your own food and thus reduce the cost associated with wellness, while medication costs can be very high and outside a person’s ability to control.
- Some medications can result in a person developing a dependence, causing them to feel ill if they are suddenly unable to access their prescription. If a certain fruit or vegetable is suddenly unattainable, a person can simply look for alternatives.
What To Eat to Enhance Mental Health
There are so many healthy foods to choose from, and eating a diverse range of foods is often best. Some things we all need to consume include:
- Omega-3 fatty acids – found in fish, chia seeds, walnuts, seaweed, and olive oil and found helpful in preventing and treating depression and anxiety.
- Vitamin B-12 – linked to serotonin, a brain chemical that helps to stabilize mood and is found in liver, shellfish, crab, fermented cheeses, eggs, and tofu.
- Vitamin B – found in salmon, leafy greens, liver, eggs, legumes, chicken, turkey, and yogurt and linked to the formation of new brain cells.
- Vitamin C – connected to cognitive performance and found in citrus fruits, peppers, strawberries, and broccoli.
- Vitamin D – found in salmon, sardines, tuna, egg yolks, and fortified dairy and linked to serotonin and the growth of new brain cells.
- Vitamin E – protects brain cells from damage and is found in sunflower seeds, almonds, peanuts, spinach, pumpkin, red bell peppers, and plant-based oils.
At Highland Hospital Behavioral Health, we believe in giving our patients and their families a wide range of tools to manage their behavioral health needs. We tailor our trauma-informed, evidence-based services to the specific child, adolescent, or adult we are serving.
