The Moody Foods: What is Nutrition for Mental Health?

There has never been a more critical time to pay attention to what we eat and how it affects our health. And not solely our physical health. Nutrition is the most ignored effector of mental health, and its time for that to change.

Why nutrition?

Just like physical health, we do not need to wait until we are unwell to focus on our mental health. And it turns out that mental, physical, and social health are not only connected. There are three essential parts of one whole. That whole is our health and wellbeing.

We know that physical health is valuable, and incorporating it into our lifestyle is essential. And collectively we are beginning to understand the importance of social health. Isolation kills more people than cigarettes, and being socially isolated can have long term impacts on both physical and mental health. Yet a specific focus on a mentally healthy lifestyle appears to be limited to those who experience mental illness.

Again, not connected. All part of one whole – health.

In biochemistry, something is essential if it can’t be produced, but is necessary for life. For example, without all the essential amino acids, your body will not function properly. Even if your diet is missing one, your body is going to suffer. The same is the case with health. The essential components in broad categories are mental, physical, and social health. All three are necessary to be healthy. They are all essential.

But for some reason, the common practice is to treat them separately. Medically most certainly. But also, from a lifestyle intervention practice as well. We do certain things for our physical health, others for our social health, and different practises again for our mental health.

But this is not what health looks like.

The different influences on health do not fit into tidy categories. Something might be beneficial for your physical health, while also being helpful for your mental and social health. However, only recognizing something as having a side-benefit of positive mental health outcomes is not enough. When prioritizing lifestyle choices for a healthy lifestyle, what impacts mental health should not be a side-benefit. It should be considered much of a priority as that which influences our physical health.

An example is exercise. The physical and social health benefits of participating in physical activity are well-known and a common motivator to get involved. However, it is significantly less common for the primary motivator to engage in exercise for the benefit of mental health. Curious, as physical activity has a profound impact on mental wellness.

Which begs the question, why is it okay to say I do this for my health or I do this to lose weight, but a lot less common to say I do this for my mental health?

Nutrition for mental health

My favourite topic is nutrition for mental health! Food is an excellent example of why a holistic approach to health is essential. What you eat – it changes everything. How you feel, how you look, and the clarity of your thoughts. I don’t think anyone would argue that a healthy diet is not an essential comport of a healthy lifestyle.

Food also brings people together. In the Mediterranean region, one of the five blue zones where the population lives longer and healthier than the rest of the planet, food is more than just fuel. Food is about sharing it with family, loved ones, and community. And while it may appear different between different people, different choices, and different cultures, everyone must eat. Food is a fantastic tool for social health.

Food and Mood?

But does nutrition impact your mental health? We know a healthy body is beneficial for our mood. And social health is integral to mental health. But does food and nutrition directly impact our mood?

Research at the Centre for Food and Mood at Deakin University says it most certainly does. Deakin has been using a modified version of the Mediterranean diet, designed to suit and Australian population. The goal is to determine if a nutritional intervention will impact the mental health of adults experiencing mental illness. Specifically, they looked at adults with severe depression. And the results found that food does affect our mental health.

A lot.

What is a mentally healthy lifestyle?

Before we jump into nutrition for mental health I want to touch on how a mentally healthy lifestyle might look. Because contrary to what you might have seen online, there is not one issue, one miracle discovery, that is the secret to mental health. Or any health. Not even nutrition.

Because you can eat all the kale and broccoli. But, if the rest of your life is out of balance, and you experience unmanageable stress. And not enough regular high-quality sleep, if you do not have time to exercise. Then you are not likely to feel you best.

What you do once is not what matters. It matters how your lifestyle looks daily. What your habits are. There you can imagine what a healthy lifestyle might look like for you.

It can be hard to define something that looks different for everyone. Instead of giving it a definition, I will address what I consider the pillars of a mentally healthy lifestyle.

7 Pillars of a Mentally Healthy Lifestyle

1. Food & Nutrition

2. Physical Activity & Movement

3. Sleep

4. Simplification. Of objects, commitments, relationships, digital, and generally removing what does not support the life I am leading.

5. Growth Mindset, Mindfulness, & Motivation

6. Habits. Using a healthy, habits-based approach to growth and change.

7. Social Connection & Support

What sets me apart from other people talking about mental health is that I have food and nutrition as number one on this list.

With good reason.

In my personal experience, nutrition has had a profound impact on my mental health. For too long, nutrition for mental health was something I did not know was a topic. Something I could learn and use to support my mental health.

I did not know nutrition for mental health that was a topic I could learn more about. My initial experience was trial and error.

Professionally, I spent many years working with individuals who have lived experience of mental illness. My area of specialization was social inclusion. And while I did teach about the importance of physical activity and food mental health, I realized that saying food is important is not enough. Nutrition always seems to come last, for everyone. This is the part of health we will get to when everything else is sorted out.

If you had told me 10 years ago what I am about to say next, I would not have believed you. I might not have believed you five years ago! Even with years of experience as a coach, in social inclusion, and mental health, there was something I was missing. To get it, I needed to go back to university. And study human nutrition. To best support myself and others in a mentally healthy lifestyle.

Food first or food last?

Food is often the last thing considered when talking about a mentally healthy lifestyle. But current research is saying food has more of an impact on our mental wellbeing than other areas we tend to focus on, including social connectedness.

Candidly, that was a tough point for me to accept, the role of nutrition as studied against other mental health interventions. It challenged my entrenched beliefs about my mental health and wellbeing. But, you mustn’t read this to mean other aspects of lifestyle that are not fundamentally connected to mental wellness. The key point that caused the other shoe drop for me was the degree to which nutrition has been undervalued for its role in mental health and wellbeing.

What we eat impacts our mood and how we feel. Much more so than has been considered in the past. If we are to lead a lifestyle that supports mental health and wellbeing, it is essential to consider food.

Which leads us to the next question… what food?

Introducing: The Moody Foods

The Moody Foods are not merely a list of foods. I’ll talk more about specific nutrition for mental health in a later piece. Right here right now we are going to look at what is nutrition for mental health.

What is nutrition for mental health?

First up, I think it essential to distinguish between mental health and mental illness. For far too long, we have assumed that addressing mental health was only relevant for those who were experiencing mental illness.

We do not have to wait until we are unwell before we start looking after our mental health. It would be like saying we only need to exercise if we have an injury or eat well only when  sick. Of  visit friends only when lonely.

I think we can all agree that those examples above are not how a healthy lifestyle works.

Leading a lifestyle that supports any type of health and wellbeing is about establishing habits that proactively focus on protecting and strengthening. On increasing resilience. Which means it’s not going to stop us from getting knocked down. The goal is to lessen how far we fall, and how quickly we get back up.

Supporting mental health and wellbeing with nutrition and lifestyle is not the same thing as treating mental illness. But just like physical health, looking after our mental health proactively can be protective over the long term. And just like physical health, a mentally healthy lifestyle can work in parallel with medical intervention.

But what exactly is nutrition for mental health and wellbeing?

I understand the connection between nutrition and mental health and wellbeing in four ways. One of them, two of them, all of them might resonate with you. And that’s fine – remember, we’re all unique individuals in constantly changing circumstances. When I discuss nutrition for mental health and wellbeing, I am not talking about treatment for illness.Borrowing the words of Nutritional Psychiatrist Dr. Drew Ramsey;

“Everyone with a brain needs to know how to feed it.”

My 4 Aspects of Nutrition for Mental Health

1. Looking after our physical health supports our mental health.

    A healthy body means we are optimally supporting our brain, which is part of our physical body. Eating a diet high in real food and low on non-food items and additives is good for our body and good for our mind.

2. Nutrition specifically to support mental wellbeing.

   Ground-breaking research out of the Centre for Food and Mood at Deakin University, as well as other places, has found a connection between nutrition and mental health, using food as the intervention. This is a food and lifestyle-based approach to individual and community mental health and wellbeing. Here, specific food and nutrients have shown to support mental health and wellbeing.

3. Taking back control and relieving the stress and overwhelm of ‘eating healthy’.

   Eating well looks different for everyone. And can change dependent on circumstance. For many people, making changes to what they eat is associated with needing more time, money, and skills in the kitchen. Eating healthy does not need to be time-consuming, expensive, or hard. It’s is not a goal. Healthy eating is a habit-based lifestyle. And other lifestyle factors might need to be addressed first before the food work can get done.

4. Re-evaluating relationships with food.

   The diet culture has done a number on us, and what it means to eat to support whole-body health has been lost along the way. Too much time stressing about food and its association with weight, calorie count, or macros does not create a healthy relationship with food. Instead, it might be more beneficial to ask; how does that food make me feel? Why did I eat it? Why not eat it? Is there something I want to stop eating? Or something I miss eating?

Do you ask yourself these questions? And allow yourself to have a reason? Food is neither good nor bad. It’s food. Simply food. But we allowed that to become distorted (often on social media) for those who eat better, healthier, what sort of diet, what tribe is PERFECT. As soon as we take a comparative and competitive approach to food it is no longer healthy. It’s narcissism, and it can lead to disordered eating.

There can also be challenges to eating well to meet the current circumstances. Sometimes and allergy, disease, or illness can force us to change the way we eat, and we need to find new ways to meet our nutritional requirements. Simplifying and having a habit-based approach to creating and sustaining changes is essential. It gives us the flexibility to change as we need to. Because if there is nothing else certain in life, it is, it will throw us curve balls. And there have been more than a few for everyone recently.

Regardless of the reason, eating to best support your health and wellbeing is a way to take back control, at a time when the world seems out of control. For many of us, that might be the most significant way nutrition can support our mental health and wellbeing.

The Moody Foods is nutrition and lifestyle for mental health and wellbeing. About feeding our wellbeing with what we eat, think, and do. And creating habits to nourish your body and mind.

To sum up, nutrition for mental health looks like:

• Nutrition for physical health and wellbeing
• Nutrition specifically for mental health
• Taking back control of food and nutrition to meet our individual needs
• Re-evaluating relationships with food

And part of a mentally healthy lifestyle that looks like:

1. Food & Nutrition
2. Physical Activity & Movement
3. Sleep
4. Simplification. Of objects, commitments, relationships, digital, and generally removing what does not support the life, I am trying to lead.
5. Growth Mindset, Mindfulness, & Motivation
6. Habits.  Using a healthy, habits-based approach to growth and change.
7. Social Connection & Support

One size does not fit all

There is no one approach to a mentally healthy lifestyle that works for everyone. Nor do we all have the same goals. For some, the goal is to have less stress and more energy. For others, reducing the overwhelm associated with food and nutrition. Or the desire to invest in long term health that includes their brain and mood.

Whatever your motivation is if you would like to keep talking about The Moody Foods make sure to get on to my newsletter here. And don’t forget to come and have a chat in the group – you can join us here! These are the two places I love to hang out and share recipes, tools, strategies, and other practice tools you can use today.

If you’re looking for a bit more one-on-one support, let’s chat.