We’re taught from a young age the importance of how the food we eat affects our bodies. Your parents probably tried to instill the idea of having a balanced diet with vegetables, fruits, carbs, and protein. At that age, we don’t fully understand how this healthy diet affects our development.
And while we know that eating nutritious foods is good for us, we may fall away from that the older we’ve gotten. Eating whatever foods we want is appealing, and we may not realize that our bodies still need those nutritious foods to continue developing. Our brains are neuroplastic, which means it has the ability to continue changing throughout our lifetime.
In other words, the food we eat in adulthood is just as important as when we eat healthy food as children. The food we eat can heavily affect our brains and body’s function. Here’s a guide on how diet affects the brain and how you can establish a nutritious diet in your lifestyle.
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What Is the Impact of Nutrition on Your Brain?
It can be hard to fully encapsulate how important your diet is for the well-being of your brain and body. The foods you eat fuel your body’s growth and recovery. A change in your diet can be the change you need for better mental health.
Throughout your lifespan, the nutritious foods you eat can often benefit you in the same ways but are expressed differently. Children with nutrient-dense diets can see the benefits of improving the development of their minds, evened out moods, and possibly helping them prevent mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, and ADHD.
People in their adulthood can still greatly benefit from a nutrient-rich diet. Certain types of nutrients, such as protein, can help your neurons within your brain communicate with each other, while carbohydrates (carbs) can be broken down into glucose used to fuel brain activity.
Physical Effects of Nutrients on the Brain
Several foods provide valuable nutrients for your body that can change how your brain functions. Dr. Carmen Morrison, Founder of Alli, explains how increasing your Omega-3 fatty acids intake can drastically change your brain. She states that many Americans face an Omega-3 shortage in their diet. This deficiency can affect the neuropathways created in your brain, but increasing your intake of Omega-3 can help with functions such as sharpening memory or improving mood.
Deficiencies of Omega-3 fatty acids will impact your brain no matter your age. However, it will manifest itself in different ways. So, a baby that is three months old might have deficiencies in cognitive development, while a three-year-old may be dysregulated and have emotional meltdowns. And a 23-year-old may show signs of immaturity that get written off as a reactive person that’s not an adult yet.
“There are different ways that a deficiency might show itself, but the same thing is happening at a deficiency level in the brain, the impact is always a decrease in how well messages are sent through the different brain circuits,” Dr. Morrison said. “What happens behaviorally is very similar; it just looks a bit different on the outside because we have different levels of maturity which give us different capacities to manage those behaviors.”
The effect of an Omega-3 deficiency can drastically change your brain, and that’s just one nutrient. So, having a well-rounded diet that supplies necessary nutrients to the brain can drastically change its functionality. This includes the effect that it has on someone’s mental health.
Mental Health Effects of Nutrients on the Brain
Nutritious foods can alter the chemical makeup of your brain by affecting your neurons. In other words, a healthy, vitamin-rich diet changes how your brain communicates, benefiting your mood and minimizing brain disorders such as depression.
With the help of nutritionists, some people can get help fixing the problems of their mental health conditions. People with depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions can see a change in their mental health if they adjust to a nutritious diet.
People with schizophrenia, one of the most severe mental health conditions, can see the benefit of a change in diet. Schizophrenia has been linked to deficiencies in the B2 and B5 vitamins. Treating the deficiency with supplements can help those struggling with schizophrenia.
It’s hard to find a mental health condition that wouldn’t benefit from the change in diet that would support the development of that function in the brain. There’s a massive interplay between your body and brain.
If your body is doing a function normally associated with a feeling, then your brain will release signals reflecting that. For example, if you start to breathe quickly with short breaths, your brain will be triggered by feelings of anxiety or fear. If your brain has an anxious trigger, you may have body language such as bouncing your leg.
The tie between your body and brain is essential for your overall daily function. So, the food you eat is critical to how your brain and body function and develops.
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How to Establish a Nutritious Diet
Establishing a nutritious diet can be daunting. If you’re used to a lifestyle that doesn’t hinder the foods you eat, it can be difficult to imagine changing the way you eat to accommodate what’s good for your brain and body. Some people may feel like they have to integrate everything right away, which can be why it’s hard to stick to the new lifestyle.
However, just like any other new habit, taking it one small step at a time can be a great way to implement this lifestyle change. Changing your approach to how you eat on a small basis every day can help you establish a routine that you eventually don’t have to think about– you just do it. Then you can slowly build on the habits and eventually get to where you want to be.
It takes 21 days for a new neuropathway to be established, which means doing the small actions every day for a few weeks will enable the new habit. This can be as easy as swapping one meal a day where you normally have a burger for a healthier option such as a salad. Dr. Morrison gives the example of increasing the number of nuts you eat to help with an Omega-3 deficiency.
Try eating just a handful of nuts every day, and you’ll may well start to see a change in your mental state after a few weeks. People with or without mental health conditions can use the method of taking small steps at a time.
“I wouldn’t say ‘let’s change your diet so that it’s healthier for your brain,’ that’s too much,” Dr. Morrison said. “So, I might just say, let’s not worry about changing your whole diet just now. This is the wrong time in your life to do that. What I would say though is, ‘could you do more nuts? Could you just eat a handful of nuts a day,’… could you manage to squeeze that into your life right now?”
Taking the approach of doing small steps will help the task feel less daunting and easier to accomplish. You can analyze which foods you usually eat and which people tend to eat the same 12 things every two weeks. Then see which ones can be swapped with a healthier, more nutritious option.
Some ways to change your diet include:
- Preparing most of your meals at home with whole or minimally processed foods
- Making a plan on which small steps you can take to change your daily diet
- Choosing nutrient-dense recipes
- Avoiding sugary drinks and choosing water instead
These tips can be done over time and don’t need to be immediate. The lifestyle change should be gradual, so there’s a higher likelihood of it sticking. It’s about the small steps towards improvement rather than large, challenging steps that may set you back.
How Can a Life Coach Help You?
Getting life coaching can be a great way to help reinforce a lifestyle change. It can be challenging to start something new without any help. With the support of a coach, you have someone to be accountable to besides yourself and have professional guidance when things get tough.
Having proper guidance allows you to get an outside perspective of setting realistic expectations. If you set the bar too high, the expectations can be daunting and may lead to giving up. But with realistic and achievable goals that you and a life coach set, the journey is much easier.
A life coach can also help you reevaluate if you’re struggling. They can accurately choose ways to adjust your goals or expectations to match what you need. With a life coach’s help, they can help you reevaluate your journey to behavior change and get you unstuck so you can continue working toward long-term change.
What Nutritious Foods Should You Eat?
Generally, people know that avoiding high fat and sugary food products can benefit your health in many ways. But knowing exactly what to eat can be difficult.
There are seven essential nutrients that you should consider when wanting to change your diet, including vitamins, minerals, protein, fats, fiber, water, and carbohydrates. These seven nutrients are critical for a well-rounded diet to help develop your brain and body.
Some healthy food options that you should consider consist of:
- Vegetables and fruits
- Whole-grain foods
- Protein foods (nuts, fish, poultry, etc.)
- Limited processed foods
Limiting your intake of processed foods can be difficult. You don’t need to cut all of them out, but when they’re not processed, it helps your body digest them and get nutrients. Many recipes still offer great-tasting food that is healthy for you.
Taking care of your body with the proper foods helps your mind function at a higher capacity and not have deficiencies. If you’re unsure how to curate a diet that is individualized to you, you can see help from a nutritionist that helps choose the right foods for your needs.
How Can Alli Help Your Brain Get the Nutrients it Needs?
Alli is a unique platform that perfectly curates coach-assisted and self-guided expert help for your personal life, relationships, or parenting. We offer coaches that can help assist you with whatever your needs are. Our mind-body nutritionist can help give you the tools you need to accomplish the nutrient-dense diet that will change your body and mind.
We have unique content that allows you to get more information and resources on how to make lifestyle changes. You can still walk the journey of self-improvement with the power of community and coaching support. At Alli, we work to help improve your life in lasting ways with science-based life coaching that is assisted by certified coaching professionals.
Are you ready to start the change in your life? Sign up for Alli today and get started with our library of resources!