Exploring How Food Shapes Emotions and Mood

Does food really change our mood? There are many days when we feel a certain mood to eat one type of food and not another. Just because we are in a special mood as if only this food can satisfy our hunger, no matter what we eat. Many of us like to eat these foods that make us feel happy and change our mood when we are bored, stressed or in a bad mood.

When a person feels sad, for example, they eat their favourite food or particular foods that affect brain signals, so they feel a state of joy. Also, eating healthy food, and balanced meals is one of the most important things we can offer our bodies in order to provide it with energy and activity. And certainly, we will try to avoid foods that make us uncomfortable and reduce our bad eating habits.

Therefore, there are many mood changes caused by food. Feeling anxious, irritable, low on energy, depressed mood, and feeling happy are the most obvious signs that food affects everyone's mood.

Feeling Anxious

It is very common to skip meals in our busy world. In addition, many people who are stressed and upset may feel as though they have no appetite or simply do not want to eat. However, skipping meals lowers blood sugar levels in most people who are used to eating regular meals.

If it continues, this drop may exacerbate feelings of anxiety and anger. Low blood sugar also causes weakness, confusion, and dizziness as side effects, all of which may cause concern.

There are also many wrong habits that cause anxiety after or before eating and cause both health problems and effects on mood. for example, drinking coffee on an empty stomach and dispensing eating snacks late times of night may reduce the feeling of anxiety and rest when sleeping. eating slowly, eating outside the home, sharing the family or friends, cutting down on sugary foods, trying new foods, and replacing fast and harmful foods with healthy and diversifying meals could make the food enjoyable and lower the feeling of anxiety.

Irritability

There are many people that little things may set them off, it could be related to not eating enough. These people also enter into a state of extreme anger just because they feel hungry, in an automatic reaction of the body to what happens inside it when it needs food, and a person cannot intervene or control what is happening.

An even more recent study of 413 college and high school students discovered that dieting and restrictive eating habits were linked to irritation. This study states that college students of both sexes and high school females themselves rated the dietary restriction and psychological and physical symptoms that were prevalent in men after 24 weeks in the Minnesota Quasi Hunger Experiment of 1944-54.9.

The result was being worried about self-control has been linked to fear, impatience, and mood swings just because of food. Each of the self-control requirements was linked to depression, low self-esteem, eating habits, indifference, and low motivation just because eating few than what they need. Thus, to keep the mood on an even keel, don’t let the calories drop too low and eat more.

Low Energy

Some people sometimes suffer from severe laziness and lethargy, and the urgent desire to sleep and relax for a long period of the day, as they feel unable to move, and a significant decrease in their energy level. When people don’t eat enough food or basically calories which are the units of energy in everyone’s body that uses to function, people are likely to feel tired most of the time. The feeling of fatigue that appears in many during work periods and throughout the day, accompanied by lethargy and yawning, occurs as a result of a significant decrease in energy in these people.

And the type of food is one of the most important causes of this condition, in addition to other factors. Food is an indicator of a person’s health status, and healthy meals from it raise the degree of vitality and activity and provide them with sufficient energy, and some of these foods can cause a significant decrease in the body’s energy rate.

These foods consume a high amount of the body's energy, causing it to fall, fatigue and lethargy, which makes the person constantly complain of a state of lethargy and loss of normal activity, as a result of continuing to eat these foods that cause this problem and not avoiding it.’’ People will be a thousand times more successful if they avoid certain things than just eating food that is supposed to boost their energy’’.(Berg 2021)

Depression

Few people are aware of the connection between nutrition and depression while they easily understand the connection between nutritional deficiencies and physical illness. On the contrary, nutrition can play a key role in the onset as well as severity and duration of depression. Many of the easily noticeable food patterns that precede depression are the same as those that occur during depression. These may include poor appetite, skipping meals, and a dominant desire for sweet foods.

Several recent research analyses looking at multiple studies support the link between what one eats and our risk of depression, specifically. These studies show that a dietary pattern characterized by a high intake of fruit, vegetables, whole grain, fish, olive oil, low-fat dairy and antioxidants and low intakes of animal foods was apparently associated with a decreased risk of depression. So, eating plants, including fruits and veggies, seeds and nuts, with some lean proteins like fish and yoghurt.

All these healthy food and the correct eating habits help improve mood and reduce depression. Also, avoid things made with added sugars, and minimize animal fats, processed meats, butter and more of these unhealthy food and wrong eating habits. Occasional intake of these bad or unhealthy foods is probably acceptable because we might need to eat anything or try new things to change our moods but we should remember that we have to eat in moderation and when it comes to what we eat, quality really matters.

Happiness

Science has figured out why certain foods make us happy. It turns out that some foods are made of compounds that have been shown to have an effect on our mood. Even more interesting, going without certain foods can have the opposite effect, putting us at a higher risk for depression as we mentioned before.

The more healthy a person's nutrition, the more stable his mood. Vegetables, fruits, and seafood, for example, are among the most important sources of happiness, especially fish eaters, because they contain omega-3, which raises the rate of happiness faster.

In conclusion, we knew that food affects our mood through the ingredients in it, which either raise our happiness rate or make us lazy and low on energy. We have to take care of what we eat, especially healthy food. It is the food that contains all the nutritional requirements that the human body needs daily at all stages of life, and healthy and sound food is considered the basic pillar of good health and a disease-free body, so it is necessary to pay attention to the nutritional values of the foods that we eat on a daily basis in order to improve our mood and make it stable.

References

Landau LA 2013, '11 Surprising Causes of Anxiety', 14 March 2013, NBC Universal, viewed 2 November 2022, (Link).
McAdams CJ, Smith W 2015, 'Neural correlates of eating disorders: translational potential', Relation of Dieting in College and High School Students to Symptoms Associated with Semi-starvation, viewed 8 November 2022, (Link).
Berg ER 2021, 'Best Foods for Maximum Energy', online video, 24 February, YouTube, viewed 9 November 2022, (Link).
Tss RA, Ramesh BA & Jagannatha RA 2008, 'Understanding nutrition, depression and mental illnesses', PubMed, India, DOI 10.4103/0019-5545.42391, (Link).
AlArabiya Morning 2020, television broadcast, 24 February, AlArabiya, Dubai.