“If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.”
Abraham Lincoln
Thankfully, there has been an increase in public awareness about stress and the importance of good mental health and the month of April has even been designated Stress Awareness Month. More emphasis however needs to be placed on the relationship between the food we eat and our mental health. Research by the UK based Mental Health Foundation suggests that the modern diet has created nutritional imbalances that may adversely affect our mental health.
Their research suggests that eating too little fresh foods and consuming too much processed foods containing unhealthy fats and sugars is leading to depression, anxiety, memory problems, stress related and other mental disorders. Experts from the food industry claim the research is not conclusive, but a group of Canadian psychiatrists have successfully treated thousands of patients with a variety of mental illnesses using a nutritional approach called Orthomolecular Psychiatry. They have used nutrition and vitamin supplements to treat major and minor psychiatric disorders. Food can affect how your brain functions in several ways.
FATTY ACID IMBALANCE
Sixty percent of the dry weight of the brain is fat, including the Essential Fatty Acids (EFA’s) like omega-3 fats. These are good fats, and unfortunately are in short supply in the modern western diet. EFA's are important components of nerve cell membranes and are involved in the electrical and chemical activity in the brain.