Nutrition and Mental Health
Blog by: Alexa Corrado MSc Human Health and Nutritional Sciences & Kiana Sheridan BSc Candidate
As defined by the Government of Canada, mental health is the state of your emotional and psychological well-being. Our mental health affects our daily lives altering how we think, feel, and interact with others. Mental health problems are common, and we must acknowledge them. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, 1 in 5 Canadians will personally struggle with their mental health or experience mental illness. Understanding the factors that affect your mental health both positively and negatively can be very helpful. Similar to physical health, good mental health provides us with the ability to accomplish our daily tasks, interact with others and maintain a balanced lifestyle. Mental health struggles can look different for everyone and while it may not physically stop you from doing your daily tasks, it can make everyday activities such as cooking, cleaning or even studying seem overwhelming. Today, mental health and well-being are often difficult topics to discuss due to the stigma surrounding mental health struggles.
When recovering from a brain injury, even the smallest and most redundant tasks can seem overwhelming at times. While there are many factors that can influence one's mental health that cannot be controlled such as genetics, past experiences, stress or environmental factors, there are ways in which symptoms can be alleviated. Nutrition has a major impact on an individual’s mental health due to the proven correlation between the gut and the brain, also known as the gut-brain axis.
It is a known fact that what we eat affects how we feel, specifically physically. For example, after a big holiday meal, you may feel tired and full. However, there is also a relationship between what we eat and our mental health. Vitamins are nutrients in food that perform biological reactions in the body. Low levels of certain vitamins can alter the state of our mental health. The vitamins which are linked to mental health include, vitamin B9, B12, B1 and vitamin C. Maintaining a diet that consists of foods and ingredients high in these vitamins can help prevent nutritional deficiencies that are associated with mental health issues. The ‘B’ vitamins contribute to the regulation of mood and other brain functions. Here is a breakdown of these specific vitamins:
Vitamin B9 also called Folic acid: Low levels of vitamin B9 are associated with depression. You can get vitamin B9 through your diet. Vitamin B9 can be found in green leafy vegetables, beans, fortified cereals, and bread.
Vitamin B12 also called Cobalamin: You can find vitamin B12 in many animal sources such as eggs, fish, lean meat, poultry, and milk. If you do not consume animal products, ensure you are adding them into your diet! A great alternative is cereals with added “fortified” B12.
Vitamin B1 also called Thiamine: Vitamin B1 helps turn the food you eat into energy that your body can use. It helps maintain blood sugar levels and has shown mental health benefits when added to the diet, specifically with anxiety. Vitamin B1 is also found in fish, meat and fortified whole grains. Some examples include salmon, flaxseeds, brown rice, black beans and whole-grain bread or pasta.
Vitamin C: Vitamin C has been linked with improved mood and tiredness. Vitamin C has many other benefits, including boosting your immune system. You can find vitamin C in many food sources including red peppers, oranges, broccoli, strawberries, and grapefruits!
Ensuring you are adding these vitamins into your diet is a great step in taking care of your mental health. There are plenty of ways to add these vitamins to your diet through food or supplements. Please confer with a health professional before adding supplements to your diet. There is strong scientific evidence supporting vitamins and mental health however dietary changes alone cannot replace treatment by a professional.
Mental health support: get help
Mental Health Resources - CCMHS
If you want to talk to someone, here's a list of resources that might help
The gut-brain access: how our gut health can affect our brain and mental health
The term “gut” refers to our gastrointestinal tract, this means everything between your mouth and anus. The health of our gut can affect our mental health and our mental health can affect our gut. This is referred to as the “gut-brain axis” a two-way highway between the brain and the gut. The communication system between the brain and the gut is well established and well-known for appetite regulation and digestive function. However, the status of our gut can also affect our mood and mental health. Did you know about 95% of our ‘happy hormone’ is produced in the gut? The state of our gut health can impact so many processes in our body and that is why we want to keep it as healthy as possible.
Our gut is full of good and bad bacteria and to develop a healthy gut we want to promote the growth of the healthy bacteria, which we can do through our lifestyle. Here are some lifestyle changes we can make to promote a healthy gut.
Foods that we could incorporate:
Soluble and insoluble fibre (oats, apples, beans, whole wheat toast, nuts etc.)
Probiotics (yogurt, sauerkraut, kombucha, kimchi, supplements)
Eat a diverse diet (add different foods and colours to your meals)
Anti-inflammatory foods (berries, nuts, tomatoes, olive oil etc.)
Lifestyle changes we can make:
Exercise and/or daily movement
Stress reduction or management (therapy, meditation, exercise, or other self-care practices)
We understand how confusing and stressful proper nutrition can be during the recovery process and so we have been working on some exciting new projects to share in the future. Stay tuned for some upcoming content such as recipe ideas, live cooking on our Instagram stories, along with some tips and tricks on how to incorporate more variety into your daily diet to optimize brain health!
A simple and easy way to track how your nutrition may be affecting your recovery is by using the free Symptom Tracker or Energy Journal PDF’s we offer in our Brain Injury Recovery Toolkit. The Symptom Tracker allows you to describe in detail what symptoms you are experiencing and what you have eaten throughout the day while the Energy Journal helps you track your energy levels at a certain time throughout the day. You can utilize this tool to better understand what you have consumed and how it affects your energy levels. Both tools can help identify any patterns within your diet and your daily symptoms as for example, while your morning coffee may be your favourite way to start the day, you may notice that it can also lead to anxious feelings or brain fog afterwards. In all cases, the recovery process can look different for everyone and therefore tracking your symptoms and nutritional habits may allow you to make individualized decisions on how to improve your mental health with food.
Our body thrives on eating healthy and nutritious food, there are so many benefits to adding these nutrients into your diet. However, like life, our diet is about balance. Sometimes a chocolate chip cookie is going to bring us the happiness we need in that moment over an apple and that is okay!
