Foods For Human Moods

The brain is an interesting organ in the human body. It controls our behavior and our moods. This important piece of the human anatomy is like any other organ; it needs nutritious foods to run properly. A good mood might actually depend on this. Scientists now accept the fact that certain foods have the tendency to increase the brain's chemicals that affect happiness and contentedness. Fatty acids, some vitamins, and many minerals have the ability to enhance chemicals, such as serotonin, and therefore uplift your mood. So, if you feel your mood deteriorating into depression, anger, and laziness, it might be worth trying a change in diet. It might just make a blue winter a much happier place, so keep reading and find out which foods scientists believe will enhance a human's mood.

Your brain is 60% fat and thus needs this substance to remain healthy and run properly. When I say fat, I don't mean the stuff McDonald's and Burger King offer. I mean healthy fat! No, this is not an oxymoron. The body needs certain fats in order to keep going, and Omega 3 is a wonderful place to begin for uplifting your mood and maintaining a healthy brain. The chemistry of how Omega 3 helps the body is, to be honest, beyond my scientific knowledge. However, scientists seem to know this and can put it in layman's terms for us "average Joes". This fatty acid has the quality of allowing serotonin (our body's mood enhancing drug) into the cell membranes of our neurons. This process helps this chemical enter in greater quantities and uplifts our mood. At least this is the theory. But clinical studies do point to Omega 3 being an important tool for our brain. The American Psychiatric Association has concluded that people who consume more Omega 3 are less likely to suffer from depression and bipolar disorder; consume being the key word. Our body cannot synthesize this lipid from scratch and thus our intake of Omega 3 is necessary if our body is to use it. If your looking to intake a little more of this fatty acid try to eat some more fish. Wild salmon, for instance, is a wonderful source of Omega 3 and may help you fight the blues.

Food Sources: flaxseed oil, fish, radish, walnuts, cauliflower, yellow mustard

Although all the B vitamins are important for your body, in this article I plan on concentrating on two of them. Folic acid and B-12 are two extremely important substances that your brain needs in order to function properly and maintain a good mood.

[Folic Acid]

Folic acid is not something your body can create, so it must be included within a healthy diet for your body to utilize. The US Dietary Reference Intake recommends the intake of 400 mcg (micrograms) per day. The consequences of not receiving this amount are actually quite serious. Studies show that a folic acid deficiency produces homocysteine, an amino acid, in the brain. This can hurt your brain's ability to exchange neurotransmitters (the three most prominent being serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine) which are important for mood maintenance. This has been seen in double blind placebo trials where 200 mg of folic acid were added to the medication of depression patients. After one year the addition helped many of those participating in the trial.

Food Sources: broccoli, sunflower seeds, asparagus, spinach, peanuts, orange juice, strawberries, avocados

[B-12]

This B vitamin is known to help human nervous systems, which is necessary for our brain's functionality. It is thought to help synthesize serotonin which means, when applied with existing antidepressants, might help fight depression. Much like its cousin, folic acid, a deficiency of this substance may cause the release of homocysteine in the brain, only adding to the effects of depression. Other consequences of a lack of B-12 would include lethargy, a shortened attention span and a lack of motivation. These three symptoms would only make depression worse, making a serious problem that much more serious.

Food Sources: clams, lamb, cheese, eggs (yolk specifically) 

The intake of these two substances are known to affect mood in different ways. While protein helps the body create dopamine and norepinephrine which helps with concentration and awareness, it also has the effect of lowering your levels of serotonin which helps thwart calmness. On the other hand carbohydrates uplift serotonin levels, doing the opposite of its protein counterpart. Both are necessary components of the brain's chemistry, thus making them both important to intake. However, both have certain negative side effects that need to be understood. Excess amounts of protein can create too much of the dopamine and norepinephrine drugs and create restlessness. Carbohydrates can do the exact opposite. Too much production of serotonin can turn calmness into sleepiness, making it difficult to stay awake. An example of this is the aftermath of a Thanksgiving feast. The carbs and tryptophan eaten causes most Americans to pass out on the couch while watching the Thursday afternoon football games. Not a bad thing for the holiday, but it could create problems in our everyday lives. So, in conclusion, if staying awake is your goal stay away from those carbs and girll yourself a nice sirloin. But, if you're a bit anxious and are looking to calm down, boil some pasta and wash it down with a baked potatoe.

A quote from Dr. Roger J. Williams, an American biochemist who coined the term folic acid, will help put this article in perspective. In his book, Nutrition Against Disease, he says,

"We must realize, however, that all living cells are continuously subject to imperfect nutrition and that overt mental disease is known to result from malnutrition, as, for example, in pellagra. In the light of these considerations, we would be foolhardy indeed to take for granted that the nutrition of the brain cells is automatically satisfactory in those who are afflicted or threatened with mild or severe mental disease."

Our diet has an incredible say on how are body behaves. This includes the brain, which like any other organ is made of living cells which are dependent on our nutrition. Is it a cure all? No, and scientists admit this. But, it could help unwind some of the mysteries of our brain and of depression, which sadly inflicts so many of our fellow creatures.