The Food-Mood Solution: All-Natural Ways to Banish Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Stress, Overeating, and Alcohol and Drug Problems -- and Feel Good Again

By Jack Challem

Summarized with permission of Wiley (www.wiley.com). All rights reserved.

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Mood-boosting Aromas

The basic ideas behind aromatherapy have been part of religion, traditional medicine, and cosmetics for hundreds of years. Aromatherapy is based on natural essential oils extracted from plants. Their effect can be greatly enhanced by using them to lubricate the skin during a therapeutic massage.

Researchers have determined that aromas can affect mood in the following ways:

1. Lavender increases alpha waves, the brain activity associated with relaxation.
2. Jasmine increases stimulating beta waves (sharpens the mind and senses).

Essential oil recipe for reducing stress:

• 5 drops of lavender
• 3 drops of chamomile
• 2 drops of bergamot
• 2 drops of clary sage

Combined together in 1 ounce of a carrier oil or lotion. This blend may be used in a bath, as a body lotion, or kept in a small vial to sniff during stressful situations.

How Life's Stresses Affect Mood

When people feel stressed, they invariably sacrifice their eating habits, sometimes by making less healthful food choices and other times by skipping or delaying meals. When people are faced with too many tasks at home and at work, they usually reduce the time needed to plan and prepare meals and instead opt for convenience and fast foods. When people spend less time cooking, they are also less likely to teach their children how to cook or appreciate fresh foods. In this way, the impact of today's pressures will affect subsequent generations.

Under chronic stress, the body secretes stress hormones almost constantly. When people secrete high levels of stress hormones for weeks, months, or years, they stop protecting the body and instead start to damage it.

Elevated levels of the stress hormone Cortisol are particularly toxic to brain cells in the following ways:

1. It interferes with the production of new brain cells.
2. It shrinks brain size.
3. It hinders thinking and memory.

Cortisol activity is intertwined with insulin. It increases both blood sugar and insulin levels, eventually leading to more belly fat and a greater risk of diabetes. Belly fat is a sign of abnormal fluctuations of blood sugar and insulin levels, pre-diabetes, and full-blown type-2 diabetes, all of which can negatively affect thinking processes, concentration, mood, behavior and energy levels. Chronically high levels of Cortisol also lower levels of DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone), a hormone that helps people maintain youthfulness and sexuality, resist stress, and protect against depression.

Quick Tip: The Serenity Prayer

The Serenity Prayer, written in 1932 by Reinhold Niebuhr is advice for how to deal with conflict and stress so that people make sound decisions about what they are capable of changing (to reduce stress) and what they must learn to accept:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

 

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