The food you eat doesn’t just impact your health and your waistline. It also influences your mood and behavioral patterns. If you feel unexpected sad, angry, or irritable, your diet may have something to do with it. Let’s take a look at how an unhealthy diet could increase depression symptoms and steps you can take to avoid this.
What Unhealthy Food Does To Your Mind
Unhealthy food is full of toxins that sit around in your body. This limits circulation your body needs to stay energized and process everything you do throughout the day. If you consistently eat bad food, your mind won’t function as smoothly as it should. This makes it harder for you to stay awake or handle stressful situations, which makes depression symptoms worse.
The Downward Spiral Of Eating Poorly During Depression
Some people use food as a coping mechanism for depression. They turn to junk food for temporary happiness, but the effects don’t last long. Ultimately the junk food will lead to weight gain, fatigue, or irritability, which will boost the effects of depression. More depression leads to more junk food, and the cycle continues from there.
Break The Cycle Right Now
Before you get trapped in the downward spiral, take a moment to evaluate your diet. Do you drink enough water throughout the day? Do you eat a sufficient amount of fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins? Even if you don’t have a perfect diet, you can reduce the amount of junk you consume. Simply replacing soda with water will help you feel natural more energized, to the point that you don’t even need caffeine! When you start putting good nutrients in your body, you should see a tremendous improvement in your mental health.
Discuss Diet During Depression Counseling
If you are working with a counselor to overcome your depression, your diet may come up in a discussion. This is especially true if your depression is tied to low self-esteem because you are not happy with your weight. Be honest with your counselor about the foods you eat and how often you eat them. You will never feel judged in your therapy sessions. Your counselor is there to help you, not judge you. If there are healthy decisions that can improve your life as a whole, your counselor will point those out in a helpful, caring way. You can choose what to do with that information.
Consider the effects of diet on your mental health, and see if you can make adjustments to reduce your depression symptoms.