Eat Your Way …

To A Healthy Mind. Heres How...

- Trisha Dangarwala

Have you felt lazy while sitting at your desk? Or agitated and stressed out because you’re having a bad day? Odds are that it is because you haven’t eaten well or healthy enough to function properly. What you eat, and when you eat, both play a very important role in the wellbeing of your mental state.

Dr Niti Desai, a renowned celebrity nutritionist, tells us more about how we can eat our way to a healthy mind through some questions that provide answers to a healthier and happier mind.

How does your diet affect your mental health?

There are a number of ways in which the food you eat can affect the state of your mind.

There are certain foods which directly affect your mood. For example, bananas, milk with honey, dark chocolates; they release serotonin, known as the ‘feel-good’ hormone.

Indirectly, there are certain items too that affect your mood, like refined carbohydrates. This will lead to mood swings and stress, making you feel good one moment and bringing you down the next.

What kind of diet is needed for a healthy mind?

Before deciding what to eat, we must know when to eat.

The most important factor to keep in mind is to never skip a meal, specially your breakfast. There are high chances of feeling low in the middle of the day, usually around 11 a.m, if one has skipped their breakfast. This will lead them to eat everything wrong at that time – chips, samosas, vada pavs – the list goes on.