Boost your mood, treat your brain to good food

The emerging science of nutritional psychiatry sees food as an essential component to regulate emotions and enhance overall mental health

- Tanisha Saxena

We've long known that food can offer us comfort—a bowl of soup on a sick day, chocolate after a heartbreak, an ice cream shared in silence can do wonders. But have you ever wondered if that 'sense of comfort' the food offered was deeper than nostalgia or craving? What if the food we eat is quietly recalibrating the brain itself... shaping our moods, sharpening or dulling our emotional edges, and tipping the scales between calm and chaos?

Modern science is affirming what many have intuitively sensed: our guts and our minds are in constant, biochemical conversation. And as the emerging field of nutritional psychiatry reveals what's on our plate doesn't just affect our waistlines, it shapes our sense of joy, resilience, and clarity.

According to a 2022 study published by Springer Nature, Associations of Neurotransmitters and the Gut Microbiome with Emotional Distress in Mixed Type of Irritable Bowel Syndrome, serotonin—one of the brain's key mood regulators—is predominantly produced in the gut. "More than 90 percent of the body's serotonin is synthesized in the gastrointestinal tract," the report notes, reinforcing the intimate, biological bond between our emotional state and our digestive health. The conversation between gut and brain extends even further. A 2025 article in npj Mental Health Research, headlined Probiotics reduce negative mood over time: the value of daily self-reports in detecting effects, reveals that individuals with certain psychological traits—particularly those who are more risk-averse—experience a notable reduction in negative mood when taking probiotics. "In the future," the authors note, "probiotics may potentially be targeted to individuals to reduce the risk of clinical onset of mental health conditions."

FUEL FOR GOOD GUT BACTERIA