"This is the worst lockdown"
"I don't know why it's harder than the others"
"When will this lockdown end?"
The above are comments I have heard in this week alone. Given today February 4th is #TimeToTalk I thought it's worth me posting about our mental health and how we can use nutrition to try and influence our mental health.
If you did a quick google, you would probably find that we have been in "lock...down" for a significant part of 2020 depending on where you were based. If you were to say to anyone that for essentially what could be 1 year in total time from 2020 to 2021 we would be without outside human contact, unable to see friends and family, have untold pressures from work - frankly as a society we were not prepared for this.
I am sure every person reading this or waking up has found themselves in some quandary, and perhaps before we had the tools to help deal with this - a simple thing like speaking to a friend may help bring understanding to the situation at hand.
I have found like everyone, that even as a nutritionist I am not perfect, at times choosing cake over a healthier substitute to help keep me going during a stressful period. My previous way of releasing the stress could have been swimming or going to the gym two activities I found that ground me.
So with that - Do you find yourself eating too much, reaching for comfort food or just feeling run down and not so great? Have you found the coping mechanisms for the stress you previously had may no longer be available to you?
To help with this (and as a result) I started looking into re-balancing our stress responses using the benefits of nutrition (something I know and control) to help with this.
I looked into the changes that happened when we moved from office to home specifically looking at solutions to the challenges we all face when working from home from a healthy eating perspective and have found a few main themes
Right routine - Eating patterns and occasions, and portion size
Good mood - Relationship between mood & food, blood sugar, nutrients
Brain boost – Meal and snack suggestions for concentration
Smart snacks – Timing, hunger vs craving, fibre for satiety
Immune support – Gut microbiome, phytonutrients, variety
コメント