Eating healthy and making sure your diet is filled with nutrient-rich meals is the key to maintaining your physical health. It’s also the key to a strong mental health. Although it makes sense that fueling the body with nutrients will nourish the body and the mind, it’s not often that we stop and recognize the power it has. Don’t just take my word for it! Read this article to find out what the founder of Gut Healthy Dietitian, Kelsey Russell Murray, had to say about it.

It makes sense that what we put into our body will reflect on the way it functions, and this includes the mind too. Taking a moment to be intentional with what you put in your body can make the world of a difference to your mood. Starting off small by making sure you have enough water intake and later identifying what nutrients make you feel more fulfilled physically and mentally.

Regularizing diet patterns is a great part of connecting your nutrition and mental health. For example, it can be very easy for students who are on a tight study and class schedule to eat the fastest thing possible which is either something frozen and processed or an excessive amount of fast food. Taking a trip to the grocery store and purchasing ingredients that aren’t processed can uplift your mood, brain health, and physical health, and may be the road to feeling generally healthier. While cutting out processed foods is a massive step in regularizing diet patterns, one can also look at the different times in which the body is receiving food and how that affects the mood.

According to Murray, intermittent fasting certainly has its pros and cons and doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. She also expressed concern for women throughout their cycle as it relates to intermittent fasting due to hormonal fluctuations.

“I like to do a 12-hour fast for everyone and some can push that a little longer depending on their goals, and what works well for them,” Murray said.

Travelling to Europe has seemed to blow up on social media when it comes to holidays and because of this a closer look into the diet that is consumed there has been brought up in more conversations to other regions.

“Using a Mediterranean-style diet has actually been shown to have significant, positive impact on depression scores similar to cognitive behavioural therapy,” Murray said.

When we look at a Mediterranean diet, we can see components that include fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, healthy fats, and more. The concept behind the Mediterranean diet is that there are significantly less processed foods that we can find in North American regions. In addition to the reduced number of processed foods, we can also acknowledge that the lifestyle is much more active with walking being a great mode of transportation in this part of the world. We also can’t forget about outdoor activities being more common.

Encompassing this type of lifestyle can boost the likelihood of a happy mind and a flourishing mental health. Using the tools to fill your body with nutrient-filled meals has the potential to not only increase mental stability but also impact your physical well-being.

Additionally, there are other more specific ways students can create this balance between nutrition and mental health.

“I love the idea of something like bowls because they are so easily customized,” Murray said. “I always say, start with a whole grain, whether it’s brown rice, quinoa, sweet potato, and making sure you have greens, vegetables, legumes, protein, and healthy fat.”

Eating healthy is a choice that you can make for the benefit of keeping up with your mental health. It’s the holistic method of making sure you connect the balance of nutrition and mental stability. I encourage students reading this article to be more aware of what they choose to put in their bodies. When grocery shopping, take a step back and think about how the food that you are choosing to put in the cart will make you feel both physically and mentally when you eat it.