The relationship of nutrition with emotional well-being

These are the links between people's emotional well-being and nutrition.

Emotional well-being is not only based on how we manage our emotions through actions such as meditating, having fun with friends or crying when we need to.

An act as seemingly mundane as eating also influences it through a variety of psychological pathways and processes.. Let's see how it does so.

The neuropsychological implications of nutrition

What we eat has a clear impact on what happens in our brain.

For example, some amino acids such as tryptophan, which are widely available in certain foods, are necessary for key neurotransmitters. in our nervous system (in the case of tryptophan, serotonin, a substance closely linked to the feeling of calm and well-being). Neurotransmitters are molecules that our neurons use to communicate with each other.

They are something like the pieces of a message, and they are constantly emitting and capturing them both in the brain and in the rest of the nervous system distributed throughout the human body.

Moreover, as this exchange of chemicals "burns off stages," changes take hold in our brains: changes in the way our neurons connect to each other and in the way they are activated or deactivated when they receive certain neurotransmitters. There is no instruction manual that explains what happens when a neuron receives X molecule, it all depends on its position, the neurons it is connected to and what has happened to it previously. Nerve cells learn just as we do.

It is here, among other aspects of brain functioning, where it is clear how nutrient uptake and chemical processes in general influence the psychological: without neurotransmitters there can be no brain activity.. And the brain is characterized by being constantly on the move, even when we sleep; it is the engine of human experience and of our own survival as autonomous beings capable of being aware of what happens to us.

Moreover, the fact that our neurons are always maintaining a dialogue based on chemical reactions is behind our ability to adapt to what life throws at us. As our nervous system is always transforming anatomically and functionally depending on the experiences we go through and the chemical state of our nerve cells, we evolve as people.

Of course, consuming some types of psychotropic drugs under medical supervision is a way of increasing or minimizing the effects of these neurotransmitters in our body, but in the great majority of cases a balanced diet is the most effective and beneficial way to ensure that there is a balance in the functioning of our nervous system. in the functioning of our nervous system.

In addition, it has been known for years that the Central Nervous System, formed by the brain and the spinal cord, is intimately related with a wide network of neurons distributed throughout the digestive system, particularly in the intestines.particularly in the intestines.

Thus, our brain maintains a bidirectional communication relationship with the nutrient extraction processes that occur in parts of the body relatively distant from it, both via nerve cells and the neuroendocrine network (we must not forget that neurons are strongly conditioned by the hormones that circulate through our body via the blood, and vice versa).

Nutrition and emotional well-being

So far we have seen the relationship between nutrition and the functioning of the nervous system in general and the brain in particular, but if we want to understand the human mind and our way of feeling and behaving, we must broaden the focus and look beyond the nerve cells.

Emotional well-being is not reduced to chemical processes (although these participate in it), and also incorporates a behavioral dimension: what we do to relate to our environment and to ourselves. And this is also influenced by nutrition, although in a more subtle and indirect way.

The fact is that nutrition cannot be totally disassociated from food.. If nutrition is a process that begins and ends within our organism and is based on the extraction and processing of nutrients, food is a behavioral phenomenon, based on our actions as individuals. The way we relate to food is eating, and unlike nutrition, we can modulate it through conscious decisions.

However, in most cases, the actions that make up our diet are not conscious; we perform them spontaneously, without thinking too much We get used to eat certain foods, to snack between meals, to combine ingredients in a certain way... This can be good in some cases (it would be very tiring to have to stop to think and decide something every time we are going to eat or prepare a meal), and bad in others. For example, many people develop emotional problems in which their way of eating is involved..

This happens a lot with carbohydrate-rich foods; our body has evolved to have a preference for sweet or carbohydrate-rich foods, since these are signs that we will extract a lot of energy from them; but if we go on to try to "cover up" our discomfort with these foods, sooner or later we will develop physical health and emotional management problems. Eating without hunger is often something we do without realizing that we don't really need food, but the fact that it offers us a momentary distraction makes us lose perspective and not see that, in the long run, it is worse.

So, the relationship we learn to maintain with food is key to explaining whether we are better or worse at maintaining a good level of emotional well-being.. As long as we adjust our actions to satisfy mainly the needs based on nutrition, we will be helping our body to have the ingredients it needs, no more and no less.

Do you want to have professional psychological assistance?

At Vibra Wellness we work offering psychotherapy to enhance emotional management skills both from the management of actions and from the management of thoughts and attention. In addition, we have a team of nutritionists specialized in emotional and digestive health.

If you are interested in our services, contact us.