What To Eat and Not Eat When You're Feeling Stressed

There is a tendency to accept anxiety as an inevitable part of living in a stressful modern world, and to a degree, it’s true that it’s impossible to totally escape worry. But that doesn’t mean you have to let anxiety impinge on you living your best, most fulfilled life.

While there are several approaches to treating anxiety, research has shown that only 50–60 percent of people respond to medication and psychotherapy, and only a quarter of patients have complete resolution of their symptoms. A crucial part of battling anxiety is making sure your diet is full of foods that are calming and free of foods that put you on edge.

Let’s take a look at some ways you can improve your diet to alleviate symptoms of anxiety. First, we’re going to focus on foods to avoid:

Caffeine

Caffeine can feel like a lifeline in a busy world, but it’s important to realize that excess caffeine in your diet can precipitate or worsen anxiety. Caffeine overstimulates regions of the brain that process threat. In 2011 an experimental psychology research study gave fourteen healthy male volunteers either 250-mg of caffeine or placebo capsules. They then examined brain blood flow in different regions as subjects looked at threatening or neutral faces. They found that caffeine activated the midbrain periaqueductal gray matter, a brain region that is typically activated when a predator is closing in on you. To make things worse, caffeine also shuts down a brain region that typically helps you regulate your anxiety. If you are feeling anxious, you don’t need to quit caffeine entirely, but consider cutting down. Just make sure you wean yourself slowly—some of my patients who have suddenly stopped drinking coffee end up in my office with significant panic attacks and anxiety brought on by caffeine withdrawal.

Alcohol

I often encounter people in my practice who live stressful lives. The “work hard, play hard” mind-set often leads to heavy drinking on the weekends as a way to relieve stress. While drinking might make them relax in the moment, they pay for their fun the next morning, when they wake up guilty, jittery, and jumping out of their skin, all symptoms of mild to moderate alcohol withdrawal. Plus, people who are anxious sleep more poorly if they drink alcohol regularly.

The pandemic has made this worse and use of both alcohol and drugs has increased.

For sufferers of social anxiety disorder, the cycle can be even more vicious. Those who get anxious in social situations tend to self-medicate with “liquid courage.” They may feel like booze helps them socialize, but it can lead to deeper problems—social anxiety more than quadruples the risk of developing an alcohol use disorder. Of course, for patients who show signs of alcoholism, it’s important to recognize the heightened anxiety that can come from withdrawing from alcohol. Developing a plan to safely manage the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal is essential and should be done with the help of a psychiatrist or doctor. Other issues include the fact that people consume extra calories and sugar when drinking cocktails (simple syrup which is sugar, and added liquers). Sugar can worsen anxiety. Alcohol can worsen both anxiety and depression.

Artificial Sweeteners

When you use artificial sweeteners that have no nutritional value, they can increase “bad” gut bacteria and therefore negatively affect mood and anxiety. Sweeteners like aspartame have been more directly linked with anxiety in research studies and should be avoided, or at the very least used in moderation.

 Just as there are foods that amplify anxiety, there are also foods that help tamp it down, so make sure to embrace these in your diet. Here are just a few:

Dietary Fiber

Dietary fiber decreases inflammation throughout the body, including the brain. There is considerable evidence that brain (and body) inflammation is elevated in patients with anxiety. In 2016 Vasiliki Michopoulos and her colleagues found that people with anxiety disorders have elevated levels of certain markers that denote inflammation. Inflammation in the brain has been shown to affect areas that are linked to anxiety (for example, the amygdala), and dietary fiber can help by calming down the brain’s and body’s inflammatory responses. You’ll find rich dietary fiber in vegetables, fruits, lentils, beans, nuts, seeds and healthy whole grains. Fiber cannot be found in animal or seafood proteins, so eat those veggies to help the gut microbes thrive.

Omega-3s

In 2011, Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and her colleagues tested the effects of omega-3s on sixty-nine medical students, measuring their anxiety levels during lower-stress periods and again just before an exam. They found that subjects who were given high levels of omega-3s had 20 percent less anxiety than a control group. What’s more, the high-omega-3 group had 14 percent less inflammation in their bodies (as measured by an inflammation marker called interleukin-6). In 2018, a study found that, specifically, the more omega-3 fatty acid eicosapentaenoic acid people consumed, the less anxiety they had. The study also found that a higher ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s led to increased levels of anxiety.

 Simply adding more fish rich in omega-3s will ease anxiety over time.  Also work on removing processed vegetable oils from your diet which drive anxiety. Plant based options of omega-3a include algae, sea vegetables, chia and flax seeds, to name a few.

Aged, Fermented, and Cultured Foods

Fermented foods, like plain yogurt with active cultures and kimchi, are a great source of live bacteria that can enhance healthy gut function and decrease anxiety.

Dairy or non-dairy yoghurts rich in probiotics can be a powerful part of your diet, but it’s important to note that yogurt that undergoes heat treatment does not have the same benefits. One such example is yogurt-covered raisins—these aren’t going to help your anxiety, as the heat-treated yogurt has no beneficial bacteria left. Also, you should ensure that the yogurt you consume does not have added sugar.

Sources of fermented foods include kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, miso, tempeh, and apple-cider vinegar. You can also ferment vegetables like carrots, cauliflower, green beans, radishes, and broccoli.

Turmeric with Black Pepper

The golden spice turmeric hits the high notes in research to help lower anxiety. Add a pinch of black pepper as that makes the turmeric more bioactive and therefore more available to your brain and body. If you don’t book with turmeric, add a teaspoon to a soup, smoothie, tea or even a chia pudding.

Anxiety is something many of us may be experiencing more anxiety at this time – consider what you are eating as this can help you ride this wave and feel calmer.

These are just some of the foods that can help you manage stress and lead a calmer, happier life. 

Guest Article by: Dr. Uma Naidoo

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Excerpt adapted from This Is Your Brain on Food: An Indispensable Guide to the Surprising Foods that Fight Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, and More by Uma Naidoo, MD (Little, Brown Spark). A nutrition specialist and professional chef, Dr. Naidoo is the director of Nutritional and Lifestyle Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and serves on the faculty at Harvard Medical School.