What’s your opinion on happiness? Do you think its a state of mind or a state of life? Do you believe that you are one job, relationship, new car or apartment away from happiness or do you think that it’s entirely up to a person’s attitude? Some scientists and nutritionists say the key to happiness can be as simple as changing your diet. Are you convinced? Can you eat your way to happiness? Check out these 5 foods below and decide for yourself.
- Dark Chocolate
Let’s start with the easy favorite. Anyone who’s slumped on the couch, binge-watching Netflix with a bowl of ice cream on their chest after a bad breakup can agree that comfort foods and fatty sweets do something for helping to relieve our state of misery. But does that ever really work? Now, coping with foods we imagine can enter us into some dangerous territory for our health and physique and by no means is chocolate the answer to life’s greatest problems. Yet food scientists, dieticians, and recovering victims of heartbreak can agree that chocolate, namely dark, does work to make us happy, at least momentarily. The reason? chocolate contains coco flavanoids and releases the same chemical in your brain that we feel when we are in love: serotonin.
2. Spinach & Broccoli
If my last article on eating salads daily wasn’t enough to convince you, allow me to drill the point in a bit more: eating leafy greens and vegetables like spinach and broccoli can make you happier. Although not quite as fun to consume as dark chocolate, greens can actually provide more long-lasting mood boosting properties Why? Our bodies are not simply emotional, and pleasure-driven beings, they are biological. Our happiness depends largely on our physical and biological well-being and our physiological subconscious seems to ask “how’s it goin?”. If the answer is: malnourished; not enough minerals, proteins, exercise, or Vitamins, the resounding response can be sadness and no amount of trying to “convince yourself” to be happy will work. Your body needs to be happy or your brain will never be. Leafy greens contain some of the highest traces of minerals, vitamins and digestible proteins out there. Spinach contains high amounts of folic acid, broccoli contains chromium, which, similar to serotonin, have been said to boost your mood.
3. Pomegranates
These juicy red seeds have been said to fight depression and antioxidants. So fight aging and sadness in one handful with juicing or eating pomegranates.
4. Salmon, nuts and chia seeds
Yes, this is 3 different foods but they all have one very important mood-boosting power in common: Omega 3’s. Many people say that happiness is “all in your head” and I won’t disagree… our brain is responsible Mood swings and emotional pits usually come when our brain is tired, and Omega 3’s can support your brain, giving you good energy and fighting off these emotional pits and inconsistencies in our mental health. For more good fats that your brain will love, enjoy some more of the famed avocado.
5. Cantaloupe & Carrots
Cantaloupe and carrots are both high in carotene which has been said to deliver long-lasting good feelings. The sweet tastes of cantaloupe may in itself be enough to put a smile on your face. Try tossing cantaloupe, carrots, and oranges which contain vitamin b6, another energy boosting vitamin, in a juicer together as a happy way to start your day.
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