3 Ways To Give Your Mood a Boost

Welcome to Day #21 of PureFormulas’ Sugar Crush Challenge: 30 days of tips, recipes, and tools to help you cut down on sugar and crush those cravings!

One of the things that you might miss most about cutting down on added sugars might be the sugar rush.

Eating great quantities of sugar makes your glucose levels (also known as sugar levels) spike up in your blood all at once, which is quickly followed by “the crash.” Have you ever felt hyper after having that big slice of cake and shortly after slow and sleepy ? Well, it just so happens that sugar and other refined carbs will all have this same effect: the spike followed by the crash. Some of the common symptoms of someone that mainly eats refined carbs (and whose body is constantly going through this) include fatigue and irritability, affecting mood in general.

How to get a mood boost…

Although your body will eventually adapt to the new sugar crush ways, you can keep these nutrients in mind when needing to give your mood that boost!

Omega-3 fats

These are also known as polyunsaturated fatty acids and are essential fats because we can only get these through foods since our bodies don’t produce them. Some of the main sources of the famous EPA and DHA (types of omega-3) are fatty fish such as salmon and sardines. Another type is alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), which is found in many green vegetables such as spinach and kale as well as seeds such as flax and chia.

B- Vitamins

There are more B vitamins than we can imagine, which is why it’s easier usually to just remember them as the B’s instead of naming each one. Although we can group them for practical reasons, they are fundamental when it comes to improving mood. B vitamins have been found to be helpful in reducing anxiety along with improving mood and overall brain health. Most B vitamins can be found in a variety of fruits and veggies, in particular the dark greens. There is 1 exception however, B12 which is found mainly in animal sources such as tuna, chicken, yogurt and cheese.

Serotonin

Serotonin is made from the amino acid tryptophan. Sound familiar? You might have also seen products called 5-HTP, which basically is a hop away from being converted into the neurotransmitter serotonin. Since tryptophan is what will be converted into serotonin, and it just so happens to be an amino acid, having foods rich in protein such as meat, fish, beans and eggs will help in the boosting your serotonin.

 

 

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