Good Nutrition & Exercise : The Mental Health Power Couple

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Physical health and mental health are often thought of as separate entities, but this couldn’t be further from the truth — supporting your physical health often has a fantastic impact on your mental health too.

To keep things simple (as I could waffle about this for days) let’s break it down into three factors of diet & exercise which might have the biggest impact on your mental health.

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Diet

What you eat can make or break your mental health and our diets influence our mood, brain health and mental health more than you might think. Heres three areas to think about in order to optimise.

1. Stable Blood Sugar = Stable Mood

Frequent blood sugar spikes and crashes can cause irritability, anxiety, and brain fog. Choosing complex carbs such as oats, sweet potatoes, and quinoa, lean proteins, and healthy fats helps keep blood sugar — and mood — stable.  Things to avoid include high sugar/refined carbs, skipping meals and inconsistent meal times.

2. Eat the simple whole foods

Prioritising nutrient-dense whole foods like leafy greens, oily fish, nuts, seeds, legumes, and eggs can help prevent nutrient deficiencies and support brain function. Nutrients such as B-vitamins, magnesium, iron, Omega-3 and vitamin D are all linked with higher risks of depression and anxiety so including a wide variety of foods is important for prevention.

3. Gut Health and Serotonin

You’ve probably heard of serotonin, one of the main neurotransmitters that regulates mood. We often associate this with the brain but 90-95% is produced in the gut and travels to the brain via the gut-brain axis. Looking after gut health is therefore super important in the context of mental health. Eating regularly meals, plenty of plants and fermented probiotic food such as kefir, sauerkraut and live yoghurt is a great way to look after your gut and serotonin levels.

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Exercise

1. Endorphins

The feel good chemicals. Endorphins are released when we move our bodies (even at low intensity) and help lift mood and energy levels. They even act as a natural pain-killer. Endorphins aren’t just released during exercise though they also flood the brain when we experience pain, pleasure or laughter. And if you’re at the right gym, you’re going to hit all three of those things in a session.

2. Reducing stress

The hormone cortisol is released when the body experiences chronic stress. This is something that most people experience at some point in their life and can be caused by family worries, work tension or other external factors. Regular exercise at an appropriate intensity can help reduce cortisol levels. Lowering or re-regulating these levels can improve sleep quality, aid weight management and improve the body's stress response.

3. Improved self confidence & esteem

Regular exercise can have a fantastically positive impact on self confidence in a multitude of ways. Body imagine can be improved by regularly using your body and feeling the sense of achievement which comes with improving on various facets of fitness such as lifting heavier or running further.

Consistently exercising also builds self trust, when we do what we say we are going to do and show up for ourselves our confidence rockets.
Exercise also teaches us resilience, doing tough workouts and experiencing the discomfort of lifting weights or sweating in the cardio makes our brains and bodies more resilient to stressors which may come outside the gym.

Why not have a check in with your current diet and exercise habits this mental health week and see if there are any new habits you could introduce. Or chat to myself or your Coaches for some inspiration.

Ideas could include

• Aiming for 30 different plant foods per week
• Booking an extra gym session
• Getting out for a walk before or with your morning coffee
• Prioritise meal times and make time for 3 meals per day

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