7 Comforting Foods To Help With COVID Stress

Stress and anxiety can create physical and mental chaos. COVID-19 has aggravated the problem globally. There is no sight of vaccination. Hope and prayers are failing to bring anything constructive. Can eating come of any help? Food items are a ‘new normal’ that is shaping pandemic recovery.

What is the connection between COVID-19 stress and food? Stress-causing pandemic is not just limited to mental abilities. It can prod indigestion and irritable bowels, which can mess with your gut causing digestive stress, heartburn, constipation, bloating, and stomach discomfort. There are many ways to lessen this stress. Correct dietary habits can keep your gut healthier and happier. Here are some uplifting food options for your health and gut. Practice them for an excellent and healthy appetite.

1. Eat Protein-Rich Nuts

Stress eats upon vitamin B stores in our body. Nut snacking helps to replenish our system with proteins. B vitamins protect our body’s neurotransmitters and help them fight stressful situations. Eating a few servings of potassium-rich pistachios a day helps reduce blood pressure and cuts down the strain on our heart. Eat a handful of almonds and walnuts to boost your energy level and improve your mood. Nuts are rich in omega-3, zinc, and keep blood sugar levels at an optimum level.

2. Include CBD As Dietary Supplement

Quelling pandemic anxiety is not a straightforward task. Natural remedies like hemp-derived CBD are showing positive results and good recovery from stress and depression. CBD in edible forms like gummies and oils are a delicious way to get functional benefits from the cannabis plant. Buy Lazarus Naturals online to get a sense of calm, focus, and fast-acting effects from CBD and other phytocannabinoids. CBD oil tinctures use the sublingual route for quicker results.

3. Tuck Into A Bowl Of Oatmeal

Complex carbs like oatmeal can make you feel more relaxed and calmer. The increased serotonin production (a brain chemical) reduces stress hormones. So, instead of reaching out for a sugar-filled breakfast bowl, turn to complex carb-rich oatmeal. It doesn’t hike your spiked glucose levels and is a healthy inclusion in your diet.

4. Spoil Yourself In Raw Vegetables And Leafy Greens

Tame your stress and hassle by including crunchy raw vegetables in your diet. Celery and carrots help ward off tension. Leafy vegetables like spinach contain folate, a dopamine-inducing brain chemical that helps you keep calm. The Journal of Affective Disorders published a research study done on 2,800 middle-aged people and senior citizens, which revealed that folate eaters had lower depression symptoms than those who ate the least.

Folate and fiber-rich vegetables like cabbage, collard greens, spinach help stabilize mood. Aside from the green diet, root-based veggies like sweet potatoes have plenty of vitamins, fiber, and minerals that boost serotonin neurotransmitters.

5. Treat Yourself To Fruits

Most of you like to end your meals with something sugary. Sodas and sugary drinks are sweet-led and refreshing takeaways. But they are calorie-rich and have no health benefits. Fresh fruits have natural sugars that are harmless to the body. They complete your body’s fiber, health, and energy needs and give you a nutritious and wholesome advantage. They also keep you feeling fuller for a more extended period.

6. Bite Into Stress-Relieving Dark Chocolate

The healthful flavonoids in dark chocolate improve blood vessel flow. Just a bite of the pampering dark cocoa reduces stress hormones, including cortisol. It also reduces the ‘fight-or-flight’ hormones known as catecholamines in stressed individuals. Dark chocolate also has a seductive reputation as an aphrodisiac. Choose dark chocolate that has 70 percent cocoa. Remember to eat it in moderation to help you seek comfort from stress, not as regular milk chocolate that increases calories.

7. Sip Herbal Tea

The University College London showed exciting research findings on tea and anti-stress. A UCH study revealed that tea drinkers de-stressed faster and experienced lower cortisol levels than those who drank a placebo. Although black tea came into use in the research study, herbal and decaffeinated teas score an edge over ordinary teas in stress-fighting abilities. Have a cup of chamomile tea. It has an apigenin antioxidant that enables good sleep by binding to sleep receptors. Peppermint tea also brings a soothing effect to the digestive tract.

Mindful Food Choices That Can Drive Corona Anxiety Away

Here are some slight changes you need to bring in your dietary habits to avoid pandemic stress and strain.

● Devise a daily meal plan for yourself and your family and follow it relentlessly.

● Buy fewer processed foods like cheese, cakes, slices of bread, and edibles containing high-salt and high-sugar.

● Load up your diet with low-calorie foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, yogurt, and lean proteins. It will help build up immunity and resistance.

● Flavor drinking water with citrus fruits and berries to add a health approach to it.

● Include comfort foods at least once a day in your meals to enjoy the most benefit.

● Make clear soups an essential part of dinner.

● Substitute carb dishes at night, such as rice with healthy chapatis.

Conclusion

Welcome, 2021, with the power of anti-stress comfort foods. Eating healthy food, and that’s a conscious choice, can help you come out of COVID stress and brace optimism. Give up eating a calorie-rich and oily diet alone or with your friends and family. Switch to healthy, organic, and fat-free choices for an active heart and abundant wellness. Make a persistent effort in the New Year to eat healthy and organic food, and you will love your decision.

About The Author

Lisa Dinh is a thorough and meticulous Content Analyst. She commits herself to continuous learning and focuses on sharing ideas and techniques learned from her experiences. And she is a passionate writer who loves writing about health and wellness. She writes in a concise manner so that the information is helpful for everyone.

How to Clear Your Head This Summer (And Why You Should)

Summer Time Gladness

Any time is a good time to take a step back, zoom out, and look at your life from a different angle. As we get caught up in routine, we tend to forget to find a moment to relax and take in the things that happen to us, which is how sometimes we end up feeling overwhelmed. With the holidays coming up and the summer already here, it seems like the perfect time to empty our heads to let new things in as we make the best of the sunshine season that brings happier days into our lives.

Mindful Goodness

Over the years, the psychological process of mindfulness has become trendie rand many people have been able to gain awareness about their thought patterns by meditating, thus improving the quality of their lives as they learn more about themselves. This practice is just one of the many things that we can include in our routines in an attempt to empty our minds and leave our worries behind.

Find Mental Fitness

As a matter of fact, it has been proven that there are many ways in which we can accomplish this, including doing exercise, which releases “feel good chemicals”, as well as learning new things like a challenging mental sport and other brain stimulating activities that help us step away from elements that cause us anxiety, such as recurring thoughts that are not beneficial to us.

Yoga

Yoga is one of the best physical activities that we can take part in order to not only feel healthier but also more emotionally balanced. Although it is hard to establish the exact moment in which this widespread practice was developed, it can be said that its pre-origins are almost 5,000 years old, and some believe that it is connected to the Indus-Sarasvati civilization. This fantastic “body of knowledge” — as it embraces physical, spiritual, and mental dimensions — stands for “union” in the sense that it connects these three aspects, helping us to reach internal harmony. As a result, yoga is a fantastic tool to help you relax and what’s more, you can practice it wherever you are: all you need is a mat.

Journal

Although writing is not for everyone, it is one of the best things you can do in order to release ideas, and in the process emptying your mind, create space for new thoughts and experiences. It is, in fact, used in many dynamic therapies because it allows patients to translate feelings and events into words so that they can then look at things in a different way. If you’re going away this summer, bring a journal with you and find a moment to write down your thoughts. It might not help you to shape things the that are on your mind, but it will at least allow you to keep track of some of the valuable perceptions you might have, which you wouldn’t be able to recall otherwise.

Add Potent Foods To Your Diet

The things you eat can also make you feel better, and there is some especially good “food for thought” that can boost your internal equilibrium. The benefits of dark chocolate have been highlighted for decades mainly because it helps lower stress. Dark Chocolate contains phenyl ethylamine, which induces your brain to release endorphins, instantly making you feel better. Seafood is also great to help you reduce stress — and the summer is just the right time to have all the sea food you want — as it’s packed with Omega-3, selenium, and zinc; all elements that are fantastic for your health and might even help prevent depression.

Become A Sun Goddess and Get Your D

As our Vitamin D levels rise thanks to spending more time in relaxing and healthy environments, summertime is the right time to clear our minds. Busy routines keep us from properly assimilating new and old experiences, which, in turn, translate into stress and anxiety. Find the time to think about yourself and to unwind; both you and those around you will certainly appreciate it because, as someone once said, each moment is all we need and not more. For fair skinned beauties, find extra vitamin D in mushrooms, supplements, sesame seeds yogurts and more. Stay sun kissed but safe.

I Will Buy My Own Damn Chocolates

Cute pictures, fancy dinners, and thousands of different gifts. Yet, I am sitting here single scrolling through Facebook. I will spend this night alone just like many other nights.

I won’t be taken out to a fancy dinner or given gifts I can post about on Facebook. I will be alone, at home, just me, myself, and I. Single as can be and loving every second of it.

Every year on Valentine’s Day, every couple seems so much happier than usual.

Relationships get glorified to seem like the better choice. It is advertised everywhere “Buy your loved one flowers” “Buy your Valentine some chocolates” “Buy her a necklace” and it sucks to see all those advertisements knowing you will not be getting any flowers, chocolate, or jewelry this year. Forget about all those little gifts and look at the big picture. Today you may be sad you didn’t receive flowers but in a week you may be thanking God that you are single and have all the freedom you can dream of.

I am a strong independent single woman, and I will buy my own damn chocolates.

I don’t “need” someone in my life to buy me all those things. I am happy where I am in my life. This holiday used to make me so jealous every time it came around and I was single. Everyone looked so happy while I sat at home looking at all the gifts they got and all their cute posts on social media. I would spend every Feb 14^th sad at home watching romantic movies and eating the chocolates I got from my mother.

Now, I appreciate the holiday. I tell my loved ones just how much I love them and buy them little gifts. I may still be single, but now I have enough confidence that I am not jealous of couples and I don’t feel alone. Growing up has shown me that every relationship has its ups and downs and couples are not always as happy as they seem. This holiday glorifies the good part of relationships instead of the entirety of them. Everything is not always as good as it seems.

Valentine’s Day may glorify the perks of being in a relationship at that specific point in time but if you are not with someone, that’s a sign that you are exactly where you are supposed to be in life. You are meant to be single right now, so why let some hallmark holiday make you feel sad or jealous. Be confident enough in yourself to know that you will find someone and you will find that happiness one day. You will spend many Valentines’ days with the love of your life, just not this one.

So smile, while others may be faking happiness, you are happy and focused on only yourself.

Look beyond all the advertisements and keep a smile on your face this Valentine’s Day. You are exactly where you are supposed to be in your life right now. Eat all the chocolate you want, hell, go buy yourself some flowers.

Tag: dark chocolate