Tip #4 Foods (Stress Management Series)

Hi! Welcome back to this free video series on stress management. I’m Stephanie McCannon. Today’s free tip is tip number 3 and it’s all about food, that’ right what we eat. Some of us eat to live and some of us live to eat but most of us fall right there on the middle. However, the connection most of us are not making is how important food is to stress management.

Now I told you before that about 80-90% of all diseases and illnesses are stress related. Now it’s widely known and carried throughout the medical community that food can be a healing source. What you eat does in fact affect your health. Unlike I was told over a decade ago, the doctors told me consistently that what I ate had no bearing on my autoimmune disorder. I highly disagree and I healed my body by managing my diet and other stress management techniques like the ones I’m sharing with you today. Food is highly important to stress management. Why is that? Well food does two major things to help your body dealing with stress. One is that it can release serotonin. Two, the right foods can help decrease cortisol levels in your body. Both of those are important.
So what kind of foods will do that? Well foods that are really great for stress and anxiety and these types of things are oranges or Vitamin C. Vitamin C has been shown and documented that it actually helps decrease stress. Stress in your body, stress that you may not be aware of. So Vitamin C is important. If you don’t particularly eat oranges, you can seek out good supplement of Vitamin C. The other food that I recommend especially for good serotonin release is complex carbohydrates STEEL CUT OATS, I prefer steel cut oats over the precooked fast cooked variety for nutritional reasons.

This is part of the problem that we’re having with our diet and diseases is that we’re eating foods that we think are bodies are benefitting from but in fact they’re not because they’re devoid of nutrition. Spending the extra time and cook the oats, you can just find them in just about all the grocery stores. I use Bob’s Red Mill steel cut oats. Almonds are good fats, important and are very good for you as well. Choose avocados and all olive oil and the fatty fishes like salmon.

All of those things are going to help release serotonin and decrease CORTISOL. One of my favorite on-the-go snacks is to take almonds and pair that with 90% chocolate, just a little bit of chocolate and a little bit of almonds and you’re set for the afternoon. That’ your little pick me up, that’s going to keep you going and help you manage the stress throughout the day.
So I’d like to know what food you can incorporate to your diet right away that you can do consistently to get more release of serotonin and to decrease the cortisol. If you would respond below and include what you’re eating and what you’re doing to help your body deal with stress with eating. I look forward to sharing with you my next tip, tip number 4 in the next video. Thanks for reading!