Personally, I hate pickles. Actually, I love them so much that I hate them… Let me explain. When I was young, I can remember eating pickles all the time. I didn’t think anything about how much I consumed the fermented food, as a child never does, until one day it was simply too much. I was out to eat with my parents, but instead of eating a meal, I as adamant about just eating pickles for dinner.
Having a nurse as a mom, she knew that sometimes people just need to learn things the hard way; she let me order what I wanted. As it turns out, eating that many pickles on an empty stomach doesn’t sit well with an active kid’s digestive system. I threw them all up before I even got home, and now I can’t look at a pickle without remembering that moment.
Now, I wish I hadn’t learned that lesson the hard way. It turns out that eating fermented foods like pickles, sauerkraut, and yogurt may ease certain types of anxiety. This was a discovery made some time after it was found that the stomach plays an important role in mental health.
In a recent study, 700 students at the College of William and Mary were observed to have lower social anxiety levels if they ate higher levels of fermented foods. This is likely due to the probiotics that are contained in fermented foods, which are good for the stomach and digestion in general. What’s good for the stomach, it seems, is also good for the brain.
Scientists also believe that probiotics, or good bacteria, found in fermented foods increases the levels GABA, which is a chemical that has an anti-anxiety effect on the body as a whole.
However, everybody digests and reacts to foods and bacteria differently, so it’s difficult to say just how much fermented food you need to eat to experience this effect.
What’s great about this find is that it sets the stage for natural remedies for anxiety. There are plenty of medications and prescription drugs that people can take for high levels of anxiety, but natural remedies are always better. In fact, increasing the chemical GABA is the motivation behind many prescription drugs aimed at decreasing a person’s anxiety levels, but fermented foods use probiotics to help the body do it naturally.
If you’re feeling anxious when it comes to your social life, school, work, or anything else, try eating some fermented foods.
Good bacteria is called good bacteria because it helps you; it’s good. Now that we know the brain and stomach are connected directly, we have proof that a good diet can help the brain in a number of ways. Just don’t eat so much that you get sick, trust me.
source and courtesy: dailyvibes.org