Last Updated on May 30, 2016

They’re not thinking of their brains when many people start eating healthy, they are thinking of their midriffs and losing a few pounds. This is not a negative aim, but what many people don’t realize is that everything you put on the end of your fork influences your mood. This, consequently, affects the caliber of your life impacts the standard of your decisions and, ultimately!

You also need to nourish brain chemicals should you’d like to keep focused, joyful and emotionally grounded. These busy substances have a huge job: they determine when you should sleep, how well you focus and just how much pain you feel. They enable you to learn, desire, and feel mad or happy. Whether you feel excited over a brand new job or bored through the day, neurotransmitters are at work — and they can be directly affected by everything you drink and consume. You possess the capacity to maintain them healthy!

You actually are everything you consume and it’s also very important you give your brain the correct nutrition. Should you eat healthy, you’re more likely to help keep your neurotransmitters healthy along with your outlook brighter , both in the short-term and over time. You can drastically help manage your mood with food!

At the Amen Clinics, we often see individuals whose low quality diets — high in “bad” fats (trans fats and fried fats found in processed foods and fast food) and sugar, low in vegetables and fruits — give them low quality lives. They feel poor, depressed, and not quite there.

I created the Omni Diet to help people lose weight, and to feel empowered and more positive. They’re able to generally feel the difference merely the initial couple of weeks. Why? Because by eating healthy, you might have the fighting force to tame and affect six important neurotransmitters:

• Serotonin. About 80 percent of the substance lives in your GI tract, modulating your intestines; the serotonin that remains in your brain works to keep you mellow, balancing your dispositions and controlling your hunger, sleep, memory and capability to understand new things. It also plays a role in blood clotting. This is actually the neurotransmitter most strongly linked to depression. A fresh study from the University of Cambridge, printed in the journal Biological Psychiatry, found that when your serotonin levels are low, it is also more difficult to control your feelings of rage and aggression. Another study from McGill University in Canada revealed that women create 52 percent less serotonin than men–which helps explain women’s doubled rate of reported depression, and why we frequently crave simple carbohydrates (simple carbs boost serotonin). Plenty of healthful foods will will boost serotonin levels, and will not leave you in your insulin and blood sugar with inflammation and spikes. Instead of reaching for pasta or sweets, fast bake a sweet potato in the microwave, or grab an apple or handful of walnuts.

• GABA (gamma-Aminobutyric acid). This neurotransmitter is described as “inhibitive” because it keeps us calm and stabilized. People who have healthy GABA levels are well organized–the type who likes to keep lists–while low GABA is linked to several anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder along with depression. On the Omni Diet, we urge individuals drink lentils, broccoli, nuts and green tea for GABA that is great. Yoga fans will enjoy knowing that just one Asana Yoga session can boost GABA degrees, scientists in the Boston University School of Medicine reported back in 2007. They were so taken with their findings, in fact, that they proposed yoga be researched for treating depression and anxiety disorders linked to low GABA.

• Dopamine. Been feeling just like a couch potato recently? If you’re not prompted, and you are feeling achy and just do not feel much joy, you might need to foster your dopamine levels. A study published last year in the Journal of Neuroscience links dopamine to your own willingness to work, while a more recent study from the University of Connecticut associates dopamine to our motivation to take actions and engage in a sustained way. Individuals with low dopamine additionally blurt things out impulsively, without considering the results. They are the ones whose friends are likely to say, “She does not have any filter.” Boosting your dopamine level -rich foods such as poultry, seafood and lean meat, and avoiding sugar and processed carbs, will help combat that tendency.

• Acetylcholine.You need this neurotransmitter to stay mentally sharp; when levels are low you do not learn as easily and your ability to believe is impaired. Researchers are looking into Alzheimer’s disease and possible links between acetylcholine. A recent study reveals it also could be linked to autism. To stay on the top of your acetylcholine amounts, be sure to include high-protein foods such as eggs, salmon and shrimp in your daily diet.

• Glutamate and aspartate . These are “excitatory” neurotransmitters–significance, they’re already agitated, thus do not stimulate them too much. Glutamate is the most abundant, and too much can help cause apparent symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and other mental disorders. Both neurotransmitters are roused by amino acids found in aspartame (artificial sweetener), processed lunchmeat, sausage, soy, wheat, peanuts and a few preservatives. An excessive amount of glutamate or aspartate is linked to stroke, autism, Alzheimer’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), so it is better to avoid those foods.

The bottom line: recognizing the best way to work with food to deal with the chemistry lab between your ears can allow you to feel better quickly. When you eat for brain health, you are sure to feel energized, motivated, positive and more intelligent! Before you are aware of it, your brain haze will disappear.