 Welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. This podcast was created to provide you the information and tools Doc Snipes gives her clients so that you too can start living happier. Our website, docsknipes.com, has even more resources, videos and handouts, and even interactive sessions with Doc Snipes to help you apply what you learn. Go to docsknipes.com to learn more. Hi everybody and welcome to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes, practical tools to improve your mood and quality of life. Today we're going to be talking about 10 ways to eat for happiness. Now when we come around to the new years, a lot of times people are starting to talk about New Year's resolutions and losing weight and getting in shape and getting healthier. So one of the things we want to talk about is eating, because it just kills me when I see a lot of people start out the new year with some really rigid or kind of all-or-nothing fad diet that there's no way they're going to be able to keep to in a long haul most likely and then they get three weeks into January and they're just like you know what screw it. So let's talk about ways to eat in order to support your mood, support your health and support your well-being. The first thing I want you to see, and it's not important that you know all these terms, but I want you to realize that tryptophan is a protein and it's actually an amino acid and it's in all of our protein-based foods. So tryptophan is really easy to get if you're getting any reasonable amount of protein and protein is in everything. It's really low in vegetables and stuff. It's you know almost really high. It's almost exclusively protein and fats when we talk about meats and those sorts of things. But if you don't eat meat, that's not a big deal because you can get protein from other sources like beans and rice and vegetables. So tryptophan is taken in and it's converted using iron, magnesium, calcium, vitamin B6 and folic acid. These are all vitamins that need to be acquired. Well, they can be gotten from a multivitamin, but they're a lot more effective if they're acquired from your diet. And a lot of these are more prevalent in vegetables and grains. So tryptophan, using all those things, is broken down to make 5-HTP. And we've all heard of 5-HTP because you can buy it in the store. I'm not recommending that you do that. I'm just saying you can. Now 5-HTP is broken down using vitamin C, vitamin B6 again, zinc and magnesium to make serotonin. And serotonin is one of those brain chemicals that we know is responsible for helping us feel calm and happy and at peace with the world. When you don't have enough serotonin, though, it's more than just your mood. Serotonin impacts like everybody's system. It can start causing gut and heart problems. You have 80% of your serotonin is actually in your digestive system. So if your serotonin gets wonky, then you can start to feel depressed, but you can also get constipated. Or if you get really stressed, you can get stress symptoms in your gastrointestinal system. You can have sleep problems. If you don't get enough serotonin, you can't make melatonin, which is what helps you get to sleep. So not only are you wound up and have difficulty winding down to go to sleep, but you don't have that sleep chemical or enough of it to give you good quality sleep. Another problem if you don't have enough serotonin is you'll have cravings for carbohydrates, alcohol, and maybe even certain drugs. So your body's trying to get the building blocks it needs in order to release these chemicals. When we eat carbohydrates, sugars and starches and things like that, our body releases serotonin and dopamine, which are two of our really feel-good chemicals. So if your body's not making enough serotonin, it's going, I need more. So it starts craving carbohydrates because it wants to tap into those reserves. If you eat the carbohydrates, then your body's going to tap into the reserves and start secreting a little bit more. But what happens when you run out? And fibromyalgia and other pain conditions are also linked to a deficiency in serotonin. So our pain tolerance, our pain threshold goes down as our serotonin goes down, which is one of the reasons why people, when they're depressed, tend to feel like they hurt all over and things feel more achy. Well, it makes sense because serotonin isn't there to modulate that pain response. So kind of to sum it up, we need serotonin. It is a big boy in our neurochemical makeup. We need it. If we don't have quality proteins, enough iron, magnesium, calcium, vitamin B6, folic acid, vitamin C, zinc, and I guess those are the ones, then we can't make serotonin. So it's important to have a good diet, not to just be eating coconut oil and coffee or whatever the case may be. So being aware of what you're eating, try to eat a nice colorful diet. So what do we do to eat for happiness? Unless there's a medical reason, consider not eliminating any food, just moderating it. If you love something, if you prohibit yourself from having it, then guess what's going to happen? You're probably going to crave it more. So for me, like chocolate, I love chocolate and coffee and soda. I love a lot of things that are not good for me. I try not to keep them in the house. If I have them in the house, then I'm more likely to mindlessly eat them and graze on them and eat them when I could have chosen a healthier option. When I want chocolate, I will go to the grocery store and I'll get a candy bar or I'll get a pack of M&Ms or whatever will satisfy that craving. I have that little bit, it's gone, I'm done, we're good. And I'm not going to sit there, I don't get a five pound bag of M&Ms because I know I'll eat the whole thing, I just know that. So I get a regular size. So moderating means maybe not keeping it where it's as accessible because even if you say I'm only going to have five Oreos, how many times do you go back and get five more? And then just two more and one more after that. And then you start feeling bad about yourself. We're eating for happiness. That means we want to have food that we really like, that we can kind of use as a reward. I don't like using food as a reward but some of these things release dopamine so it is a reward no matter how you look at it. So try to moderate it. Figure out ways you can cut back on it a little bit but still allow yourself to have it maybe once a week, like pizza. At our house, we can have pizza once a week. My kids love pizza. So that's one of those things that I do. Pizza is not the healthiest thing in the world but at least it represents like every food group. And so we have that once a week. Drink enough water. When you're dehydrated, you tend to feel sluggish, fatigued, confused, tired, all symptoms of depression. So you can confuse dehydration with, oh, I feel like depression or the blues are coming on if you're feeling ugh. Try drinking some water if you hate water and I will tell you I am not a huge water fan. I will keep a water bottle with me when I'm at the gym or when I'm at work and so I do drink more water but if I'm just at home, I'm not gonna think about oh, let me get a glass of ice water. That's just not what I do. I'm spoiled and I tend to lean more towards, I'll put lemon flavoring in it or lime flavoring, lemon juice, lime juice. And that gives it a little bit of flavor. If I'm really craving something with bubbles in it but not artificial sweetener, I'll do club soda with lemon. And that gives me enough of a kick gonna pick me up where I feel like I'm getting the treat and not being deprived but I'm also doing something that's healthy for me. So drinking enough water prevents or helps prevent fatigue, dehydration. Just don't drink too much right before bed because then you're gonna be up peeing all night and you're not gonna get enough sleep and you're still gonna end up feeling fatigued. So make sure you pay attention to when you're drinking. Get enough protein and I said this on the last slide. Anywhere from 0.6 to one gram per pound of body weight per day of protein is plenty and one gram per pound of body weight is more for people who are growing and people who are like competitive body builders. Most of us need closer to the 0.6 grams. If you get a food app like Spark People on your phone and you keep track of what you eat, you'll be surprised that it's rare if ever that you don't make your protein requirements unless you're a vegetarian. Vegetarians sometimes have a hard time making their protein without making a concerted effort to do so. So proteins usually not a problem but do make sure it's a high quality protein. Eat your grains and nuts. That way you have those vitamins and minerals necessary to break down tryptophan to make serotonin. Now serotonin is not your only feel good chemical. Dopamine is your reward chemical. That's also made from amino acids and norepinephrine is your focus and motivation and drive chemical. You get up and go and that's also made from proteins. And broken down with vitamins and minerals. You can think about vitamins and minerals kind of like spark plugs. The, your body is the engine. The food that you eat is the gasoline and the spark plug is what kind of gets everything going. So you need all of them. Moderate your intake of caffeine, sugar, high fructose corn syrup and refined white flour. All of these things tend to give you a rush in many of them. It's a spike in blood sugar and then a crash that follows. And then you do it again and you get a rush not quite as high this time but you crash even lower the next time and you're doing this downward spiral just the opposite of what you wanna see the stock market do. So try to minimize or moderate these. I'm not saying you're gonna cut them out because I know a lot of us are not going to but paying attention. If you drink caffeinated beverages try to drink half caffeine, half decaf coffee, select caffeine free options when you can. If you are drinking a lot of caffeine, don't go cold turkey unless you have to for some reason. You will get migraines. You will get a really bad headache for a couple of days. And if you're aware of that and you're good with it, you know, more power to you may wanna check with your doctor about what you can do to take the edge off. But you wanna wean down. Same thing is true for sugar, high fructose corn syrup and refined flowers. Our brains actually change in response to what we eat. So when people go cold turkey off of these they actually go through a withdrawal period that results in cravings and depression because their bodies used to having all these things coming in the sugar and the corn syrup that triggers the release of dopamine. Well, when that's not coming in anymore and triggering the release of dopamine, that happy feel good chemical is just staying all locked up and people are going, oh, I don't feel so hot. So the take home message from that is don't go from zero to 60 or from 60 to zero however you wanna look at it overnight. Gradually reduce things. Like if you're going to cut out high fructose corn syrup then start buying products that are not made with high fructose corn syrup like ketchup. That's one of your and barbecue sauce. That's one of your big offenders, jelly. Look for things that are made more naturally. Try to choose alternatives instead of high sugar foods and get whole wheat flour and whole wheat breads instead of white breads. Eventually hopefully kind of wean off the processed grains but slowly that can be like August that you're worrying about doing that. Just start out by trying to switch from plain old white bread. You can look online at the glycemic index and the glycemic load of different foods. What you wanna do is try to stay away from foods that are going to that have a high glycemic index that are gonna spike your blood sugar. Get enough omega-3s. Omega-3 fatty acids are helpful for depression as well as pain and aches and those sorts of things because I know I'm not in a good mood when I hurt and after I hit 40, it seems like every year I get in different ache or pain somewhere and that's just part of aging. The system's getting a little bit older but increasing the amount of omega-3s keeps things moving more fluidly and reduces pain somewhat, reduces some of the inflammation and it has been shown to have an effect on your mood in a positive way. Another tip, get creative. If you're thinking, oh, I don't wanna eat healthy because that's just rabbit food. That's what I hear around my house all the time. Get creative with what you do. I've finally managed to create a lentil loaf that my family will happily eat and it took a while for me to get the recipe quite right without any meat in it because we're eating it instead of meat loaf. But if you get creative with your cooking, even if you're eating meat, so you can start using different spices and trying different recipes, you have a surprise in store every time you eat and most recipes that you find on Food Network or all recipes, they're really pretty easy to do and really pretty easy to follow. So experiment, even if something sounds a little odd, I tried a sweet potato soup recipe a few weeks ago that I wasn't sure that garlic and ginger would really go together that well but it turned out fabulously. So there are different options and you'll be surprised at how many different ways you can use foods. I've discovered 17 ways to use sweet potatoes besides just baked now. Savor your food, eat mindfully. Instead of eating while you're watching TV or while you're doing paperwork at your desk, I'm guilty of that one. Take time and sit at a table and focus on what you're eating. When you're getting your food, get what you think you want and then put half back or think about what you think you want and then only get half if you're living in a family and that would be frowned upon to put half back but if you put half back, most likely you're not gonna go back for seconds anyway but if you do, then you're only eating as much as you would have in the first place. Another way to look at it, close your fist and look at it. That's about how big your stomach is when it's not all stretched out. Next time you go to a restaurant and you get a big old plate of spaghetti or something, hold your fist up next to it and think how many times your stomach has to stretch to accommodate all that and you'll realize that we're probably eating more than we need to. Use a salad plate, trick your brain. If you're using a salad plate which is smaller than a dinner plate and you fill it up, your brain thinks you're fuller than if you just have a little bit on this huge plate. Another way to trick your brain is to have multiple colors on your plate. For some reason, when the brain sees multiple colors, it feels like it's getting more food. If everything is different shades of white and brown, it's all just kind of bland, it blends together, then your brain's just like, that wasn't very much food. So the different flavors may trick your brain. They're not exactly sure why doing that makes people feel fuller faster, but it does. And turn off the television. There's nothing wrong with having a great conversation over dinner but also try to focus on what you're eating. And television tends to engage our minds so we're not focusing on what we're eating or the people sitting at the table with us. So try to turn that off. Remember that when you eat, it generally takes about 20 minutes from the time you get full for the signal to go to your brain that you're full. So if you're scarfing it down, and again, I'm guilty of this, having two children, it was you need to feed the child and then you eat and you hope you can eat your meal before the child starts screaming again. And most parents have been there. But, and even before that, I ate faster than I probably should have. But if you eat that fast, then you can eat two, three, six times as much as you really needed to eat before that signal gets from your stomach to your brain. You know, you can eat in 20 minutes, you can put away a lot of food. So slow down, cut food up into manageable bites, you know, and try, you know, an experiment, try to see how small of a bite you can take and still get all the flavor of it and enjoyment out of eating it. Obviously, you're not gonna take a little micro bite, but you can probably take much smaller bites than you are right now. Consider drinking green tea. There are chemicals in green tea that are supposed to help with anxiety and depression. If you tend to be a little anxious anyway, you might want to go with decaf green tea. But green tea also has the added benefits of having polyphenols in them, which are really helpful for getting rid of some of those free radicals and anti-aging and all that kind of stuff. So green tea is a good thing. I like the peach flavored green tea, instant green tea, because I don't really like straight green tea, but that's a preference. And my daughter drinks straight green tea all the time. And don't eat until you're stuffed. Even if you're eating slowly, even if you've been at the table for 40 minutes and you're just still plodding along, if you're still putting in food in your mouth and you know you're full, but you just don't wanna leave anything on your plate, you're probably gonna feel bad afterwards, either physically bad or mentally bad because you know you ate too many calories or both. Eating until you're stuffed is just never rarely a good idea. You know, there's probably a time when it's a good idea. But even we just finished the holiday season and Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, a lot of times people eat till they're over full and they're just like, oh, I shouldn't have eaten so much. Food should be something that is awesome that you look forward to, because it's nourishing your body. Not something you're like, okay, I'm gonna over-indulge and then for the next week, I'm only gonna drink chicken broth. No, it doesn't work that way. Let's moderate. Let's spread out that dinner. Let's have seconds later in the evening and then let's have leftovers for the next three days so you can enjoy it for three days instead of three hours. Okay, those are my tips for helping you try to eat for happiness instead of just to eat. If you like this podcast, please subscribe on your favorite podcast app. Join our Facebook group at docsnipes.com slash Facebook or join our community and access additional resources including live counseling or coaching, I'm sorry, with me, Doc Snipes, every Thursday at docsnipes.com. Thanks for tuning into happiness and brain surgery with Doc Snipes. Our mission is to make practical tools for living the happiest life, affordable and accessible to everyone. We record the podcast during a Facebook live broadcast each week. Join us free at docsnipes.com slash Facebook or subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast player. 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