8 Foods To Avoid For Anxiety
About 20% of the American population struggles with anxiety and it is the most common psychiatric disorder. Anxiety is a feeling of fear, worry, or unease. Some physical symptoms associated with anxiety are increased heartbeat, sweating, shaking, and shortness of breath. Anxiety can be tied to something specific like something stressing us out, or we can feel generalized feelings of anxiety.
Since anxiety is a mental disorder that can result from too much stress or cortisol (our stress hormone), this means that anxiety plays a role in the gut-brain axis. This axis shows us that our gut health is crucial for the health of our mental well-beingtoo. The gut houses a large diversity of healthy gut bacteria which aid in digestion and absorption of our food. When disrupted, the gut microbiome becomes imbalanced and negatively impacts hormone levels and our stress and anxiety levels. This is why it is important to consume the right foods and know what foods to avoid for anxiety.
Note that the foods to avoid for anxiety mentioned here can still be included in a healthy diet regime. It is just important to be aware of how frequently you are eating these foods to limit their consumption, but there’s no need to eliminate them in totality.
Source: NIH
Here are 8 foods to avoid for anxiety:
1. FRIED FOODS
Fried foods are another one of the foods to avoid for anxiety. Fried foods are made by submerging food into a large pot of high-heat oil. The smoke point is extremely important to learn about when cooking oils with high heat. Oil is made up of triglycerides which are one fatty acid with three fatty acids attached to it. Heating these oils will break the bonds between the fatty acids and the glycerol. When the oils are heated too high, above their smoke point, smoke will start to form and free radicals are generated above their smoke point. These free radicals and toxins will enter your body with the food and will stimulate an inflammatory response causing anxiety and digestion issues. Overall, fried foods are not beneficial to the body for the reason that they are inflammatory and destroy gut bacteria.
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2. PROCESSED FOODS
Processed foods include any premade food high in salt, sugar, fat, and any ingredient you can not pronounce or figure out its origin. These foods are made from more chemicals than they are of real food. This makes them one of the foods to avoid for anxiety. Almost everything in the grocery store that comes in a box, bag, or is in the grocery store’s frozen section is considered processed. Our gut responds and digests whole foods better than it does processed foods, so this is why processed foods are one of the foods to avoid for anxiety. Again, remember you do not have to eliminate these foods completely, but it is important to check nutrition labels and be more aware of what you are eating if you have the means to do so.
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3. HIGH SODIUM FOODS
High sodium levels are another one of the foods to avoid for anxiety. High sodium levels are found in almost anything boxed on the grocery store shelf. Its purpose is to increase shelf life because salt content inhibits microbial growth. Knowing this, you can see how high sodium diets might not benefit the gut microbiota in our intestines. Research has found that the high sodium content promotes inflammation and damages intestinal cell walls. In addition, a diet high in salt results in high blood pressure and this increases anxiety and cortisol levels.
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4. HYDROGENATED FATS
Hydrogenated fats are another one of the foods to avoid for anxiety. Hydrogenated fats are vegetable oils that are heated up so much that they add hydrogens to the fatty acid chain to make them saturated. By doing this, companies can turn an unsaturated fat that is originally liquid at room temperature into saturated fat that is solid at room temperature. This process is used to create thicker products that last on the shelf and are cost-effective. You can find high amounts of these hydrogenated fats in nut butters and nondairy butters. The problem with hydrogenated fats and oils is that they can elicit a gut inflammatory effect in the gut. Not to mention that they are not heart-healthy because they irritate the arteries all of these outcomes result in higher anxiety levels.
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5. HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP
High fructose corn syrup is another one of the foods to avoid for anxiety. It is made by extracting the glucose from corn starch which makes corn syrup, but high fructose corn syrup is made a step further by converting some of that glucose into fructose. It was first created because sugar prices were higher in the 70s, and the government subsidized corn, so it was cheaper to produce. A recent study has found that high fructose corn syrup can increase intestinal permeability. The intestine is lined with a single cell wall called the lumen, which separates the inside of the intestine from the bloodstream. This cell wall is thin so that it can easily absorb nutrients, but the cell wall is tightly packed in tight junctions to keep out all things that are not nutrients optimally. If the junctions loosen up, then the cell wall can become permeable and larger substances like toxins and undigested food can pass through into the bloodstream and cause damage, resulting in intestinal permeability. These foreign substances crossing the border increases inflammation and anxiety.
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6. ALCOHOL
Alcohol is one of the foods to avoid for anxiety because it causes dysbiosis. The bad bacteria in our gut can build-up due to many different lifestyle factors, including alcohol consumption. Gut dysbiosis is when there is an imbalance in the ratio of good to bad bacteria in the intestines. Research in mice studies has found that alcohol consumption can shift this ratio and increase the bad bacteria population in the gut. Alcohol also increases leaky gut or intestinal permeability which is when pathogens can enter the bloodstream through intestinal permeability. As a result of a leaky gut, many bad bacteria can pass through and cause infection and illness. Alcohol in general also impacts anxiety response due to the stress response dampening effect. This means that when we are faced with a stressful situation our body has a harder time responding to it and the stress can build up and result in anxiety.
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7. LOW FIBER DIETS
Low fiber diets like keto are another one of the foods to avoid for anxiety. Men require about 35 grams per day of fiber and women require about 25 grams per day. Fiber is an indigestible form of carbohydrate that aids in fecal bulk. It is heart-healthy because it aids in lowering cholesterol, and it helps digestion and gut health. The fiber helps to feed the bacteria in our gut. When the good bacteria eat the fiber they will produce acids that feed other types of good bacteria and will simultaneously eliminate bad bacteria that can’t survive in those acidic conditions. Though fiber is beneficial for gut health, it is important not to eat too much. This is comparable to cars on a highway. On a nonbusy day, cars free flow down the highway with no issues or need to slow down, but during rush hour there are too many cars going the same way at once and traffic is slowed down. In this analogy, the cars are the fiber and the highway is our gut.
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8. LOW PROTEIN DIETS
Low protein intake consumed regularly is one of the foods to avoid for anxiety too because of its effect on our stomach acid. The majority of our food breakdown occurs in the stomach, where stomach acid has a low enough pH to break apart our chewed food. This broken-up food mixture will then head to the intestines, where the nutrients in the food are absorbed into the bloodstream. If you do not have enough stomach acid, then you will send undigested food into the intestine where it will cause irritation, bloating, and gas production. Protein is the hardest macronutrient to break down in the stomach because it contains nitrogen. Therefore, eating enough protein will ensure that you will be producing enough stomach acid. If you are vegetarian or vegan make sure to eat enough protein through tofu, beans, lentils, quinoa, edamame, and peas because low protein diets will decrease the amount of stomach acid you produce.
Source: NIH
