Mood Getting You Down

If you are struggling to feel on top of things as you have an ongoing low mood, it can be very difficult to eat for health and happiness. All you are going to want to do is reach for a sugar fix, some endorphin loving chocolate or some comfort fries.

Fatigue can cause us also to eat foods that our bodies don’t love- no matter how much our brain and stomach tells us we really need it. Until we’re eating a good range of healthy food, we can’t really trust our brains and bodies to tell us what to eat. They have this huge cocktail of chemicals running around playing havoc with our cravings.

If you do suffer from depression, are chronically tired or think you are prone to SAD (Seasonal Affect Disorder, where you feel more depressed in winter) there are several things you can do.

It is more common for woman to struggle with the effects of these, though that may also be because men are less likely to report any incidence of depression.

If you are always tired, then you are more likely to eat instant foods that do little for your body. If you have large amounts of stress in your life, it can make you feel tired. Tiredness can lead to weight gain which in turn makes you more depressed once more.

In the winter months we can be even more susceptible to it. We need daylight, and more accurately sunlight to keep our vitamin D levels at a good level, and help us with our levels of hormones melatonin, and serotonin which help us feel good. When you don’t have enough of these in your body you’ll tend to feel down, tired, grump, and irritable. Becasues we don’t have enough serotonin we start to crave carbohydrates and buttery, creamy foods. It’s hard to drum up a craving for salads and fruit when our brains are wreaking havoc with our bodies during these phases.

However we need energy to get through life. Even if spending the day sleeping in bed may feel like bliss to you right now, it’s not going to turn your life around in any shape or form. We need to eat just as we need to breathe.

We all have the same amount of hours in our day. To get the jobs that need doing done, we need to find more energy to do them. Managing your energy will help you to become fitter, more energetic, feel good about yourself, look better and possibly (f you need it to) lose weight.

Finding more energy

So if you want more energy you need to fix the foods you eat. However there are a few other factors in the energy hunt we need to look at.

1. Sort out your thoughts.

If your day is just a mesh of unhappy thoughts, piles of stress, anger and worry, you are not letting your body and mind focus on other things. Start the day right with some positive thinking. Before you get up every morning, be thankful for up to ten things in your life right now. This is your list, so make it things you are really thankful for, not things you feel you SHOULD be thankful for (so a new laptop might just come before a partner!) Do the same thing at night before bed so you’ve started and ended the day with thankfulness.

2. Get breathing

Many of us don’t breathe deeply enough. Oxygen is the most important nutrient our body needs. If you aren’t breathing, well you aren’t alive. If you can learn how to deep breathe, you’ll be able to reduce your body’s response to stress and can cure all manner of ills from insomnia, to headaches and sore backs. That tightness across your chest will be positively affected too. It also can lower high blood pressure, and gives your body a bigger shot of endorphins that make you feel good.

Instead of taking rapid, shallow breathe, spend time everyday focusing on your breath, taking in a long, slow breath, holding it for a moment, then expelling the air slowly.

3. Rest

Ok, we’ve mentioned too much sleep isn’t great, but too little can play havoc with your insides too. Get a routine in place and put a bedtime in place. This isn’t about hitting the sheets as soon as it gets dark and having no life, but getting in bed around two hours before midnight is a good estimate. Our bodies often sleep better before midnight. Getting up most mornings around the same time helps too. Give yourself one morning off a week if you love sleeping in, but for the most part, our bodies thrive on routine.

4. Hydrate.

So we all know we are meant to drink two litres of water a day, but are you? If you feel like you are retaining water, or bloating, you often try to drink less to stop the bloat. In fact, the more water you drink, the more it flushes out your system. Nothing makes you tireder than not drinking enough. Next time you go to reach for that coffee to pep you up, try a glass or two of water instead.

Many people think they are hungry when actually they are thirsty. We need at least two litres a day, more during summer and during activity. Our bodies will get the water anyway it can, so if you aren’t putting good water through your body, your body will tell you to eat so it can get water that way.

Water not only keeps everything moving, but it carries all that oxygen we are breathing to our cells, along with the nutrients from the food we eat.

If you are a big caffeine drinker, try to cut it down to a more manageable level. Coffee doesn’t count in your water intake- in fact if you are drinking a lot of it; you need to counteract it with more water as caffeine has a diuretic effect on the body. It is also a stimulant and can affect you body’s natural cycle.

5. Reduce your fat stores

Our body stores the excess energy we consume as fat. It does this because it is so efficient. But carrying too much fat actually slows us down and reduces our energy levels. Dif you are carrying too much fat however the last thing you need is a diet. Diets often promise fast results, but set us on a further path of constant exhaustion. If you need to decrease your fat stores, change your energy intake slowly and incrementally, and look at a long term, rather than a short term solution.

6. Fuel Up

Food is our body’s petrol. We need to use it at the right time of day to see the most benefit. Start your day as you mean to go on. That old line your mother used to throw out as you rush out the door in the morning is true. Breakfast IS the most important meal of the day. Starting the day with a couple of pieces of bread smeared with jam, or a bowl of sugar masquerading as cereal isn’t the best way to begin the day if you want energy. (Neither is throwing back a coffee and hoping to catch something later.) Instead go for the old fashioned breakfasts of oatmeal/porridge with some stewed fruit, a poached egg (or two) on toast – but make the toast a wholegrain type, or a smoothie made with fresh fruit and protein powder. If you struggle to get ready in the morning, consider preparing a takeaway breakfast prepared then night before (such as a bread roll and a boiled egg) and an apple and you’ll do just fine.

7. Remember to Eat

When you are busy, or stressed, or trying to lose weight or any combination of the three it is so easy to skip meal or two. But this is the worst you can do if you want to keep on top of things. Skipping meals plays havoc with your blood sugar levels and it makes that bar of chocolate so much harder to resist when the mid afternoon lag ops around. The best results come from the best planning. Plan an morning and afternoon snack you can use to pep you up between meals, without out spiking your blood sugar levels. This could be a few nuts and an apple, or a few crackers with some hummus. Keep it natural, and not meal sized. This is all about snacks.

8. Keep Moving

The more we move, the more energy we have to move more. It feels weird, and certainly the first few times you start to move it doesn’t feel that way. Try to get your heart rate going around twenty minutes a day with some good cardio. You don’t need to stick to the same sort of exercise. It can be anything. Try walking, swimming, dancing, cycling. If you do it in the morning, you are likely to have more energy for the rest of the day. It generally takes around three weeks to see any noticeable change, so try to persevere for at least that long before you decide it’s a waste of time. See it as a wee investment in you thinking clearer and happier. You can’t be successful if all you feel is glum! Get out, take a walk, and enjoy yourself.

If after doing all of this you find you are still tried, obtain a hormone kit to test whether you are low in hormones that affect your sleep. Melatonin which is our sleep hormone can be affected by stress and by our age. If you do have a deficiency, you can then take a supplement to augment it.