Eating more fruits and vegetables stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps to calm us down.
- The Mediterranean diet is a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, cereals and dairy products
- It would offer better protection against stress and anxiety
- It is its action on the sympathetic nervous system that produces this effect.
Fighting against stress also goes through the plate. Researchers from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in the United States show that changing our diet can reduce anxiety. In one test carried out on animals, they note the benefits of the Mediterranean diet on our psychological well-being. This diet is based on a high consumption of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, fish, and reduced amounts of meat and dairy products.
A study carried out on monkeys
“It’s really hard to reduce or control the stressors in our lives.”, notes Carol A. Shively, lead author of this new study. To be less stressed, we must act on other elements that have an impact on our level of anxiety. To do this, the researcher conducted research on food. Previous work had already shown that eating a lot of fruit and vegetables is associated with a reduced level of perceived stress. In this new study, Carol A. Shively tested the links between diet and anxiety on macaques.
The necessary balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system
38 animals were used for this research. The researchers fed them with an equivalent of the Western diet or the Mediterranean diet: the first included proteins and fats of animal origin, the second was mainly derived from plant products. The animals were subjected to situations generating acute or chronic stress. Meanwhile, scientists studied changes in their sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic. Their roles are opposite: the sympathetic nervous system accelerates in the event of stress, while the parasympathetic nervous system slows down the functioning of our organism. To be healthy, the activity must be distributed between them in a balanced way. The researchers also evaluated the production of cortisol in the adrenal glands, this hormone, associated with stress, becomes harmful when it is produced over a long period.
The beneficial effects of the Mediterranean diet
Animals fed on the Mediterranean diet model were more resilient to stress. The activity of their sympathetic nervous system was weaker, in comparison to that of the parasympathetic. “In comparison, the Western diet increased the sympathetic response to stressexplains Carol A. Shively, it’s like having a panic button on all the time, it’s not healthy.” With her team, she has also found that the Mediterranean diet slows down the aging of the sympathetic nervous system. For her, this type of diet is a simple and economical way to reduce the negative effects of stress in the population.
Stress, a threat to health
Stress increases the risk of suffering from chronic diseases such as cardiovascular pathologies or Alzheimer’s disease. In France, statistics show that 21% of the population will suffer from anxiety at least once in their life. These disorders are twice as common in women as in men.
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