Believe it or not, our guts play a huge role in our mental health. Most of our serotonin, the feel-good hormone that regulates our mood—whether we feel happy or sad—is produced in our gastrointestinal tract. It is generated by the hundreds of millions of neurons lining it. Therefore, our digestive systems don’t just aid in the digestion of food, they also guide our emotions.
In order for the production of serotonin to occur, our intestinal tract must contain lots of good bacteria. Good bacteria “protects the lining of our intestines and ensure they provide a strong barrier against toxins and ‘bad’ bacteria; they limit inflammation; they improve how well we absorb nutrients from our food; and they activate neural pathways that travel directly between the gut and the brain,” according to Nutritional Psychiatry: Your Brain on Food, by Eva Selhub, in the Harvard Health Blog. 

Good bacteria comes from eating good food. The more nutrition we ingest, the healthier we will be, and the better our mental health will be. Recent studies show that people who eat a Mediterranean diet are 25 to 35 percent less likely to become depressed than those who eat a Western diet. A Mediterranean diet is high in fruits, vegetables, unprocessed grains, fish, and seafood. Processed foods, refined foods, and sugars, staples of Western diets, are not included. They also contain only small amounts of lean meats and dairy foods, unlike Western diets.
Even when we eat well, stress, worry, and other negative phenomena of everyday life can creep into our psyches and alter our mood. When this occurs, it is normal for us to want to make ourselves feel better. That desire often includes food. 

Depending on the food we reach for, our mood could improve or it could get worse. Processed foods heavily flavored with salt and sugar, like potato chips and cookies, are often what we want. Eating these foods when we’re feeling down, will ultimately make us feel worse, and could result in the beginning of a downward spiral. There are other better snacks we can consume that create good bacteria, which will release serotonin, and improve our mood. They will also satisfy our cravings.

Here are some healthy alternatives to processed foods to turn to when we are feeling down that will actually turn our mood around:

Sliced vegetables, like red peppers, carrots, and cucumbers dipped in hummus

Home-made trail mix containing nuts, raisins, and seeds

Sliced fresh fruit (this can be combined with plain Greek yogurt and seeds for a more substantial snack)

Nut butter (good for dipping)

Dark chocolate containing 70 percent cacao or higher (keeping the amount we ingest daily small won’t increase the amount of sugar in our diets)

Homemade snack bars made with any combination of these ingredients: oats, nut butter, maple syrup, dark chocolate bits, seeds, nuts, unsweetened coconut, moderate amounts of dried fruit, and spices

Cottage cheese

Olives

Edamame

Dates (high in antioxidants, fiber, potassium, and iron; but only a few because they have a high sugar content; for crunchy satisfaction, dates can be stuffed with almonds)

Not only is our mood guided by the food we eat on a regular basis, it can also be altered for better or worse by the foods we choose to snack on. Trying to stay on course with nutritional food, whether as a meal, or as a way to help us out of a slump, is important to level our mood and ensure we enjoy good mental health.