The Top Nutrients This Anxiety Expert Wants You To Eat Every Day

Feeling stressed, wired, and tired all at the same time? You're not alone. Over 40 million adults are affected by anxiety or anxiety-related disorders. We are in a chronic state of stress, running on empty and constantly in burnout mode. As a functional medicine dietitian, I take a food-as-medicine approach, working to support my clients with proper nourishment that can naturally calm anxious tendencies. This means both the removal of pro-inflammatory ingredients that interfere with signaling of the body and drive dysfunction while focusing on an abundance of foods that provide therapeutic benefit.

The foods we eat can influence our body's function as well as our mood, energy, and metabolism. In my book The Anti-Anxiety Diet and the newly released The Anti-Anxiety Diet Cookbook, I share how to use food to alleviate the symptoms and root causes of anxiety. By addressing the microbiome, leaky gut, hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis, and nutrient status, I work to optimize mood stability and stress resilience. Here are some of the top nutrients I recommend for stress and anxiety.

When we feel stressed or anxious, our body goes into fight or flight mode, a reactive response that suppresses regulatory functions of the thyroid, hormones, adrenals, and metabolism. This was great for our ancestors who had to worry about survival but is not so great when the perceived threat is actually just an overflowing inbox or a looming deadline. Physiologically, our bodies haven't adapted to modern-day stressors, and survival reactions aren't always necessary. The impact of this constant stress, including the mental anticipatory what-ifs, rumination over what occurred, and excessive taxing on emotional processing, can drive imbalances in the body.

To add insult to injury, when we "treat" chronic anxiety by dipping into the office candy bowl, it actually makes things worse. Overindulging in sugary, processed, or hyper-palatable foodlike substances causes blood sugar spikes and crashes that interfere with our energy and mood, and potentially drives microbiome dysbiosis1, fatigue, weight gain, and hormonal imbalances.

Our dietary choices, all the way down to the ingredient level, influence our brain chemistry and the fight or flight sympathetic signals of the HPA axis. Luckily, just as food can amplify the stress response, it can also calm it. Foods that are rich in mood-stabilizing minerals, brain-boosting B vitamins, amino acid building blocks, antioxidants, anti-inflammatory substances, or that contain adaptogenic properties can all work with our system to combat chronic anxiety.

Choline, a fat-soluble B vitamin found in egg yolks, is crucial for the production of acetylcholine3, a neurotransmitter that regulates the stress response. However, low egg yolk consumption driven by cholesterol fears in the 1980s and '90s has led to many Americans being clinically deficient4 in choline. Low serum choline levels have been associated with high anxiety and panic5 in research.

Fueling your body with these nutrient-dense foods rich in magnesium, B vitamins, L-theanine, and probiotics will provide an abundance of compounds to support stress resilience and mood stability. Ensure you select two or three choices daily from the choices listed above to fill your prescription and start experiencing the effects.