anxiety relief

How Dr. Uma Naidoo Harnesses the Power of Food to Tame Anxiety

At Nutritious Life, we’re big proponents of the food-brain connection, so we were grateful and excited to get a sneak peek of Dr. Uma Naidoo’s new book, Calm Your Mind with Food: A Revolutionary Guide to Controlling Your Anxiety. Dr. Naidoo is a Harvard trained psychiatrist, professional chef, and a trained Nutrition Specialist who has established herself as a pioneer in the emerging discipline of Nutritional Psychiatry. Translation: when Dr. Naidoo talks about the food-brain connection, we listen. In this follow-up to her best seller, This is Your Brain on Food, Dr. Naidoo shares cutting-edge research about the ways anxiety is rooted in the brain, gut, immune system, and metabolism. With this understanding, she then explores six pillars of calming the mind, anxiety-busting foods to add to your diet, and even the best diets for managing the symptoms of anxiety and depression. With dozens of recipes, and guidelines for creating your own personalized anti-anxiety meal plans, Calm Your Mind with Food is one of our top picks for wellness books in 2023. Thank you to Dr. Naidoo for sharing this excerpt with us. How a Nutritional Psychiatrist Uses Calming Foods to Tame Anxiety Adapted from Calm Your Mind with Food by Uma Naidoo MD In 2022, I was invited to give a keynote lecture at the first Integrative & Personalised Medicine conference in London. It was a huge honor to be asked to speak at an international conference, and I was delighted that the event’s leadership was interested in my work. I humbly accepted, feeling confident about presenting to a group of like-minded clinicians. It can certainly be nerve-wracking to speak in front of a group of doctors—especially in person after a few years acclimating to video chat—but I have enough experience in similar situations that I trusted my ability to stay calm and professional. What followed nearly caused me to faint. I received an email informing me that my work had gained the attention of the royal family. Along with three other American doctors, I was invited to meet HRH The Prince of Wales—who has since become the King of England—to discuss our work. It had to be a mistake. I was going to meet Prince Charles? How on earth could this even happen? Focus on Your Breath The anxiety I’d brushed off from the original invitation flooded over me like a gushing fire hydrant. My palms were sweating, my thoughts raced, and my heart pounded in my chest. The impostor syndrome I’ve spent years fighting reared its head. Surely the Prince of Wales would see through me. It would be the end of my career! My anxious brain distorted what should have been such a positive moment into something completely different. Thankfully, I was able to wrest control of my feelings. I couldn’t let anxiety create failure. I focused myself on the moment and did some exercises from pranayama, or breath work yoga. It took me time to settle down and be able to fully accept the situation, but by the time I typed out a measured and courteous “yes” to the invitation, I felt calm, making space for excitement and joy. Using Nutrition to Tame Anxiety Once I was in London, as my meeting with the prince approached, I had to actively work on separating my excitement from my fear and anxiety. The morning of the event, I woke up early, meditated, and made sure to drink cool water. I ate a breakfast full of calming foods, like tofu scramble seasoned with turmeric and black pepper, with mushrooms and spinach on the side. I managed to stay calm and focused when my roller hairbrush shorted out, even though the prospect of a bad hair day has always been a mood-ruiner for me. As I planned out my dress and practiced my curtsy, I did more breath work and used mindfulness to keep my thoughts from spiraling. Even though I went to the meeting with some butterflies in my stomach, the worst of my anxiety had subsided, and I could walk in with confidence. You can probably guess how the meeting went. Prince Charles was lovely, as were the other doctors present, and we had a lively discussion about the kind of whole-body approach to mental health that we will learn about in this book. It was not the end of my career. In fact, the meeting was a phenomenal experience that I have a strong feeling will lead to some of my most meaningful work. Calm Your Mind with Food (Image: Dr. Uma Naidoo) On the plane home from the UK, I reflected on how anxiety had nearly derailed such a game-changing moment in my life. It can be easy to minimize anxious feelings, telling yourself to toughen up or get over it. Nevertheless, anxiety is real and damaging. I was thankful that I had been able to calm my anxiety through a combination of practices, an understanding of how the brain works, and a diet that creates a strong foundation for mental health. It made me think of my patients who’ve had similar struggles, whether with specific challenges in their lives and careers, or with the kind of pervasive anxiety that seizes on the smallest details to throw their worlds into chaos. The whole experience was a powerful reminder of how grateful I am to have the opportunity to help others improve their mental health, and understand and overcome their anxiety through the powerful medicine of food. You must eat to survive; there’s no getting around that simple fact. So by calming your mind with food, you are harnessing the power of one of the most fundamental parts of human life. I encourage you to give careful consideration to your dietary choices, building your lifestyle around healthy whole foods full of the right balance of macro and micro nutrients that will keep you thriving in both body and mind. Adapted from the forthcoming book by Uma Naidoo MD, Calm Your Mind with Food. © Uma

How to Calm Your Mind at Night

Tell us if this sounds familiar. You’re exhausted and can’t wait to get into your cozy bed, yet the moment you try to settle in, your mind starts to go over all the things you didn’t get to that day. Or, you wake up in the middle of the night worrying about the following day. The next thing you know, it’s been two hours and you’re still awake. Our busy brains can be one of the biggest sleep saboteurs. These unprecedented times are adding heightened anxieties that can exacerbate the issue. To make matters worse, researchers at the University of California Berkeley have found that a sleepless night can trigger anxiety up to 30% versus a full night’s sleep which can calm emotions. This leaves us with a tricky conundrum. We need sleep to keep our anxiety at bay, yet our anxiety is keeping us up. So, what do we do? We talked to leading sleep experts to get their top tricks to calm our minds at night. HOW TO CALM YOUR MIND AT NIGHT Create a Nightly Bedtime Ritual You all know we love a bedtime routine, so it bears repeating. Just like you would do for a child, you want to go back to basics and set up your own nighttime rituals. “Do the same things before bed so your brain knows it has to start preparing for sleep,” says Colin House, Intellibed’s sleep expert. Some things to add to your routine could include: Turn off all your screens at least 30 minutes before bed and dim the lights Read Meditate Journal to get out all the looming to-dos populating your brain All of the experts we spoke to said we should go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time each day. “Our bodies need routine in order to sync our circadian rhythms. Create and maintain a bedtime routine,” says Lauri Leadley, CCSH, RPSGT, co-founder of Valley Sleep Center. She also recommends you start your day off with an alarm that is gentle and soothing, not a sound that creates tension. Check out how NL founder Keri Glassman sets herself up for sleep success here! Try Progressive Relaxation Dr. Thanuja Hamilton recommends progressive relaxation for those middle-of-the-night wake-ups. The process involves actively relaxing each body part from head to toe by tensing it up and then relaxing while breathing out. “You end up taking your body to an even more relaxed state than it was at rest,” explains Dr. Hamilton, who is medical director at Jefferson University Hospital Sleep Lab. “The hope is that you can distract yourself while relaxing. The goal is that you fall back asleep before getting to your toes.” Avoid the Temptation to Reach for Your Phone Limiting exposure to blue light will help your body fall asleep naturally. “Before bed, download your favorite meditation (we recommend MindTravel meditations) and add them to your Amazon playlist,” says Murray Hidary, the mastermind behind MindTravel. “This way, all you have to do is say, ‘Alexa, play MindTravel Sleep’ and you’ll be able to relax without picking up your gadget.” Focus on Your Breath Meditation is a great way to help calm your mind. But, if you have a partner, you may not want to play a guided meditation and wake them up. Hidary recommends a simple box breath technique that you can do in silence. You breathe in for four counts, hold it for four counts, exhale for four counts, and hold for four counts, etc. “Meditation is simply bringing your focus to the present moment,” he says. “Any time your brain wants to put its attention on the sleep you’re not getting, the things you forgot to do today, or worse … work, put your focus back on your breath.” If you really need that guidance, headphones can help. “You can also utilize imagery by imagining yourself somewhere you love, like a beach,” says Leadley. “Sync your breath with the sound of the ocean waves. See, hear, and smell all the things around you in this beautiful, calming place. This will help detour your thoughts and worries so that you can relax and drift off to sleep.” If after 15 minutes you’re still awake, Leadley suggests that you get out of bed and read under a dim light until you feel sleepy, and then return to bed. Don’t Beat Yourself Up About Not Sleeping Obsessing about the fact that you aren’t sleeping can further your inability to fall back asleep. Studies have shown that it’s not the total of uninterrupted sleep that makes a difference, but rather the aggregate total,” says Hidary. “So, if you find yourself in a pattern of waking up in the middle of the night and needing to nap in the middle of the day, give yourself the rest that your body—and your brain—needs.” Have Sex Yup, you read that right. More than one of our experts recommended having sex before going to bed. The hormones that are released when you climax boost oxytocin (the hormone that makes you feel closer to your partner) and lowers your cortisol (stress-related hormone) levels. So, you’ll be feeling happy and relaxed, which are two great helpers in igniting sound sleep. (photo credit: Shutterstock)