Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Get Stuffed

The moody foods

What you eat and when can impact how you feel

If your typical day starts with several taps of the snooze button, followed by a sudden panic attack that you’re going to be late for work, followed by a rushed pulling on of pants and a quick bath in the sink on your way out the door, chances are you’re going to be eating breakfast on the run this morning.

So you stop by a coffee place on the way to work and grab a cup of joe and a few pastries to tide you over until lunch – if it has berries in it you might actually convince yourself you’re getting some nutrients.

And then you wonder why you’re grumpy this morning. A co-worker might ask you if you got up on the wrong side of the bed or what, that is if they’re not afraid you’ll lunge over your desk and staple their lips together.

By the time morning break rolls around, you’re hungry and tired again and grab another baked item and cup of coffee to pick yourself up. By lunch time, you’re ready to go home and go back to bed.

Here’s the thing: it’s not your fault and while you’d like to blame it on your job, the fluorescent lights, your computer screen, the change of seasons, or the fact you’re just not a morning person, the answer could be far simpler.

It turns out that there’s a right way and a wrong way to start your day and it all begins in the kitchen.

Scientists are learning how the foods we eat can actually alter our brain chemistry, which can also influence our moods. To start a day on the right side of the bed, you have to start with the right foods in the right portions.

A good breakfast can increase alertness, energy and vitality. A bad breakfast can result in depression, fatigue, insomnia, mental dullness, PMS symptoms (yikes), irritability and stress.

Your breakfast danish may give you a short burst of energy and fill the hole, but when the sugar rush dies and the simple carbohydrates are processed you’re going to crash. You feel hungry again, even though you’ve consumed enough calories to get through two mornings. Hunger makes you grumpy, as does the fact that eating another danish is going to result in some weight gain.

The coffee might make you feel alert, but unless you hang out at the coffee machine all day, twitching as you pour yourself cup after cup, you’re going to crash at some point – what goes up must come down. Caffeine is also a diuretic, and after a few cups you’re going to feel thirsty and dehydrated. Dehydrated people are generally sluggish in mind and body, and can be on the irritable side.

This isn’t exactly new information, but it’s new to most people. As a science, it’s still in its infancy.

Nobody knew much about neurotransmitters until more than three decades ago when Dr. Julius Axelrod, a 1970 Nobel Prize winner for Physiology and Medicine, announced his discovery. Our brains are wired with these neurotransmitters, which are made of combined amino acids – the building blocks of protein – or a kind of fat known as choline.

Neurotransmitters relay messages from one neuron to the next. You can find 40 different neurotransmitters in the brain regulating functions like memory, appetite, movement, waking, and sleeping. Four of them, serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine and acetylcholine come directly from food, and all four have been linked to moods.

Whole grain breads, a complex carbohydrate, contain an amino acid called tryptophan, which in turn boosts levels of serotonin. Serotonin is a calming and emotionally stabilizing neurotransmitter, the same that the anti-depressant Prozac stimulates.

Tuna and chicken contain tyrosine, which raises levels of dopamine and norepinephine. This results in increased alertness and vitality, and can even result in improved reaction times. Vitamin C from natural sources can also help to boost norepinephine.

Adrenaline comes from the same family of neurotransmitters, and while it generally takes a physical or emotional event to trigger an adrenaline rush, eating the right foods can ensure that you have enough adrenaline in the gas tank when the time comes.

Hot foods improve moods because the slight discomfort that your mouth feels triggers a release of endorphins. A rush of endorphins reduces stress, decreases sensitivity to pain, and makes us feel great.

The same endorphins are released when we’re physically active or engaged in sexual intercourse, but neither is much good on the breakfast table.

Although chocolate contains caffeine, it also contains other compounds that trigger a release of the comforting chemical phenylethylamine and serotonin.

While you can find the amino acid building blocks and triggers for these neurotransmitters in meat, poultry and dairy, there’s no need for vegetarians and vegans to be gloomy either.

Legumes (dried beans and peas), whole grains, nuts and seeds also contain the proteins that contain these amino acids. It’s not as efficient a source as meat, because you have to supplement calcium, vitamin B12 and Omega-3 Fatty Acids, but it can actually be a better one because a careful vegetarian diet is generally richer in nutrients.

According to Vicki Koenig, a registered dietician who wrote an article called Minding Your Moods with Foods , the best way to increase alertness is to eat protein with small amounts of fats and complex carbohydrates. While you need those carbohydrates for energy, mental alertness and energy are two different things. If you’re an office worker, for example, you’re not going to need as many carbohydrates as a labourer or athlete.

Fish, shellfish, skinless poultry and lean beef are the best sources of protein, but for breakfast purposes you might want to look into low-fat cottage cheese, nonfat or low-fat yogurt and milk, legumes, lentils and soyfoods.

A recent article in the Toronto Star recommended starting the day with two pieces of whole-grain toast, a piece of fresh fruit, and some low-fat milk. If that’s boring enough to put you back to sleep, the author recommends whole wheat waffles with blueberries and fat-free sour cream washed down with low-fat milk.

If you’re a bagel person, put some protein on it. Spread on a little low-fat cream cheese or peanut butter to get your amino acids.

And if you absolutely cannot function like a sentient human being without your morning coffee, then limit your intake to two cups. That’s not two of those large cups at your local coffee shop, or two of those half-litre travel mugs people that carry around either.

If you do drink two cups of coffee, stay away from caffeine for the rest of the day – no pop, no chocolate, no tea, no trucker’s stay-alert tablets. It can take 15 hours to process the caffeine, and you don’t want any in your system when you’re trying to go to bed.

Moods come and go as you eat and digest, and it may be impossible for you to maintain an alert or content state for the three to five hours between your daily meals.

For years now dieticians have been recommending five or six smaller meals each day for people. Not only does this keep your metabolism cranking kilojoules, improve blood flow, and make it easier to shed weight, it also ensures your neurotransmitters are getting a steady supply of fuel.

If you’re still on the three meal a day program with the occasional snack in between feedings, Koenig suggests a power lunch with proteins, no excess fat and some good, complex carbohydrates. She suggests eating your protein first.

Some examples of proteins are three to five ounces of the lean meat, fish or poultry, one cup of low-fat yogurt or cottage cheese, two ounces of low-fat cheese (i.e. feta), or two eggs (limit yolks to three to four per week).

If you need to calm down and relax your mood without feeling sleepy or drowsy, you’re going to need some slow-burning carbs that are low on the Glycemic Index. Basically the Glycemic Index is the rate at which a carbohydrate can be converted into energy, or glucose, and injected into your blood stream.

Slow-burning carbs enable more of the amino acid tryptophan to your brain, which in turn produces more serotonin. Tryptophan is one of the few amino acids that competes for your attention with all of the other amino acids that are increased by consuming protein. To elevate tryptophan, you have to eliminate the competition.

While both high glycemic and low glycemic carbs increase tryptophan levels, low glycemic carbs tend to sustain the levels longer. High glycemic carbs burn fast, and provide more quick energy, but once again everything that goes up has to come down.

High glycemic carbs include sugar, white bread, rice cakes, wheat crackers, bagels, instant rice, baked potatoes and rice pasta. Low glycemic carbs include brown rice, buckwheat, wholegrain rye bread, sourdough rye bread, pita bread, sweet potato and most whole wheat pastas.

How fast you can change your mood depends on the person and their metabolic rate. And while foods can adjust the levels of various neurotransmitters, a slab of protein is not going to cure your depression and a bowl of rice isn’t going to make the fact that your spouse ran away with your best friend any more tolerable.

The right food and the right time can, however, make an average day better, starting right after breakfast – if the snooze button doesn’t get you first.