Maybe you’re tired of hearing about the wonderfulness of fruits and vegetables. You know how great they are for your health in general. Now we know fruits and veggies reduce stress in women.
It’s just one more reason to love ‘em. They’re always the preferred choice over bad fats, too much sugar and “white” carbs, just to name a few “stay-away-from-those” foods.”
Now a new study from Australia says that incorporating more fruits and veggies in our diets can actually lower our stress, especially if we’re a middle-aged woman. Seems like fruits and vegetables can do no wrong—and maybe they can’t.
(Hmmm: Wonder if anyone has ever OD’d on fruits and veggies? Shall we try?)
How stress hurts us
We also know that stress is bad, bad, bad and that while fruits and vegetables benefit us, stress harms us by putting us at risk for:
- Heart disease. That includes high blood pressure.
- Obesity
- Diabetes
- Asthma
- Depression and anxiety
- Headaches
- “Tummy” problems
- Insomnia
- Inability to focus
But if you’re stressed, you know this already. What you may not know is that adults who ate three to four servings of the good stuff were 12 percent less apt to stress than someone who ate none of the garden varieties. And although men were part of the more than 60,000 study population, we gals were more positively affected by eating fruits and vegetables.
Food and your brain
Up that f and v intake to five to seven a day and the stress-reduction number rose to 23 percent. Researchers said eating MORE than seven didn’t make much difference, to which I say “thank goodness.” The researchers acknowledged that they did have a short follow-up time to “observe the full extent of long-term associations.” No doubt, there’ll be more research to come.
One takeaway, among a few: the mind-body connection, as in Mind Your Body. Welcome this further evidence of how diet affects mental health, in this case, positively. Eat junk, I feel like junk. I’m so happy I have always eaten well and loved good, healthy food. Thanks, Mom.
Now, locate that next apple! And those celery sticks!