I'm often asked, "Is there a Happiness Diet?" "Are there foods you can eat to be happy or happier?"
Yes, the good news is you can enhance and significantly influence your happiness and well-being through diet and exercise.
What's The Happiness Diet?
Healthy, natural foods like those in the well-known Mediterranean Diet - see http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/confusion-about-mediterranean-cuisine have been shown to reduce depression http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/health/research/13nutrition.html and protect mental accuity - http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/mediterranean-diet-may-prevent-mental-decline/
The key is to eat lots of healthy, natural foods and avoid processed sugars, starches, alcohol, processed pseudo foods and to exercise daily.
Personalize The Process - We all have favorite, healthy foods that make us feel good for extended periods of time when we eat them. For me fresh greens like spinach and brocholli, sardines, hard boiled eggs, walnuts and whole wheat bread provide energy and mental acuity bursts that last for hours.
Avoid foods that make you feel good for a few short minutes and then leave you feeling guilty, sluggish, stupid and sleepy. Sweets, starches and dairy products leave me feeling slow and shakey. What works for you?
Make Exerise Part of Your Daily Program - for Happiness and Good Health, make daily exercise as central to your daily routine as eating, sleeping, showering and brushing your teeth. Daily exercise IS THAT IMPORTANT!
Exercise Reduces Anxiety - several studies explain Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious - http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/phys-ed-why-exercise-makes-you-less-anxious/ and How Exercise Reduces Anxiety - http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/your-brain-on-exercise/
Exercise Is Considered A Magic Bullet - http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html
Exercise Keeps Your Cells Young - http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/phys-ed-how-exercising-keeps-your-cells-young
Research has shown that exercise is also a key to Reducing Alzheimer's Disease - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/health/18prev.html
Exercise Out Doors If You Can, Especially In Winter - Fifteen minutes of sunshine a day stimulates our body's vitamin D production and Boosts Immunity to Disease - http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/16/what-makes-flu-seasonal/
Don't Have Time? Make you daily walk your meditation or personal sanity time, a few moments each day you must spend on you! My mood and mental acuity suffer dramatically when I don't get my daily rigorous exercise fix.
Have Trouble Making These Changes? See Drive Discipline With Desire - http://www.creatinghappinessblog.com/2010/05/drive-discipline-with-desire.html
Copyright 1999- , Michele Moore. All Rights Reserved. See HappinessHabit.com and Creating-Happiness.com for more Happiness Habits. Link to our pages - our materials may NOT be published, broadcast, redistributed or rewritten without written permission from the authors. Photograph from Dreamstime.com
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