Stress and How to Handle it With DIET

Everyone always feels stress every day. There are a lot of causes of it. Sometimes we asked ourselves, why we have to feel stressed, because when we feel stress, we feel a headache, feeling down and angry with the condition and it disturbs us so much. But as you know, stress is one of the responses when we feel in danger, it called fight-or-flight. It warns us and alerts about surrounding. everyone has a different mechanism to handle it. It depends on their coping mechanism and their experiences handling stress. If people can not handle their stress well, it will be serious. Stress also influences the immune mechanism. There is stress hormone that can reduce the immune system. It will be worse when stress-associated behaviors appeared on them. They are overeating, eating unhealthful foods, skipped meals, fatigue, drink alcohol to manage stress, smoke to handle stress, lying awake at night, feeling anger or irritability. Because of that,  people who under stress, sometimes they get sick faster than people who do not feel stress. Stress may cause anxiety, sleep disorders and significant physiological problems, including cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and immunological. There are a lot of ways to reduce stress, such as music, exercise, meditation, and a good diet. A diet that good to help reduce stress is a meal which contains thiamine (vitamin B1), niacinamide (vitamin B3), pantethine /pantothenic acid (vitamin B₅), methylcobalamin ( vitamin B₁₂), ascorbic acid (vitamin c). Thiamin (Vitamin B1) can decrease stress-induced cortisol response, niacinamide (vitamin B3) can improve sleep quantity and quality, methylcobalamin (vitamin B12) can improve sleep and normalizing cortisol peak (Head & Kelly, 2009).

Reference:

Head, K.A., & Kelly, G.S. (2009). Nutrients and Botanicals for Treatment of Stress: Adrenal Fatigue, Neurotransmitter, Imbalance, Anxiety, and Restless Sleep. Alternative Medicine Review 14 (2): 114-140. http://archive.foundationalmedicinereview.com/publications/14/2/114.pdf