How To Manage Anxiety Using Food

If you suffer from anxiety, you’ve probably tried your fair share of tips and tricks to relieve your anxious mind and body. I know from experience that once we get into the throes of anxiety, it can feel almost impossible to turn the car around with any amount of effort.

Thankfully, there is a way to stop anxiety in its tracks before it picks up too much momentum.

One of the most powerful tools we have in improving our mental health, is diet. Diet and mental health are inextricably related. So, what foods help with anxiety? What are the foods that cause anxiety and panic attacks? Does dehydration play a role in anxiety?

The short answer is that while no food can create anxiety per se, anxiety involves an ongoing interpretation of the sensations in your body, so the way foods make your body feel becomes very important.

If you are prone to anxiety, then foods that cause inflammation, change your neurological processing, or affect your physiological systems can lead to an increase in anxiety and panic attacks. Foods that help diminish inflammation and calm our nervous system can actually help with the symptoms of anxiety. Dehydration, alcohol consumption, and sugar also play a role in mental health.

Let’s take a deeper look at our diets and mental health so that you can start making more empowered decisions about food and nutrition to start feeling less anxious today!

diet and mental health

Diet and mental health are proven to be deeply related to one another and it’s a two-way street.

The foods we eat play a major role in our stress and anxiety levels, and our anxiety levels significantly affect the food choices we make.

Both fortunately and unfortunately for us, this two-way street of diet and mental health means that a change in either side of the equation will change the whole system.

In other words, if you’re more intentional with your diet and nutrition, you’re likely to see improved mental health, which makes it easier to sustain the new, healthier diet. On the flip side, if your diet takes a nosedive, your anxiety will likely do the same, making it feel harder to sustain the diet that would help you to feel more mentally healthy.

This catch-22 of diet and mental health is why it can be so helpful to start with small, sustainable changes to your diet that can be built upon over time. From personal experience, I can tell you that sometimes making drastic changes too quickly to the way you eat can lead to major mental health setbacks down the road when you eventually fall off your strict, unrealistic diet.

If you’re serious about managing your anxiety, foods to avoid include inflammatory foods like processed foods, as well as caffeine, alcohol, and sugar. Read on to learn how each food may be affecting your mental health.

Inflammation and anxiety

Inflammation, especially chronic inflammation, is directly correlated with mental health symptoms.

The more inflammation we have in our bodies thanks to outside factors including food, the more likely we are to feel high levels of anxiety.

That’s why, when it comes to how to manage anxiety using food, the conversation needs to include how to manage inflammation in the body using food.

What is inflammation?

Inflammation is our body’s response to outside threats which involves increased blood flow to the site of attack. In many cases, inflammation is a biological wonder and helps us to keep unwanted toxins out, begin the healing process, and avoid infection—pretty awesome!

Unfortunately, with our modern lifestyle, inflammation has begun to play a less than helpful role in many of our lives. Sometimes our immune systems are over-protective and create inflammation in response to things that aren’t real threats. This is what can happen with some foods and other environmental factors which, when encountered regularly, can lead to chronic inflammation. Different people have different sensitivities that may cause inflammation, but the most common culprits are processed foods, sugar, gluten, and dairy.

foods that cause anxiety and panic attacks

Inflammatory Foods

So now we know that inflammatory foods are a major link between diet and mental health and can cause heightened anxiety and panic attacks in people who already suffer from anxiety.

What specific foods should we look out for that cause inflammation and therefore lead to increased anxiety and panic attacks?

The list of foods that can cause anxiety and panic attacks is long.

Processed foods, fried foods, refined grains, red meat, gluten, and dairy are some of the most inflammatory foods that can have a negative effect on mental health. While none of these foods are inherently bad, when inflammation becomes chronic, even a little bit of any inflammatory food can set the whole system on fire—flaring up our anxiety levels.

When I decided to focus on the link between diet and mental health and learn to manage my anxiety using food, the first things I stopped eating were processed foods, gluten, and dairy. Within a couple of months, my mental health was drastically improved. I was more clear-headed, having fewer panic attacks, and sleeping better! Not to mention, putting an end to my chronic inflammation helps me feel less bloated and less achy in my joints.

(Related: 10 Ways Self-Development Has Improved My Mental Health)

Caffeine and Alcohol

Two important items on the list of foods that cause anxiety and panic attacks are caffeine and alcohol.

While coffee can’t create anxiety, the caffeine in coffee can make us feel jittery and nervous, which can worsen anxiety symptoms and increase our chances of experiencing a panic attack. Those of us with anxiety sometimes have a hard time differentiating between the physical symptoms of anxiety and anxiety itself, leading us to attribute anxious thoughts to physical sensations (like increased heart rate) triggered by caffeine.

(Related: The Only 3 Proven Ways To Stop Caffeine Jitters)

Alcohol, on the other hand, is a depressant, not a stimulant, so it may come as a surprise that alcohol can be such an anxiety-inducer.

The reason alcohol can cause anxiety and panic attacks is that it suppresses our nervous system. While this may feel good and even like a relief for a while, as the alcohol leaves our system it shocks the nervous system to return to such a heightened awareness and can send us directly into fight or flight mode. This on-edge state of the nervous system is the perfect breeding ground for anxiety and panic attacks.

(Related: 10 Unexpected Benefits of Cutting Out Alcohol That Surprised Me)

*Bonus tip about alcohol and caffeine and anxiety:

Both alcohol and caffeine are diuretics meaning they make us urinate more frequently and therefore make us more likely to experience dehydration. I’ll go into more detail about this below, but dehydration is also a diet-related factor that can increase anxiety.

Sugar

Can sugar cause anxiety and panic attacks?

Sugar is definitely on the list of foods that cause anxiety and panic attacks. Not only do sugary foods cause inflammation which is bad for mental health, but the effects of sugar can mimic anxiety and panic attacks in the body making us more likely to experience those mental health symptoms.

Consuming sugar (especially in large quantities of refined sugars) causes our blood sugar to drastically spike and then drastically dip as it moves through our system. These enormous variations in blood sugar can mimic the symptoms of anxiety and panic attacks. Again, because people with anxiety tend to feel some anxiety about feeling anxious, any anxiety-like symptoms can become the beginning of a mental health spiral if we’re not careful.

(Related: Sugar or Artificial Sweeteners? Advice From a Health Coach)

Dehydration and Anxiety

If you’re learning how to manage your anxiety using food, the link between dehydration and anxiety is important to keep in mind.

Did you know that 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated? Dehydration is a huge problem in our society that is associated with lots of health concerns including fatigue, blood pressure problems, kidney damage, and obesity.

Dehydration can worsen mental health symptoms including anxiety. Because dehydration interrupts proper blood flow, it can lead to feeling dissociated and having brain fog and confusion. These symptoms, like increased heart rate thanks to sugary foods, can be interpreted by an anxious mind as symptoms of anxiety and lead to worsened symptoms and even panic attacks.

This link between dehydration and anxiety means that your mental health may benefit quite significantly from the simple decision to drink more water each day! According to Harvard Health, we should be drinking at least 4-6 cups of water per day.

What foods help with anxiety?

Now that we know which foods to avoid to manage anxiety (inflammatory foods, caffeine, alcohol, and sugar), let’s talk about what foods help with anxiety.

While this list of what foods help with anxiety can definitely be used to compliment other efforts to manage your anxiety, it’s important to keep in mind that supplementing your diet with these things without making other changes (like cutting back on the anxiety-inducing foods) is not going to make a major difference in your mental health.

Read on to discover what foods can reduce anxiety fast and what foods to add to your diet to help manage your anxiety long-term. It may be helpful to start noticing the way different foods make your body feel so that you can make decisions about your diet that feel personal and empowering.

Magnesium-Rich Foods

Magnesium is proven to help your brain and your muscles relax and may promote better sleep. Both of these side effects can lead to a more relaxed body and mind, providing more of a barrier between you and anxiety.

You can add more magnesium to your diet through nuts, seeds, whole grains, and leafy greens!

Omega-3 Fatty Acid-Rich Foods

Omega-3 fatty acids help to “feed” our brains and encourage more efficient brain functioning. Also called “fish oil,” adding more of this brain food to your diet may help with learning, memory, and anxiety.

You can add more Omega-3’s to your diet through a fish oil supplement, or by eating more fatty fish like tuna, mackerel.

Tryptophan-Rich Foods

Tryptophan is an amino acid that supports many functions in the body including the production of serotonin (affecting mood) and melatonin (affecting sleep). Since dampened mood and poor sleep are both contributors to feelings of anxiety, it’s worth making an effort to include tryptophan-rich foods in our diets.

Tryptophan-rich foods include milk, tuna, chicken, turkey, nuts, seeds, cheese, and oats.

Turmeric

Turmeric is one of the foods that can help reduce anxiety fast. There is a compound in turmeric called curcumin that is proven to help ease anxiety symptoms. To come full circle about the relationship between inflammation and anxiety, curcumin can soothe anxiety by helping to lessen inflammation in the body.

To add more turmeric to your diet, try this turmeric latte recipe!

Adaptogens

The term “adaptogen” refers to any substance that helps your body ward off the fight or flight response and interrupt stress. Popular adaptogens come from sources like herbs, roots, and mushrooms.

One of my favorite sources of adaptogens that I use to manage my anxiety using food is this delicious mushroom chai!

Diet and mental health go hand in hand. For a FULL guide on how to use food to manage anxiety including specific tips and recipes, download the free e-book “Managing Your Anxiety With Food”!