5 Eating Habits That Will Elevate Your Mood

Mood directly affects your energy levels and in turn, your productivity for the day. Whether it be productivity at work, home, or out running errands.

More than that, your mood at the earlier part of the day will typically set the tone for the rest of the day.

Eating habits play a vital role in mood, not just in the morning, but throughout the day until your head hits the pillow at bedtime.

Conversely, mood plays a vital role in eating habits as well, which will be a top for another day.

But today, I’m sharing 5 eating habits that elevate your mood, plus 10 foods (according to current research), so you can get the most out of your day, with both work AND play.

5 Eating Habits That Elevate Your Mood

When I say “eating habits,” what I’m referring to is the repetition of a behavior having to do with eating. So essentially, how you eat, rather than what you eat.

As an eating habit coach, I coach people on their eating behaviors (specifically the ones that are habits), rather than just tell them what to eat. It’s so important to understand the difference between the two.

After I share the eating habits, I’ll go into what you can eat specifically to help elevate your mood, just so you can get an idea of some foods you may want to incorporate into your days.

• Related (blog post): Eating Habit Coach for Career Women

I do want to point out that doing these actions consistently (forming a habit) will much more likely elevate your mood, rather than just doing something once or twice.

Hence why I’m calling them eating habits that elevate your mood, rather than eating behaviors that elevate your mood.

#1 Eat Complex Carbohydrates

Complex carbohydrates are very long, complex chains of sugar molecules that are strung together, whereas simple carbohydrates are made up of only one or two sugar molecules.

Both simple and complex carbohydrates are broken down for energy to be used by your body, including your brain, which uses quite a bit.

An important difference between the two is that complex carbohydrates produce more longer-lasting energy, because they are broken down more slowly than simple carbohydrates.

This means they provide a more steady “release” of energy, which means less of a drop in blood glucose. Blood glucose is just the amount of sugar in your blood.

When your blood sugar is more stable or steady, your brain is “happy” (that’s just the easiest way to explain it). It functions best when it has a steady source of energy.

So, try to make sure you’re including at least one serving of a complex carbohydrate (unless you’re a diabetic and instructed not to by your healthcare provider) into your diet every day.

Complex Carbohydrates Include:

• Whole grains (examples are oats, quinoa, rice)
• Legumes (examples are beans and lentils)
• Fruits and Vegetables (mixture of both complex and simple carbs)

Simple Carbohydrates Include:

• Fruits and Vegetables (mixture of both complex and simple carbs)
• Dairy products
• Refined sugars (found in candy, soda, corn syrups, etc.)

#2 Eat Breakfast

Not only is it important to keep your blood sugar steady, but it’s also important to start out the day with normal blood sugar levels, meaning eat your breakfast.

After sleeping all night (or part of the night), your blood glucose depletes. Your brain and body are using energy while you sleep, so it needs to “refuel” in the morning.

You don’t need to have a stack of pancakes, plus two eggs and sausage for breakfast every morning, but even just a piece of fruit or a cup of oatmeal will get your blood sugar elevated enough to ward off the crankies.

#3 Eat Whole Foods

Whole foods are simply foods that have not been processed. Meaning, foods that haven’t been mechanically or chemically broken down.

Why whole foods are important to eat to elevate your mood is because they take longer to break down into energy. So just like eating the complex carbs over the simple carbs, they provide longer-lasting and more stable energy.

So although smoothies are delicious and nutritious, they are still mechanically processed, so also make sure you’re eating whole foods and not just smoothies all day.

#4 Eat a Variety of Foods

Different foods have different vitamins and minerals.

Your brain needs a variety of vitamins and minerals to help with your mood, and if your intake of foods that contain an array of vitamins and minerals is limited, you may suffer the consequence.

In particular, vitamins D and B play crucial roles in mood, so at a minimum, be sure to be eating foods rich in these, such as salmon, swordfish, tuna, swiss cheese, mozzarella cheese, and milk.

Also, minerals such as iron, zinc, magnesium, folate, chromium and calcium are found to affect mood too. Many vegetables contain these.

So, try to make it a habit to eat a variety of foods throughout the week, and ideally, each day. Take a look at the foods you’re typically eating and make sure you aren’t eating mostly one food group.

#5 Eat When You’re Hungry

This one is last, but that doesn’t mean it’s the least important of the eating habits that elevate your mood.

If you’re hungry, I mean truly hungry, then eat. Please.

Don’t be that person who works through lunch just to get a project done, but then is Miss Cranky Pants for the rest of the afternoon. That’s not going to be enjoyable for you, nor for the people around you.

It’s just simply not worth it.

Take a break, eat a snack, eat your lunch, eat another snack, whatever you need to do to keep your blood sugars stable and to prevent the “hanger”.

Your colleagues will thank you.

• Related (blog post): 5 Quick and Healthy Work Lunches for the Week
• Related (blog post): 15 Healthy Snacking Habits to Start Right Now

10 Foods That Elevate Your Mood

Now that you’ve learned 5 eating habits that elevate your mood, let’s talk about the specific foods that have been linked with mood-boosting properties, according to research.

Fatty Fish

Fatty fish helps elevate your mood due to the Omega-3 found in them. Omega-3’s are needed for brain health, so you can either get them in your diet or via a supplement.

If you opt for your diet, then fatty fish are a large source, however if you’re a vegetarian, then you may opt for flax seed oil or walnut oil.

Examples of fatty fish include salmon, tuna, trout, swordfish, Alaska pollock, mackerel, mussels, anchovies, and sardines.

​

Leafy Greens

Leafy greens have many of the vitamins and minerals needed for elevating your mood, plus some complex carbohydrates.

Examples of leafy greens are lettuce, kale, collards, spinach, arugula, and broccoli.

Nuts

Nuts are technically the seeds of fruit, so I probably should’ve bundled the next food (seeds) with this one. Nuts are linked to elevated mood, walnuts. Here’s a study on the effect of nuts on mood if you’re interested.

Seeds

Although you may consider seeds to be too small to snack on, trying adding some to your salad, oatmeal, or your yogurt. Specifically, give chia, pumpkin, sesame, and sunflower seeds a try.

Oats

Really any whole grain (as I discussed earlier in the section on eating habits that elevate your mood), has been suggested to be a beneficial food to boost your mood.

I like eating oats every morning for breakfast, with some natural peanut butter, sometimes with the addition of chia seeds. That and some dark roast coffee perks me right up.

• Related (blog post): 35 Fast and Simple Clean Eating Ideas for Breakfast
• GET WEEKLY TIPS: Eating Habit and Weight Loss Tips

Berries

Primarily for their abundance of the antioxidant, flavonoids, berries are on the list of foods that elevate your mood.

One flavonoid in particular is said to be the star, which is anthocyanin. This is what gives berries their purplish hue, and is said to act on the neurotransmitters, or hormones, in your brain.

Bananas

Although I’m personally not a huge fan of the flavor of bananas, they are an incredible food. The vitamin B6, tryptophan, and fiber in them have all been credited as the reason why they help to elevate your mood.

They’re certainly a quick and easy snack, and they do taste yummy with a bit of peanut butter on them.

Fermented Foods

The probiotics in fermented foods help improve brain function, lower depression and ease anxiety. Examples of fermented foods are yogurt, kimchi, sauerkraut, and kombucha.

Kimchi is similar to sauerkraut, but uses Korean spices. Here is a kimchi recipe if you’d like to give it a try.

Kombucha is fermented tea and is a great alternative to an alcoholic cocktail. It has a tiny amount of alcohol, so is almost non-alcoholic. They are usually low in added sugars.

Cocoa

If you’re a chocolate-lover, today’s your lucky day. If you want help boosting your mood, adding a little bit of dark chocolate to your day is both a treat to your taste buds and your brain.

According to this study on the effect of cocoa on your brain, including your mood, it’s the antioxidant, flavonoid (specifically epicatechin) that is given the credit. It not only helps elevate your mood, but also improves cognitive function as well.

If you’d like to add some cocoa to your day, then try to eat dark chocolate that is at least 60% cocoa. If you aren’t a chocolate-lover necessarily, try adding a generous dash of cocoa to your coffee in the morning, for a little extra jolt and some added richness to your coffee.

Caffeinated Beverages

The caffeine in caffeinated beverages such as coffee, black tea, green tea, etc. is a stimulant and there are various studies that conclude that it improves mood.

Here is a quote I came across in this study, Effects of Caffeine on Cognitive Performance, Mood, and Alertness in Sleep-Deprived Humans:

Studies have shown that doses of 200 to 250 mg of caffeine elevate mood (Lieberman et al., 1987b; Swift and Tiplady, 1988) and that these effects can last for up to 3 h.

David M.Penetar, ¹ Una McCann, David Thorne, Aline Schelling, Cynthia Galinski, Helen Sing, Maria Thomas, and Gregory Belenky

200 to 250 mg of caffeine is about two and a half cups of coffee, and four to five cups of black or green tea. So, don’t feel guilty about that 2nd cup of coffee (or that 5th cup of tea), because you’re most likely getting some mood-boosting benefits for a few hours.

Final Notes

The idea isn’t to incorporate ALL of these eating habits to elevate your mood, or ALL of the foods. It’s more so to pick one or maybe two, to start out with.

Give it several weeks of trying to be consistent before you ask yourself if you’ve noticed any positive effects. If so, you may choose to continue. If not, you may choose to try another of the eating habits to elevate your mood.

Not every eating habit is for every person, so see what works for you.