A Blogger’s Diet to Avoid Stress

Here is one important reason you need to pay closer attention to what you put into your mouth: it might be what is causing you stress. Don’t take my word for it, research has developed an irrefutable link between what we eat, or don’t eat, and the stress levels we experience. Now, many bloggers probably experience high stress levels due to the demands of generating unique content that will guarantee them high rankings on search engines. However, the kind of food they eat as they work only adds fuel to the fire of stress. I may be wrong, but I believe bloggers may as a result be some of the most stressed creatures walking this planet today. The good news is that just as some foods cause stress, others cure it. Despair not, fellow blogger, your relief may be only a change of diet away.

What a Blogger Must NOT Have In His Diet

I have compiled a list of foods and drinks that have been found to cause stress. Unfortunately, many of them are the packaged foods that are blogger staples. Their convenient availability of these foods and the adrenalin injection of caffeinated beveragesrender them a blogger’s best friend. They enable the men and women in this line of work to soldier on night and day, churning out articles for their blogs.

1. Caffeinated drinks

Telling some of us to give up our coffee or energy drinks is the equivalent of telling us to donate both kidneys. But if you have been a victim of the adverse effects of stress and are keen on a change, you will actively seek ways of cutting down your intake. Excessive intake of these drinks leads to a hyperactive, emotionally unstable you who succumbs to the slightest provocation. If you have noticed yourself becoming not only increasingly stressed, but extremely touchy as well, you might want to change what’s in your cup.

2. Alcohol

What? But it’s what I take to cool my nerves, you may say. Alcohol, taken in moderation is ok. The problem is when it is taken in excessive quantities. Abuse of alcohol causes the body’s systems to malfunction, disrupting sleeping patterns. We’ve talked about irritability here; well one of its leading causes is lack of sleep. The social consequences of alcohol abuse are well documented; among the ones most likely to lead to the build-up of stress are strained relationships at home and in the office. Giving up the bottle, or at least limiting your intake will give these relationships a new lease of life and bring you some peace of mind. It will also help you with weight loss as you watch the beer gut disappear.

3. Sugar

At this point you may be thinking that everything that even remotely tastes good is an agent of stress. But the way sugar drastically manipulates the body’s energy levels leads to stress in many cases. Whenever you introduce a large quantity of sugar into your body, insulin is released to lower the sugar level. However, excess sugar means that even after insulin has done its job and mopped up the sugar, it remains in the system causing your energy levels to drop. And you thought sugar was all sweet. Reaching for that candy bar to ‘relieve your stress’ is actually shoveling coal into the fire. And we’ve not even mentioned its effects on your pearly whites.

What a Blogger Must Have In His Diet

There are foods that can actually help you reduce the amount of stress you experience. A critical factor in how helpful they can be is how they are prepared. Cooking them in buckets of oil under high temperatures or adding too many preservatives, food coloring and other such additives, and using too much salt, while making the meal more appealing, robs it of its ability to counter stress. I may appear to you now as the ultimate killjoy but getting what you eat right and a stress-free you is just what your blog needs. So here are the foods that need to be on your plate to achieve this.

1. Proteins

This is what your body needs to build its muscles and strengthen them. You therefore need to boost your intake of fish, chicken, beans, milk, eggs and other protein-heavy foods. Do not worry if you cannot source, cook or portion these foods. National home meal delivery services, like DiettoGo and BistroMD can provide low-fat, fresh, healthy meals that arealready portioned and calorie controlled.

2. Carbohydrates

Like we said earlier, how the foods are prepared goes a long way to determining how useful they will be in ridding you of stress. Carbohydrates need to be taken in an unrefined form. I’m taking about corn off the cob, whole grain bread, brown rice etc, not the conventional bread made with the super-refined white flour. Or the donuts that are made with this fine, white flour, cooked in oceans of oil and dunked in sugar-laden chocolate. Sadly, this, and a cup of coffee is what many a blogger will call breakfast.

3. Iron

One of this mineral’s key functions is to help in transporting oxygen via the bloodstream. Nutritionists say that a deficiency of iron in the body leads to reduced intellectual capacity. And if anything a blogger needs, it’s his mental faculties in tip top condition and zero stress. Take ye therefore eggs, lean beef, dried fruits, peas, potatoes and wholegrain cereals in good quantities.

This is a post by Charles, a professional blogger who writes about weight loss programs, as well as dieting tips.