I can remember on a Sunday night, when I was ten years old, watching the television show '60 Minutes' (a current affair show in Australia) about a story on a juvenile detention centre that had a particularly high rate of violence and aggression.
Instead of just relying on isolation, punishment, or removal as a means to deal with the aggression, the juvenile detention centre decided to change the food they were offering to see if it had any impact on the boys' behaviour.
Over a trial period of several weeks, instead of providing junk/fast food like pies, chips, and food that is highly processed and full of sugar, they only offered fresh food like vegetables, fruit and healthy snacks. They also replaced the soft drinks with plain water, and exchanged highly processed meats and other foods with freshly cooked produce.
At the end of the trial period, the violence and aggression had dropped so significantly that they changed the menu permanently.
You may be creating stress in your life
because of the food you eat!
Your diet could be making you feel stressed, angry or uptight!
Even if you are exercising in the day and meditating at night, if you are eating low value, rubbish food for breakfast, lunch or dinner, your body has no choice but to feel stressed, tired or irritable. If you, or your team, are eating low value, processed food then it may be sabotaging your productivity and working stamina.
So, what can you do about this?
I asked Erleen Tilton from http://www.erleentilton.com - a self taught expert in the field of health and nutrition, 'how does the food you eat affect your body and your stress levels?' This is what she said....
Erleen: Nutrition plays a most important part of our lives if we want to feel good, be free of sickness and disease, and enjoy great energy and vitality. We often don't value foods for their nutritional content or think of them as good or bad for us in a nutritional sense when we eat, as we should.
I found out the hard way how different foods do and will affect the body. However, this experience changed my life, not only in the way I feel, but in the way I approach foods, how I eat, and my mission in teaching others.
Michael: Can you tell me about your background and how you learnt about the importance of getting the right nutrition?
Erleen: I was a young mother, just having had my second child. I went through depression and was experiencing several health difficulties, such as breast lumps, the arthritis in my knees, headaches, and pollen allergies. I began visiting a naturopathic doctor for neck and back adjustments who offered to do a series of tests to diagnose my problems. The outcome of the tests were: colonitis, hypoglycemia, valley fever, anemia, vitamin deficiency, and being high in toxic chemical drugs.
Michael: So, what did you do to overcome these challenges?
Erleen: I went through a series of cleanses (detoxifying, blood purification, etc.) as well as an abrupt change of diet to "whole foods". I wasn't sure what "whole foods" really were, but this diet consisted of mostly raw fruits and vegetables, sprouts, raw nuts and seeds, whole grains (cooked or sprouted), legumes (bean family), and not much else. I was taken off all processed foods including whole wheat breads, all milk products, and most meats, only being allowed white meats on a weekly basis.
Michael: What was it like to make these drastic dietary change?
Erleen: I can tell you that this kind of change was very difficult for me, but I eventually made up my mind that if I wanted to enjoy my life, my family, and fulfil my purpose, I needed to enjoy good health. So I stuck to it and was able to see a total turn around in my health within about 6 months - seeing improvements in my breast lumps, depression, arthritis, headaches, and pollen allergies.
Michael: It sounds like this has had a big impact on you
Erleen: This kind of turn around really altered my life and led me to study and research nutrition, in particular, foods and their affects on the body. Literally everything we put into our mouths will affect us for good or for bad. Foods will give us energy, strength and healing, or they will pollute, clog, and de-energize our systems. As the latter occurs, our systems become stressed causing obesity, depression, mood swings, lack of energy and concentration, and all kinds of physical, mental and emotional disorders.
Just as an automobile must have good fuel to perform properly, so must our bodies. Our fuel for high energy and performance comes in the way of nutrients from good quality foods. If we have diets of highly processed foods (white flour, white sugar, high fats and salt) with little nutrient value, then the body cannot function to its capacity, and it becomes stressed and over loaded, sick and diseased.
Michael: What eating tips can you offer the readers to help reduce their stress?
Erleen: If we would include the following suggestions in our daily eating and drinking habits, we would be much more capable of handling stressful situations.
Tip #1: Think of the foods that nature gives us in their whole food form: raw fruits and vegetables, raw nuts and seeds, whole grains, legumes (beans and peas). These all have a higher nutritional content than processed foods, and they are naturally high in fibre and provide the right balance of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. We must have good nourishing foods at every meal for the body to have the nutrients to perform properly. As we do, we are more capable to think and react logically to the pressures and situations that we face. What we eat really does make a difference in how we act and think!
Tip #2: Take the time to eat and chew your food properly. Good digestion of foods ultimately begins in the mouth as the saliva breaks down the chemicals in the food in conjunction with the chewing process. Onto the stomach, the digestion process works for your body to get the nutrients and energy it needs from the food you eat, so give yourself at least 20-30 minutes to eat a meal, sitting down and relaxing while your body goes to work and does its job.
Tip #3: Think and prepare ahead so that in this fast pace world, you always have good nourishing foods to grab in a moment's notice. Easy-to-grab foods are: fresh fruits such as apples, pears, and bananas (which all come "pre-packaged"), raw nuts mixes (you can carry these in bag, purse or car), fruit leather, dried fruit, whole grain rolls and crackers, whole grain health bars, etc. Of course, you will find many of these in low and high quality brands, so read labels and choose those minimally processed. There is a lot you can grab on the run that has good high quality nutrition. Take the time initially to plan, purchase and prepare.
Tip #4: What we drink is just as important. Drinks such as alcohol, sodas, coffee, hot chocolate, and most fruit juices (frozen, bottled) are dehydrators and de-energizers. What we really need is good pure water! Every function in the body greatly relies on water. Lack of water causes us to become dehydrated, which restricts the activity of all these functions. Our body's best performance comes from having a clean system, and good pure, distilled water is our best cleanser, therefore, it is cleansing and energizing to the system.
Michael: Erleen, can you summarise the link between stress and nutrition?
Erleen: We cannot just simply eliminate all the pressures of life, yet we can learn to manage and eliminate the effects of stressful situations by applying principles of good nutrition, eating, and drinking in this manner. Focus on the real whole foods and pure water and you can expect the body's best performance!
