Book Review: The Anti-Anxiety Diet
It hasn't really been in a scientific way that I have done this. It's just the way I was raised. If you had a headache or a stomach ache or a cold or some other ailment, you ate certain things, if you wanted to build up your immunity you ate certain things, etc. It was sort of an Ayurvedic diet based losely on my great-grandmother's observations and things my grandfather read. Science but not in any kind of a controlled research kind of way.
It has become so much more of a study these days.
When I was looking for some guidance for someone who wanted to take a nutrition based approach to treating their anxiety, rather than a pharmaceutical approach, I found Ali Miller's The Anti-Anxiety Diet.
The book is a couple of years old. In the world of nutritional advice, that's pretty dated. The science seems sound and the advice is pure common sense for those who understand the connection between mind and body.
Nutritionists are all moving toward the concensus that one should avoid sugar, lower carb intake, don't eat processed food or foods that cause inflammation. As they say, "you are what you eat." Miller - and others - are now saying that what you eat also affects your mood.
The book discusses the whole mind, body and gut approach to treated anxiety and even panic disorders by reducing inflammation, which is the body's natural response to invasion by a toxic agent (anything from a virus to a foreign chemical).
In a nutshell, the Anti-Anxiety Diet is designed to jump-start an anti-inflammatory approach to eating by reducing the intake of carbohydrates while increasing healthy sources of protein and fats with the goal of supporting brain health and, in turn, emotional well-being.
The book includes a meal plan and recipes.
The initial phase of the plan seems harsh, throwing one into a totally new eating plan and scaling back up to a more managable plan. That may or may not work for everyone, especially for someone suffering from anxiety and panic attacks.
The advice seems sound. Most of the recipes are vegetarian. Most of them are pretty good. (Among the ones I tried was a vegan cashew cheeze dip. It was a good lemony cashew butter. Nothing about it resembled cheese. Hence the spelling with a z, I suppose.)
For those seeking a non-pharmaceutical approach to anxiety relief and better gut health, check out the Anti-Anxiety Diet book. If you have the will to stick to a completely new way of eating, give this a look-see. Try out the recipes. It certainly can't hurt.
My friend, by the way, didn't stick to the diet. I can't report on the full claims of the book.
