Be Well: Food Therapy for Stress and Anxiety

Photo via Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

When we feel stressed and anxious—and we all feel stressed and anxious right now—our instinct is to reach for foods that soothe and provide escape.

Sales of snacks, chips, flour, sugar, and alcohol have all boomed in the last weeks, as we’ve holed up at home and have turned to snacking and baking to pass the time and connect with nostalgic flavors and comfort.

But several weeks in, you might be noticing that too much of a good thing has a boomerang effect. While we reach for the old, processed standbys of our youth for short-term relief, doing so actually increases symptoms of anxiety and depression over the long run.

There’s a reason for that, according to Meghan Mabe L.Ac, MAcCM, Dipl. Ac, L.MT, of Northwestern Health Sciences University, a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner and also a former organic farmer.

Read the full Be Well article from Mpls.St.Paul Magazine here.