Nutrition and the Mental State

Yesterday I found myself to be in quite a funk, and nothing I planned to do got done. I found myself to be really stressed out, because of financial reasons, and I was just in my mind freaking out thinking, "What am I gonna do? what am I gonna do?" repeated ad nauseum.  I was really lethargic when I got to work and my energy levels really never picked up. I hadn't felt like this is quite some time. I had a theory about why this was happening and then the dream I had last night confirmed it... I dreamed I ate some donuts.

How does this play into why I was freaking out so bad? Well because of the financial pickle I had found myself in, I didn't think I was going to be able to buy groceries until Thursday which was 4 days away.  I ran out of beans and kale on Friday, I ate out on Saturday, and I got back into my cooking routine on Sunday, minus beans and kale. So for three days I had just been eating what I had on hand: eggs, fish, pork, and one head of broccoli. I decided to save the broccoli for as long as I could, until I just couldn't stand eating fish, eggs, or pork. Moral of the story, I had eaten nothing but protein and fat for three days. On the third day I discovered I had enough money to go to the store and buy a bag of kale and a couple cans of beans. I went home, cooked the broccoli I had saved, a can of beans, and some fish. I still didn't feel great when I went to bed, and that's when ended up dreaming about donuts. Why? My body was trying to tell me, "GIVE ME SOME CARBS MOTHERF***ER!!!" Which I had, my body just didn't know it yet, because they were still digesting.

So after waking up disappointed in myself for eating donuts, then realizing it was just a dream, I noticed I felt really good. I got up, ate some brazil nuts, cooked a pork cutlet with two eggs and some kale, took a cold shower, responded to some emails, and I wrote a blog post. What I'm saying is, I was productive. Whats even better than that is I didn't feel remotely stressed anymore, nothing had changed in regard to my financial problem, but I became confident that I could handle it. What caused this drastic shift in perspective over night? Beans. Beans, beans, the magical fruit, the more you eat, the more you... feel awesome about yourself and have energy to get up and do the things you need to do.

It's amazing how much nutrition affects our mental well being as well as our physical. A one dollar can of beans created such a drastic change in my mental state, I'm almost afraid to tell people about it because then there might be a bean shortage, and I don't want to pay more than one dollar per can. Obviously beans aren't the answer to every problem, but good nutrition can certainly put you on the right path.