Everything in your life can have a positive spin. Your exercise routine, your disposition – and even your diet.
Positivity is something that we could all use more of in life, but it doesn’t have to stop at smiling throughout the day and being an optimist. Your diet could play a large part in how positive you truly are. When you eat foods that weigh you down, upset your stomach and decrease your health, you aren’t actually boosting positivity in your life, no matter how wide your smile gets.
In order to promote health and create a positive platform with which to build your optimism upon, you have to treat your body to foods that instill positivity within. Is there such a thing as a positivity food? Yes. In fact, these four foods should be added into your life diet to ensure you’re as positive as possible.
Chocolate
You might read this and think this gives you permission to swallow a few Hershey bars whole, but that’s not the case. Instead of milk chocolates, chocolate syrups or chocolate cake, the real mood-booster here is dark chocolate. If you aren’t a fan, try acquiring a taste if you want a more positive diet.
Studies show that eating 1.4 ounces of dark chocolate every day for two weeks lead to a reduce in stressor hormones found naturally in the body. The downside to all this chocolate is that consuming your daily almost-ounce and a half is about 1/6 of your regular calorie intake if you’re going off of a 1200 calorie diet.
What is the positivity-inducing ingredient in dark chocolate? According to Swiss scientists, the culprit is the high quantity of antioxidants.
Fish
Do you like fish? If not, you might want to skip this one – or learn to like it. There are enough fish out there that you should be able to find one variety that you like, cooked in some form or fashion.
Why do you need to love fish? Because of fish’s high concentration of Omega-3s. Your body doesn’t naturally produce these chemicals, but they occur naturally in fish – and they just so happen to alter your brain chemistry in a positive way. They improve your secretion of serotonin, a hormone that is linked to depression if you have low enough levels.
Saffron
In a study from Tehran University of Medical Sciences, scientists gave 50 women who experienced PMS two saffron capsules or a placebo daily over the course of two menstrual cycles. Those who took the saffron capsules reported that their PMS disappeared or severely declined.
This isn’t the only way saffron can boost positivity. Another study done likens the effects of saffron to drugs like Prozac – making it a great natural anti-depressant.
Tea
It might seem a little cliché, but tea is a drink that can definitely mellow you out and improve your mood. Studies have shown that tea illicit an alert, at ease mind through the amino acid theanine that’s been proven to increase attention. It also helps drinkers relax and boosts their mood – and different varieties of tea give drinkers different benefits.
