Heal your emotions with food

Heal your emotions with food

These foods can help you regulate your mood naturally.

Grief and sadness: Reach for cauliflower, beets, and asparagus. These foods resonate with the immune system, lungs, and colon organs, which are associated with processing emotional grief in Chinese medicine.

Asparagus naturally supports healthy bronchial tissue to open the lungs when grief leaves you feeling like you just can't take a deep breath. The beets and cauliflower help support your immune system so that the process of living with and healing from grief doesn't leave you vulnerable to colds, flu, and bacterial infections. It can be challenging enough just dealing with the emotional impact of grief without the added stress of becoming physically ill. So try these foods to protect your health during a grieving process.

As you eat these foods, acknowledge: I breathe deeply and have strong immunity.

Anxiety: Reach for yellow/orange foods like pineapple, cantaloupe, and sweet potato (great for satisfying carb cravings - and yes, you can microwave the potato for a quick snack, although I generally don't recommend microwaving). Cinnamon and ginger teas also help suppress anxiety.

Likewise, a cup of butternut squash soup can also relieve anxiety. Look for low-sugar varieties.

In Chinese medicine, the foods that affect anxiety resonate with the stomach and spleen energies, or “earth” energies. In this way, they help a person return to center when they have strong feelings, which can also help process other feelings such as grief, sadness, disappointment, anger and fears.

As you eat these foods, affirm: I am centered and strong.

Fear: Reach for deep-sea fish like salmon or tuna. If you are vegan, go for seaweeds like nori, wakame and kombu.

These foods resonate with the kidneys and bladder in the Chinese medicine system, which we associate with the element “water,” which governs courage or fears.

Sometimes anxiety can exist on its own in response to situations, or it can be a secondary emotional response to other emotional states. You may feel deeply sad, then fear may arise with thoughts like, "I'm really afraid that I'll never feel joy again."

Sea foods can help take away fear and put us back into courageous states by supporting our adrenal glands, which can become overloaded with the fight or flight response when we feel strong emotions.

When you eat these foods, you affirm: I am brave and strong.

Rage: Go for green leafy vegetables like spinach, mustard or kale, romaine lettuce or kale. Opt for spirulina, cucumber and green vegetable juices with low amounts of carbohydrates.

Anger in the Chinese medicine system lies in the “wooden” organs of the liver and gallbladder. When we support the health of these organs with the foods listed, we empower ourselves to access our sense of peace and calm, even when things happen that are naturally frustrating or irritable. These foods allow you to regain your natural patience and compassion, even when you are angry. Drink a bottle of juice like Suja uber greens, which is low in calories (and no, I'm not being paid to plug this product - I actually drink this juice) when you're feeling angry. Or juice cucumbers, cilantro, kale, lemon, green apple and peppermint yourself.

It's amazing how much calmer you'll feel when you take a moment to detoxify your liver and gallbladder with healing foods.

As you eat these foods, acknowledge: Compassion and patience overcome anger and frustration.

Nervous stress/excitement: Reach for almonds, sesame oil or seeds and spinach.

These foods help calm the heart energies associated with fast-moving energy and that over-the-top feeling that doesn't let you sleep, rest, or focus on your thoughts. Imagine a flame going in many directions.

Acknowledge this when you eat these foods: I calm the flame of my excitement.