April's CR Diary

« Livin' La Vida Low Carb | Main | Some Questions From a Sister »

January 18, 2006

The Anti-Anxiety Lifestyle

A commenter asked about CR and anxiety. I've been meaning to write about it for awhile, since as of late I've made even more discoveries on the anti-anxiety lifestyle front.

Here are my basic suggestions for beating anxiety, based purely upon my own experience:

1) Eat a breakfast with almost no carbs but lots of protein:
1 cup eggwhites scrambled, 1 teaspoon flax oil, salsa for flavor if you want. No cereal, bread, oatmeal, or any kind of grain.

2) Cut back on both calories and carbs. Make vegetables your primary, if not only carb. When you eat fruit, be sure to eat it with a protein-rich meal.

3) Include adequate omega 3 sources. I eat 2 teaspoons of flax oil a day. This appears to be an anti-depressant.

4) Keep calories consistent. Doesn't have to be exact, but I find that eating about the same amount every day keeps my anxiety much lower than my previous eating very little with one day of eating lots. I always felt an anxiety spike after those big eating days.

5) Alcohol makes it worse. Small amounts probably won't make it worse, but beware that the lighter you get, the more any amount of alcohol will effect you. Red wine is one of my favorite things, and as you know, I'd much rather have an extra glass of wine than, say, a rich chocolate dessert. Red wine can be a very healthy part of an over-all CR diet, and the health benefits of red wine are well-documented. But if you suffer from anxiety and you drink, cutting back may really help.

I had already cut my alcohol consumption way back from pre-CR days, but was still drinking a six ounce glass of red wine a day, more on weekends or dinner parties. Then last Friday when I decided to drop my calories down to 1150, I cut my glass of wine out of my quotidian diet. That doesn't mean I'm giving it up... I'm not not having it every day. I think there's enough resveratrol in my system for now. :)

I've noticed a stark decrease in my anxiety. In the past I've noted that drinking more than about eight ounces in a night causes an anxiety spike the next day, just like eating a whole lot of sugary carbs. But cutting out all together seems to be even stronger than just cutting back.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not against red wine, I'm for it. If you don't suffer from carb-induced anxiety, then drink up! But measure the calories, they do add up. I'm just letting you know what seems to keep my anxiety at bay. I suspect that a whole lot of us have similar experiences.

6) Meditate every day.
This doesn't have to be fancy. It could be traditional Christian or Jewish prayer. You could do really complicated rituals. You could do yoga. I prefer walking meditation: I pace in a circle and mentally transfer all of my concerns, worries, hopes, etc. into the center of my circle. Doing this every day helps me focus on my goals, CR and otherwise, for the day. It also seems to take a massive chunk out of my anxiety, even when my life is stressful.

7) Exercise, most every day, but not a whole lot. You don't have to be athletic, just walking for twenty minutes a day at a comfortable pace will do it. I've actually known this much longer than I've known about CR.

8) Disengage with negative people. This is another fun thing I've done recently. You can't always disengage from negative people (for example, you probably can't just ditch your boss) but you can emotionally disengage your mood from the actions of others. Most of the time, it's *their* problem. Don't make it yours. Easier said than done, I know, but I've recently discovered a whole lot of areas of my life where I simply have no obligation to spend time or energy with people who make me unhappy. There are so many wonderful people out there who contribute positively to the world. Why not hang out with them? Moving on!

9) Eat leeks. Not sure if this has any effect on anxiety, but they're yummy! I loved Zeynep's leek recipe!

Again, all of this is based on my anecdotal experience, and a lot of it is just common sense. I've definitely found that between cutting overall calories and cutting carbs, I can make myself a much happier, less anxious person. If we have this kind of power over our mental state, simply by choosing different foods, why not use it?

Here's the crunch from yesterday. It was a pretty good day... usual breakfast, snack of a non-fat, sugar free yogurt with almonds in the morning because I had a lunch time doctor's appt and didn't want to be starving. Had left my organic yogurt at home, so I grabbed one at Starbucks (thank you Robert and Ingrid) along with a coffee. Lunch was a salad of kale and dandelion greens with a cup of nonfat plain yogurt seasoned with Trader Joe's salsa verde, plus almonds and a fourth of a grapefruit. Afternoon snack of Trader Joe's chocolate yogurt -- higher calorie but oh so good! Dinner was brussels sprouts and brewers yeast soup, plus Zeynep's leeks (no rice, just leeks, carrots, and red onion, sauteed in water, oil added afterwards. Carrots go great with leeks! I think it would also be good simmered in white wine.) I had finally picked up a red onion at the produce store, something I realized I was missing on Monday night. The day was low in fat but very high in nutrition. The only suboptimal part was when I ran out to the drugstore to grab some reading glasses (after realizing that I had left both my glasses and my phone at my mother's house... MR will understand what a major crisis this was!) I couldn't read a thing, so I went next door and asked my neighbors if they had any drugstore reading glasses lying around. They said no, but suggested that instead of driving all the way back to my mom's (it was already late because I had run some errands after work) on a dark stormy night, I run up a couple blocks to the drugstore to buy a pair of reading glasses. I did, and while they're not perfect they got me through the night. I was so excited about my sudden ability to read that I read all the nutrition information on the sugar free chocolates right next to the reading glasses (I was in the diabetic demographic aisle, I think.) By this time I was starving, since the glasses crisis had put off dinner preparation. So when I found a low-carb, sugar free chocolate peanut butter candy with only 60 calories per bar, I grabbed it and ate one on the way home. Not a terrible treat, though not a great use of calories. Still got excellent nutrition in the day.

Calories 1149.76__cal 57%
Protein 88.19__gm 160% RDA
Total Fat 25.63__gm 39%
Sat. Fat 5.52__gm 28%
Mono. Fat 11.15__gm 39%
Poly. Fat 6.71__gm 101%
Carbohydrate 152.53__gm 51%
Fiber 17.49__gm 58%
Cholesterol 57.38__mg 19%
Vit. A 25386.36__IU 508% RDA
Vit. B6 1.64__mg 103% RDA
Vit. B12 3.36__mcg 168% RDA
Vit. C 312.92__mg 522% RDA
Vit. E 5.72__mg 71% RDA
Thiamine 4.00__mg 363% RDA
Folacin 1196.02__mcg 664% RDA
Riboflavin 4.03__mg 310% RDA
Niacin 12.99__mg 87% RDA
Panto. Acid 6.90__mg 138% SA
Calcium 1279.21__mg 107% RDA
Copper 2.00__mg 100% SA
Iron 10.20__mg 68% RDA
Magnesium 341.72__mg 122% RDA
Manganese 2.32__mg 77% SA
Phosphorus 1473.66__mg 123% RDA
Potassium 3881.10__mg 194% RDA
Selenium 102.43__mcg 186% RDA
Sodium 3580.08__mg 149% SA
Zinc 8.92__mg 74% RDA
Tyrosine 3.91__gm 408% RDA
Lysine 6.30__gm 875% RDA
Phenylalanine 4.68__gm 488% RDA
Leucine 7.50__gm 781% RDA
Valine 5.93__gm 706% RDA
Methionine 2.23__gm 743% RDA
Cystine 1.40__gm 467% RDA
Tryptophan 0.97__gm 541% RDA
Threonine 3.90__gm 813% RDA
Isoleucine 4.79__gm 666% RDA

Posted by april at January 18, 2006 6:11 AM

Comments

Posted by: Matt - UK at January 19, 2006 9:56 AM

Posted by: zeynep at January 19, 2006 2:37 PM

Posted by: Diana at July 22, 2008 8:36 PM

Posted by: David Buck at February 13, 2010 2:28 PM

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments:

Preview

Post