by Jack Challem
Wiley
ISBN: 978-0-471-75610-1

In The Food-Mood Solution author Jack Challem isolates the nutritional triggers of bad moods and feelings such as anger, tension, fatigue, impatience, and anxiety, providing solutions that will help readers stabilize their moods, gain energy, sleep better, handle stress, and be more focused.

According to Challem, “We’re being overrun by an epidemic of what I call ‘pissy-mode syndrome.’ People are impatient and irritable, and they take it out on friends, family, and strangers; just look at the way people drive.”

While not every mood disorder can be linked solely to nutrition, Challem shows how certain simple nutritional and lifestyle changes can have a tremendous effect on the physiological elements behind our moods.

A good mood depends on two things: stable blood-sugar levels and neuronutrients needed to make brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. The problem isn’t just with blood-sugar levels. The protein we eat breaks down into amino acids that are needed to make both calming and stimulating neurotransmitters. Vitamins, found in fruits and vegetables, help convert those amino acids to neurotransmitters. “But when we’re stressed, the first thing that goes out the window is our eating habits,” writes Challem. “We delay or skip meals, then go for the quick fix. Fast foods, energy bars, and soft drinks don’t contain many neuronutrients, and they turn our blood sugar into a roller coaster.” Up and down blood sugar levels lead to mood swings, and eating too many junk foods may deprive us of the nutritional building blocks of our neurotransmitters, the brain chemicals that control our moods.

Drawing on his 30 years of nutritional research, Challem lays out a clear-cut, four-step plan for feeding the brain the right nutrition, presenting advice on choosing the right foods and supplements, and improving lifestyle habits to help regulate emotional swings.