We have found that eating is an essential part of human life and can affect not only what we eat, but our brains when we eat it. Irregular meal times have been shown to contribute to poor mental health, such as depression and anxiety, as well as cardiometabolic disorders and weight gain.
Fortunately, we can take advantage of our dietary rhythms to limit negative moods and improve mental health. As a doctoral student in the field of neuropsychiatry and a psychiatrist studying nutrition and mood disorders, our study focuses on investigating how dietary rhythms affect the brain. I’m focusing.
The whole mechanism is as follows. The circadian clock system is responsible for adjusting internal processes to the optimal time of the day, based on environmental clues such as light and food. Humans have evolved this wiring to meet the changing energy needs of the day and night, creating rhythmic patterns in our diet according to the sun’s schedule.
The main clock manages metabolic function in a day-night cycle, but the rhythm of our diet also affects the main clock. Digestive tissue has its own clock, which exhibits regular vibrations as it functions in a 24-hour cycle. For example, the small intestine and liver change day and night in terms of digestive, absorptive, and metabolic capacity.
If the brain’s main circadian clock is out of sync with the feeding rhythm, it affects the ability of the brain to function fully. The brain is only 2% of our total body weight, but consumes up to 25% of our energy and is particularly affected by changes in caloric intake. This means that abnormal eating times can have a negative impact on your health.
Food and mood
The underlying mechanism is still unknown, but there is overlap between the neural circuits that govern diet and mood. Digestive hormones also affect dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays a major role in mood, energy, and pleasure. People with depression and bipolar disorder have abnormal dopamine levels. Changes in dietary rhythms are thought to contribute to poor mood maintenance.
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Irregular diets can even play a role in the complex root causes of mood disorders. For example, people with depression or bipolar disorder exhibit disturbed internal rhythms and irregular meal times, significantly exacerbating mood symptoms. In addition, shift workers, who tend to have irregular dietary schedules, show an increased rate of depression and anxiety compared to the general population. Despite this evidence, assessing dietary rhythm is not currently part of standard clinical care in most psychiatric settings.
Optimize your dietary rhythm
So what can we do to optimize the rhythm of our diet? One of the promising methods we have encountered in our research is a time-limited diet (TRE), also known as an intermittent fasting.
TRE involves limiting the time frame of meals to specific times of the day, usually 4-12 hours. For example, choosing to eat all meals and meals in a 10-hour time frame from 9 am to 7 pm reflects the overnight fasting period. Evidence suggests that this method optimizes brain function, energy metabolism and healthy signaling of metabolic hormones.
TRE is an animal experiment designed to model shift work and has already been shown to prevent depressive and anxiety symptoms. The antidepressant effect of TRE has also been shown in humans. Eating regularly can also help reduce the risk of health problems such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Circadian rhythm in a 24-hour world
We live in a 24-hour world full of artificial light and 24-hour food access. Therefore, the impact of disturbed feeding rhythms on mental health has become an important topic in modern life. Incorporating dietary rhythm therapy into clinical care may significantly improve the quality of life of patients, as more studies provide data to assess dietary rhythms in individuals with mood disorders.
It is important for the general public to increase their general knowledge of accessible and affordable ways to maintain a healthy diet. This includes paying attention not only to the content of the meal, but also to the rhythm of the meal. Aligning your dietary rhythm with your sun’s schedule can provide lasting benefits to your general health and may provide protection against mental illness.
