These foods can help you regulate your mood naturally.
Sadness and grievance: Look for cauliflower, turnip greens, and asparagus. These foods resonate with the immune system, lungs, and large intestine organs that in the Chinese medicine system are associated with the processing of emotional grievances.
Asparagus naturally supports healthy bronchial tissues to open up your lungs when pain makes you feel like you just can’t take a deep breath. Turnips and cauliflower help support your immune system so that the process of grieving and healing doesn’t leave you vulnerable to developing colds, flu, and bacterial infections. It can be challenging enough to deal with the emotional impact of the complaint without the added stress of becoming physically ill. So try these foods to help protect your health during the grieving process.
Affirm while eating these foods: I am breathing deeply and strong in immunity.
Anxiety: Look for yellow or orange foods like pineapple, cantaloupe, and sweet potatoes (great for curbing carb cravings, and yes, you can microwave the potato for a quick snack, though I don’t generally recommend it). Also, cinnamon and ginger teas will help calm anxiety.
Similarly, a cup of butternut squash soup can also calm anxiety. Look for varieties that are low in sugar.
In Chinese medicine, foods that affect anxiety resonate with the energies of the stomach and spleen, or “earth” energies. Therefore, they help a person come back to center when feelings are strong, which can also help process other feelings such as hurt, sadness, disappointment, anger, and fears.
Affirm while eating these foods: I am centered and strong.
Fear: Look for deep-sea fish like salmon or tuna. If you’re vegan, look for seaweeds like nori, wakame, and kombu.
These foods resonate with the kidneys and bladder in the Chinese medicine system that we associate with the element “water”, which governs courage or fears.
Sometimes fear can exist in response to situations on its own, or it can be a secondary emotional reaction to other emotional states. You may feel deeply sad, then fear may arise around thoughts like, “I’m so afraid I’ll never feel joy again.”
Seafood can help overcome fear and rewire us to states of courage by supporting our adrenal glands which can go into overdrive with the fight or flight response when feeling strong feelings.
While eating these foods affirm: I am brave and strong.
Anger: Look for any green leafy vegetables like spinach, mustard or collard greens, romaine lettuce or collard greens. Choose spirulina, cucumber, green vegetable juices with small amounts of carbohydrates.
Anger in the Chinese medicine system resides 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 will allow you to access your natural patience and compassion even when you feel angry. Drink a bottle of a juice like Suja uber greens, which is low in calories (and no, I don’t get paid to endorse that product; in fact, I drink that juice) when you’re mad. Or juice of cucumbers, kale with cilantro, lemon, green apple and mint.
It’s amazing how calm you’ll feel when you take a moment to detoxify your liver and gallbladder with healing foods.
Affirm as you eat these foods: Compassion and patience are overcoming anger and frustration.
Nervous stress/excitement: Look for almonds, sesame oil or seeds, and spinach.
These foods specifically help calm the energies of the heart associated with fast-moving energy and that exaggerated feeling that keeps you from sleeping, resting, or concentrating on your thoughts. Think of a flame going in many directions.
Affirm this as you eat these foods: I am calming the flame of my arousal.