A Path to Well-Being: Eat Mindfully to Nourish Your Mental Health

Understand the science behind why food affects your mood and what you can do to feel better.

Caring for our mental health is more essential than ever before. The way we treat our bodies, how and with whom we spend our time, and what thoughts take center stage in our minds are vital. In the monthly Shondaland series A Path to Well-Being, we’re sharing science and strategies to help you better understand and manage your well-being.

Anyone who’s felt hangry after too long without a snack or wanted to dive headfirst into a gallon of ice cream in the wake of heartbreak knows that food can affect mood. In recent years, scientists have confirmed the inextricable connection between food and feelings. It’s not just “hanger”— which is a real thing, BTW — or what we think of as “emotional eating” that affects our psychology, but everything we eat and how we eat it.

“The biggest misconception is that you can separate food from your mood, and food from emotional well-being, because you can’t,” says Mary Beth Albright, author of Eat & Flourish: How Food Supports Emotional Well-Being. “Truly, all eating is emotional eating. Because when we eat anything — a carrot stick, a piece of cake, a pizza — our bodies go through chemical changes that affect our emotions.”