Psychological well-being
What are the tips to boost psychological well-being in two weeks? More vegetables and fruits!
Fruits and vegetables can do for you more than you can imagine. Apart from being nutritious and healthy for your physical body, they help to maintain your psychological well being too. They keep your mind healthy too. A healthy mind leads to a healthy body. Health is not just defined as the physical body’s health, rather it is a combination of both physical and mental health. You can never be completely healthy if your mind is not healthy.
The 2 weeks test
To research further into the thoughts about the contribution of fruits and vegetables in the mental well-being of humans, a test was carried out. The study was led by Dr Tamlin Conner. In this study young adults were given extra fruits and vegetables for 14 days. It was then noticed that these young adults experienced a boost in their general motivation and energy. The research was published in the journal PLOS One.
This research included 171 students, all aged between 18 and 25. These students were divided into three groups and were treated separately in groups for 2 weeks.
The three groups were treated as follows:
1st group
This group continued with their normal intake of fruits and vegetables, with no additions.
2nd group
This group was intentionally given two extra servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
3rd group
This group was given the most attention. They were given vouchers and even text reminders to remind them to eat more fruits and vegetables.
The results
All of the groups were tested for mood, energy, motivation, depression, anxiety and other mental conditions both before and after the two weeks of research.
It was then found out that the group which received the most attention regarding their fruits and vegetable intake showed much greater improvement in their mental well-being as compared to the other two groups. The other two groups rather showed no improvement in the mental states.
However, it must be noted that there was no improvement shown in the depression and anxiety of any the members of the groups. The improvements were largely in the area of energy and motivation. It was then thought that to treat depression and anxiety and other severe mental conditions perhaps a time period longer than 2 weeks was required.
Still, this study proved that a good amount of fruits and vegetable intake did have an effect on the psychological well-being of humans.
The United States Department of Agriculture stated that a person should consume two cups of fruits and two to three cups of vegetables daily.
How do fruits and vegetables help in psychological well-being?
Fruits and vegetables are full of nutrition. They provide the body with all the necessary vitamins, fibre and all the other nutrition that the body needs.
- They keep the body healthy
When your body gets all the vital nutrition that it needs, it stays healthy and when your body stays healthy, your mind stays healthy as well. Both mind and body are connected to each other. The health of one effect the health of other’s. they cannot be separated.
- They keep you active
One of the reasons of laziness is the low level of energy which is due to the low level of nutrition of the body. Once your body is healthy and full of energy you will feel more active and an active body leads to an active mind. Laziness may lead to depression and loneliness which is very harmful to your psychological well-being.
Both a healthy mind and a healthy body will keep you positive in life. you will feel motivated and will achieve a lot more than you do when you feel less energetic and lazy.
So, keep eating fruits and vegetables, and keep yourself healthy, both mentally and physically.
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