It may be tough to handle, but there are ways of dealing with anxiety. Breathing exercises, getting all of your beauty rest, and staying away from the coffee are all great ways to feel better, but if all else fails, maybe you should eat a pickle.
Yep, pickles have been found to help when you’re feeling nervous.
According to a study published in Psychiatry Research, fermented foods like pickles, have probiotics that might help with social anxiety.
The conclusions came from 700 students who completed a questionnaire giving their consumption of fermented foods, their exercise frequency, and the average consumption of fruits and vegetables. The ones who ate more fermented foods had less social anxiety.
So, what’s the connection?
“It’s likely that the probiotics in the fermented foods are favorably changing the environment in the gut, and changes in the gut in turn influence social anxiety,” says Hilimire, according to Science Daily.
“I think that it’s absolutely fascinating that the microorganisms in your gut can influence your mind.”
What other fermented foods can you snack on before you go into a particularly nerve-wracking situation? Kimchi and sauerkraut also have the same effect on people.
Although these results show a relationship between these types of foods and social anxiety, the study has yet to say they’re 100 percent positive the foods are causing this. They want to further look into it and advise people to add fermented foods to their regimen, rather than forgo things like exercise.
We can’t get enough of pickles, so this is good news for us. If a connection between fermented foods and anxiety is made soon, maybe pickles will replace SSRIs and medications. We can only hope.
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