The Natural Foods That Decrease Stress Risk By 23%

One of the easiest ways to reduce the risk of stress and anxiety.

One of the easiest ways to reduce the risk of stress and anxiety.

Eating vegetables daily is linked to a lower chance of anxiety and depression, new research finds.

The study of over 65,000 Australians found that the more vegetables they ate each day, the lower their risk of suffering from anxiety and depression.

Women in particular seemed to be sensitive to vegetable intake.

Vegetables had a stronger protective effect on women than it did on men.

[Dr Jeremy Dean’s ebook is “The Anxiety Plan: 42 Strategies For Worry, Phobias, OCD and Panic”]

Binh Nguyen, the study’s first author, said:

“We found that fruit and vegetables were more protective for women than men, suggesting that women may benefit more from fruit and vegetables.”

Women who ate 5-7 servings of vegetables each day were 23% less likely to suffer from stress than those who had 0-1 servings per day.

Dr Melody Ding, study co-author, said:

“This study shows that moderate daily fruit and vegetable consumption is associated with lower rates of psychological stress.

It also reveals that moderate daily vegetable intake alone is linked to a lower incidence of psychological stress.

Moderate fruit intake alone appears to confer no significant benefit on people’s psychological stress.”


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This site is all about scientific research into how the mind works.

It’s mostly written by psychologist and author, Dr Jeremy Dean.

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The study was published in the journal BMJ Open (Nguyen et al., 2017).

Author: Jeremy Dean

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. He is also the author of the book "Making Habits, Breaking Habits" (Da Capo, 2013) and several ebooks.