Intermittent fasting is now recognized as one of the most popular weight-loss strategies. It is known to have numerous physical health benefits, but how much does it benefit your mental health, though?
Fasting is the practice of not eating food for a set period each day. You can choose to not eat for several hours or have only one meal per day.
Fasting can be therapeutic if done correctly, and research backs this up. Fasting induces ketogenesis and promotes powerful alterations in metabolic pathways and cellular processes such as stress tolerance, lipolysis, autophagy, etc. It further impacts your mental and emotional health.
Yes indeed, in fact, this article will explore the emotional benefits of fasting.
5 Emotional Benefits Of Fasting
Below are the beneficial impacts of fasting on your mental and emotional health;
1. Emotional stability
Fasting aids in stabilizing your emotions. This is accomplished by letting go of your emotional reliance on food, as well as giving up emotionally upsetting foods like caffeine, processed sugars, recreational drugs, nicotine, and trans-fatty acids.
Fasting can also help you break harmful emotional habits. Sometimes we get stuck in odd emotional cycles, fasting can help us break free, allowing us to experience the world more positively. This eventually helps us become optimistic and more positive.
2. Self-enlightenment
Fasting can make you feel more connected to life through practices such as reading, meditation, yoga, and martial arts, among others. With no food in the digestive system, there is more room in the body for energy as the digestive system is one of the most energy-consuming systems in the body.
Fasting for self-enlightenment can improve your mental and emotional health, leading you to become more aware and grateful for both the little and big things around you. Your body and mind become lighter and clearer when you fast.
3. Increased resilience
You deprive yourself of some of your daily conveniences and luxuries when you fast. Deliberately placing yourself in this kind of challenging situation prepares you to handle more difficult situations in the future. Fasting, therefore, is a method for developing perseverance, self-control, and resilience.
Overcoming your need for comfort can allow you to experience life in a different light, and possibly even live life more comfortably than others.
4. Self-confidence
Fasting raises catecholamine levels, such as dopamine, which boosts happiness and confidence while decreasing anxiety. Fasting is also able to help you build self-control and discipline.
You can’t have confidence if you don’t have self-control. And if you regularly self-sabotage, you will experience internal struggle rather than confidence. This internal strife saps your willpower and exhausts you.
However, when you see yourself perform in ways you wanted to act, your self-confidence grows. You gain confidence in your talents, prompting you to take on larger ambitions, risks, and challenges in the future. You eventually gain self-efficacy, which permits you to manage your fate and future.
5. Enhanced mood
Fasting causes the happy hormone serotonin to be released, which is an excellent mood enhancement. It makes you more relaxed and open to fresh ideas.
Certain psychotropic medicines, by the way, have a very similar effect. Intermittent fasting can make you feel euphoric and high but in a good way.
Other emotional benefits of fasting include:
- It boosts gratitude
- It fosters a sense of spiritual and psychological well-being.
- It brings peace and contentment.
- It encourages tranquility and optimism within.
- It alleviates stress and depression.
Conclusion
Fasting means deciding not to eat food for a period of time each day. This habit can have some positive impacts on your mental health. There are some emotional benefits of fasting, such as enhanced mood, improved resilience, stress relief, and improved discipline.
When you’re not eating, you can drink water or zero-calorie drinks like black coffee and tea. You can “eat normally” during your eating periods, but it doesn’t mean you can eat whatever you want. Avoiding snacks, fried meals, and high-calorie junk food is encouraged.
