The Connection Between Dairy Foods and Calmness

Dairy products, like milk, yogurt, and cheese contain several nutrients that benefit our overall health and wellness. Cow’s milk is an excellent source of the 13 essential nutrients: protein, calcium, vitamins A, D, and B12, riboflavin, niacin, phosphorus, zinc, selenium, iodine, potassium, and pantothenic acid.

When you’re trying to juggle the responsibilities of daily life, a balanced diet can positively impact your health and well-being, mood, cognitive function, stress levels, risk of chronic disease, and more. Dairy foods can help reduce the risk of type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease and stroke, as well as play an integral role in our bone health.

While dairy foods are recommended within the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans as part of an overall healthy dietary pattern, dairy foods also play an important role in your mental health and wellness. This can be associated with stress relief, calmness, and mindfulness.

Here are some of the ways in which dairy can improve your physical health, overall well-being, and mental health.

Stable Moods and Sustained Energy

Ample research supports that the consumption of a balanced meal or snack consisting of carbohydrates, protein, healthy fats, and fiber promote stable blood sugar responses and energy levels. Dairy foods offer carbohydrates, protein, and fat packaged into one unit that can easily be paired with whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes to add fiber that will provide sustained energy.

Eating balanced meals and snacks helps avoid chaotic blood sugar swings, which can impact mood, cognition, and hormonal responses.1,2 Regularly including dairy in an overall balanced diet promotes good nutrition that may benefit your mood and ability to concentrate. The nutritional package that dairy foods offer can provide longer-lasting energy, more calmness, and less extreme energy drops.

Gut Health and Mental Wellbeing

The connection between the digestive system and the central nervous system (known as the gut-brain axis) is an exciting and rapidly growing area of research. Through the gut-brain axis, the central nervous system and the enteric nervous system (the “brain in your gut”) communicate with each other to affect digestion, metabolism, mood, stress, and many other things important to our wellbeing.  A diverse gut microbiota, which can be enhanced through probiotic-rich foods, like kefir, yogurt, and cultured cottage cheese, can positively impact gut health and may promote the healthy functioning of the gut-brain axis. Research in this area is ongoing, but you can read more on what we already know about dairy probiotics here.

Nostalgia

Dairy foods also bring back heart-warming memories from childhood and offer ways to create new memories. For example, consider enjoying a warm bedtime treat of a frothed Cherry Milk Steamer as you wind down for the day. Or imagine starting your evening routine with a fun and nutritious snack, paired with a book, movie, meditation, alone time, or connecting with your partner. Memories are to be made and doing it the right way starts with a dairy by your side.

It’s hard to forget the memories that come with childhood favorites like mac and cheese or grilled cheese.  Here are some of our favorite recipes to make memories with dairy by your side.