10 de-stress foods for relaxed brides

Particularly in the build-up to your wedding making sure that you eat well, that your hair, skin and health remain in optimum condition, and that you stress less is all possible by managing the food that you eat.

Starving hungry and no time to worry about food too many of us reach for the easiest fix – pizza, pasta, chocolate, biscuits and chips. Whilst these might seem to calm one initially the reality is – they don’t. In fact, they do the reverse.

Here are 10 foods to snack on that will de-stress you:

A handful of nuts (the raw kind) – full of magnesium these keep your cortisol levels down. If you’re watching your weight, keep your handful down to roughly six or seven brazil nuts or twelve smaller nuts like almonds or cashews
Bananas – full of potassium these help regulate blood pressure, they also keep your blood sugar levels up. But eat with a handful of seeds, nuts or real yoghurt as it slows the release of insulin
Salmon – high in omega-3 fatty acids, which heighten your mood, salmon keeps your mind agile for those moments when you need to think on your feet
Avocado – a great de-stress food, avo in a salad, or whipped up as guacamole to dip raw vegetables in, will boost your B vitamins
Broccoli – you cannot go wrong with cruciferous vegetables, but broccoli in particular is high in folic acid, which helps lower stress levels
Asparagus – also rich in folic acid, which stops your irritable responses and the tiredness associated with stress
Black tea – a recent study shows that drinking black tea four times a day for six weeks lowers cortisol levels (just do so without the sugar)
Green tea – not only does it have a really high antioxidant content, but green tea leaves have an active component called theanine, which calms the central nervous system and lowers stress and anxiety as well as elevating your mood
Chicken or turkey – contain trytophan, which, if you eat it at the end of a day, is said to give you a better night’s sleep
Dark chocolate – a minimum of 70% cocoa content will mean you reap all the benefits of cocao (very high endorphin-producing food), without too much sugar