Chocolate and Anxiety – Can Chocolate Help Relieving Anxiety?

You must have many times read that chocolates are beneficial to health. Chocolates help in anti-ageing, are aphrodisiac and relieve stress. Chocolates have a certain type of effect on people’s mode.

Most people also experience strong craving for chocolates at times. Though this is sinful, it is an integral part of life.

However, there are many people who don’t know that stress and anxiety can be relieved by eating or drinking chocolate. Chocolate has beneficial levels of magnesium. It is easy to find about 50 mg of magnesium in a 50 gram bar of a chocolate.

This explains the much debatable sedative effect of chocolate on people who are stressed out. The magnesium in chocolate facilitates restoration of the overall balance of the body’s magnesium balance.

When experiencing stress, the body tends to deplete the magnesium supply. This results in imbalance of the body’s biochemistry. Chocolate also has direct stress reducing effect on the body. It consists of a compound known as anandamide. This compound is also referred to as the ‘bliss chemical’.

It works towards binding some specific receptors inside the brain to promote relaxation. Chocolate also contain certain enzyme inhibitors that reduce that ability of body to metabolize anandamide. This prolongs the ‘high’ experienced by the individual.

Chocolates are enjoyable foods. Phenylethlamine is another mood altering compound found in chocolate. This chemical is released by the brain when one is in love. Most researchers believe that this as a mood-altering factor. The level of phenylethylamine was found only in sausage and cheese.

Chocolates are high in fat content. This triggers the natural opiates production by the brain. A regular chocolate eater tends to sense a calming effect on the sensory pleasures such as smell, taste and mouth.

Here some other benefits of eating chocolate:

a) Chocolate brings happy memories to individuals.

b) Most people tend to relate happy memories to chocolate, Valentine’s Day or childhood.

c) Some people believe that chocolate provides you an emotional buzz.

d) It relaxes the body.

e) Chocolate high in carbohydrates tend to increase endorphins and serotonin. These affect sleep patterns.

Dark chocolate are heart healthy. These are rich in antioxidants. The stearic acid helps prevent cholesterol build-up in the circulatory system. It reduces the symptoms of high blood pressure.

Eating chocolate gives out a lot of health benefits to the individual. Chocolate has direct stress reducing effect on the body. It consists of a compound known as anandamide or the ‘bliss chemical’. These bind to some specific receptors inside the brain and promote relaxation.

This is quite similar to the effect produced by the marijuana components. The effect may not be as high as taking marijuana. Chocolate also consists of enzyme inhibitors that tend to decrease ability of body for anandamide metabolization. This tends to prolong the ‘feeling of high’.

With so many benefits of having chocolates, especially when it comes to decreasing your body’s stress levels, you must take special care to add chocolate to your diet.