Editor's note: CNN writer Amanda Enayati ponders a thesis of seeking serenity: a query for contentment and life change in stressful times.

(CNN) — That dishes can soothe, revoke highlight and boost your mood is good famous to anyone who has kept a vise hold on a pint of Chunky Monkey during midnight or dived into a low finish of a celebration container of chips during a finish of a day left awry.

In a impolite way, ice cream and chips do paint a fast-track to happiness. A bucket of elementary carbohydrates provides an present lift since carbohydrates trigger a fast recover of serotonin, a mood-elevating "happy hormone." When a mind produces serotonin, we knowledge a relaxing effect.

But a problem with a elementary carb overkill is that it sets off a physiological sequence greeting that wreaks massacre on a body. It also taxes a adrenals, suppresses a defence complement for hours after intake and generally leaves a chairman feeling indolent and off-kilter. And afterwards there's a sugarine crash.

Caffeine is no cure-all either.

"People who are operative a lot and not removing adequate nap mostly strech for that additional crater of coffee since they consider it's going to assistance them. But in existence a caffeine creates things many worse," says Marjorie Nolan, a purebred dietitian. "When you're concerned and stressed out, your physique is already stimulated. Add caffeine, that is a stimulant, on tip of that, and you're environment yourself adult to pile-up and bake a few hours later. Plus, you're dehydrating yourself, that creates we feel even some-more fatigued and stressed. You also finish adult exhausting profitable hormones in a prolonged run."

Manuel Villacorta, a Bay Area-based purebred dietitian and dilettante in sports nutrition, says, "We used to have to run for a lives, literally, though we're not doing that anymore. Now many of us are sitting for a lives and livelihoods. People consider all that sugarine they eat is going to their cells — and some of it does. But a additional sugarine floating around is going true to a fat cells. It customarily builds adult in your waistline. And that's how highlight is associated to gaining weight."

What's more, says Villacorta, another side outcome of highlight eating is that your mind becomes conditioned to wish a cookies, bagels, chips and doughnuts.

"Over time, your mind creates these prerogative pathways. And come 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., you're longing those doughnuts. And that's when we turn vulnerable, since once those prerogative pathways have been created, willpower alone is not going to work so good for we anymore."

I suppose my biggest vice, an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, happily rolling down a unequivocally possess prerogative pathway in my brain. So what do we do then?

"You need to emanate a new pathway, a new happy memory," Villacorta says. "I tell my clients that when afternoon comes and we have those cravings, maybe what we need to do is get adult and take a two-minute walk. Or take 10 low breaths, that will also assistance revoke cortisol levels. Maybe we unequivocally are hungry, in that box we need to eat something both gratifying and nutritious. You have to find other ways of channeling a appetite and coping."

Robin Kanarek, halt vanguard of a Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy during Tufts University, speaks to a psychology of highlight eating: "Food is some-more than nutrition. It can have nutritive value, though it also has informative and amicable value. Sometimes a beliefs about food competence be conversion avocation as many as a nutrition."

She cites one investigate in that students were sent possibly a doughnut or banana, both with an equal of series of calories and sugarine grams. The students who were given a doughnut reported feeling worse about themselves and their physique design after they ate it.

In a second study, subjects were supposing with a same milkshake, solely one organisation was told it was high in calories, while a other was told it was low. The people who suspicion they had a high-calorie shake were many some-more expected to indulge in Ring Dings (frosted cream-filled devil's food cakes) afterward. "The meditative was, 'I've already messed adult so we competence as good keep eating.' "

Kanarek recommends carrying healthy snacks handy.

"Most people have a peace around 3 p.m. If you're stressed out and all we can find is junk food from a vending appurtenance down a hall, we competence start this cycle that can lead to even some-more stress," she says. "Having some fruits and vegetables straightforwardly accessible lets we indulge in something honeyed that tastes good and has nutritive value, though a snowball effect."

According to Villacorta, when it comes to eating to revoke stress, your ubiquitous idea is twofold: boost a happy hormones (serotonin and dopamine) and revoke a highlight hormones (cortisol and adrenaline), that take a fee on a physique over time.

Nolan and Villacorta, both national representatives for a Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, offer nutrition-based recommendations for combating stress, including:

Indulging in formidable carbs. All carbs prompt a mind to furnish some-more serotonin. The pretence is to hang to some-more formidable carbohydrates since they digest some-more solemnly and keep blood sugarine levels stable. Nolan suggests a play of oatmeal, whole grain, high-fiber breads and pastas, beans and lentils, that are packaged with B vitamins to assistance keep adult appetite levels. Villacorta also recommends quinoa, honeyed potatoes and fruit.

Crunching some veggies. According to Nolan, crunchy tender veggies such as baby carrots, celery and radishes are good highlight reducers since a act of crunching releases tragedy in a jaw though adding many calories.

Eating a right kind of fat. Foods high in Omega-3 greasy acids — walnuts, almonds, flaxseeds, hunger nuts, furious tuna and salmon — assistance control diseased surges in highlight hormones. They are also protecting opposite mood disorders such as basin and are critical for mind function. "If we are means to consider clearly, we will be improved versed to understanding with stress," Nolan says.

Increasing your C. Vitamin C-rich foods, such as citrus fruits, do double avocation since they can revoke highlight hormone levels even as they boost a defence system, that is mostly compromised when we are underneath a lot of stress.

Drinking tea. Studies uncover that theanine, an amino poison found essentially in immature tea, can have a relaxing (but not drowsy) outcome while assisting to revoke towering blood pressure.

Ultimately, a large design that emerges is many reduction about short-term solutions and some-more about formulating a diet filled with reduction processed, some-more rational dishes that can yield larger health, contentment and appetite — dishes that can also assistance seaside adult a defence complement by counteracting a pervasive highlight in many of a lives.

"You have people immoderate these 'light,' 40- to 60-calorie snacks, with lots of additives and unequivocally small nutrition," Nolan says. "With a steer and smell of food, and a chewing, a digestive enzymes are released. But lo and behold, 20 mins later, there is no tangible 'food' to be had. Our physique isn't digesting anything remotely healthful and so isn't satiated. That can trigger a low-grade highlight hormonal response, and when it's function over and over again, it's unequivocally holding a fee on a bodies."

(If you're carrying difficulty reckoning out how to make improved choices as you're erratic a supermarket aisles, check out Fooducate and ShopWell — dual smartphone apps and also websites that offer suggestions for healthier food alternatives.)

"Eat a right combinations of genuine food during a right time," Villacorta recommends. "Your physique will be reduction taxed, and it will also be improved means to hoop stress."