Why You Should Be Cooking More If You're Struggling With Your Mental Health: Five Emotional Benefits of Preparing and Serving Food
“No one tells you the hardest thing about being an adult is deciding what to make for dinner. Every night. For the rest of your life.”
These days lot of people seem to have a love it or hate it approach to food and cooking. It’s either something you really enjoy or something you can’t seem to master, don’t have time for, and wish you didn’t have to tackle every single day! It’s no big surprise, then, that the fast-food industry alone accounts for over $110 billion dollars annually and over 35% of American adults eat fast food every single day!
Sadly, the irony, for folks struggling to stay emotionally healthy, is that a diet that includes fast food on a regular basis, filled with its excess sodium, trans-fats, refined carbs, not to mention loads of sugar, in reality, will only serve to hinder health; mental, emotional, and otherwise.
Here are FIVE simple ways that cooking is good for your mental health and why you should be doing it more often!
1. You get to take control!
Like a lot of things in life, cooking is about more than just the finished product. It’s about the process. For many people there are a lot of control issues, that are all tied up for them emotionally, when it comes to food. Cooking can help to untie all those knots. Cooking allows you to take back control of the chaos. The process of creation can be a very emotionally empowering. When you’re cooking you have the ability to take all of these individual elements, sometimes seemingly unrelated things, that on their own seem disjointed or even off-putting, and carefully rearrange them, restoring order, and creating something beautiful and delicious.
2. You get to use all your senses!
Grounding is a practice that is often taught and used by those who struggle with anxiety or experience panic attacks and centers around quieting the mind by focusing on the use of each of the 5 senses. Cooking is a perfect vehicle to practice grounding:
Touch: You can focus on the feeling of the weight of the chef’s knife in your hand or the resistance as you slice through the onion. You can feel how the soft fluffy tops of a bunch of carrots almost tickle your palms or how rough the bumpy skin on an avocado feels under your fingertips as you prepare to bisect it’s exterior.
Sight: The world of cooking is full of beautiful things to look at; the sheer rainbow of colors in your local produce department to start with! When you are cooking you must constantly be monitoring the process with your eyes. Is that oil smoking? Is the pasta floating in the water, or did it sink? Are those mushrooms taking on too much color? Does that sauce look thick enough?
Hearing: This might not seem like an obvious sense that is used in cooking but you may be surprised! Does the lettuce sound crisp and crunchy as you slice through it to make your salad? Does the garlic sizzle as it hits the hot pan…how much sizzle? Too much and it may burn. Can you hear your pasta sauce boiling? If so, it means it’s time to turn down the heat to a simmer!
Smell: If you’re cooking endeavors are successful, hopefully the smells emanating from your kitchen will be pleasant ones, but try to pick up on some of the more subtle smells as you are cooking. Do herbs smell different after being toasted? How so? What about adding salt to vegetables when sauteing them? How does that open up their scent? Can you smell the slight tart difference between milk and buttermilk?
Taste: The most obvious of the senses when cooking is clearly taste but try not to take this one for granted. Take the opportunity to taste the individual ingredients and not just the finished product. What does tofu really taste like…anything? Or, does it take on the favor of the sauces it’s being cooked in? How do Sweet Basil and Thai Basil differ? How does the addition of texture (using flour or corn starch to thicken a soup or sauce) change a dishes flavor?
3. Cooking allows you to exercise your creativity!
As a person who likes to consider herself a creative type, I have always found it fundamentally sad to hear people tell me, “Well, I’m not creative.” I have a personal theory that I repeat to people as often as they will listen. “Not everyone is artistic but everyone is creative.” I truly believe this, with all my heart, I believe this! All of our minds work in slightly different ways and that’s what makes us beautiful! All of our taste-buds do too and that’s what makes cooking beautiful! Cooking is more of an improv class than a classic Shakespearean drama and it’s a great place to experiment and let your creativity run wild! Does the recipe call for capers but you don’t have any? What other ingredient might you have that has that same or similar flavor profile…perhaps you could dice some green olives and use them instead? Improv in the kitchen is no different than improv on the stage…a little intimidating at first but once you learn to trust yourself it honestly becomes the most fun part!
4. It’s a healthier choice!
When we’re struggling emotionally it can often bleed over into the physical areas of our lives. You may find yourself feeling less motivated to care for yourself like you normally would. Consistent sleep habits go out the window, personal hygiene seems less and less important and exercise may seem like too much of a chore to tackle but you’ve still got to eat! People who frequently cook meals at home eat healthier and consume fewer calories than those who don’t cook and, as we stated earlier, consume far less sodium, sugar, and fat…all which can contribute to feeling sluggish, unmotivated, foggy minded, and bloated, none of which support good mental health. The one simple step of cooking at home is an easy way to set your feet squarely back onto the path towards making more healthy choices. It’s amazing how much easier that healthy choices number two and number three become come once you have tackled the first one.
5. Cooking can connect you to other people!
One of the hardest things to overcome when you’re struggling inside your own mind is the impulse to self-isolate. Mental illness lies to you and tells you that you’re the only one who has ever felt this way, that no one else can understand what you’re experiencing, and that you don’t have any value to others when you’re feeling like this! Food says, “nonsense!” Distraction can be a powerful tool when you’re fighting these kinds of feelings and cooking a delicious meal that you can share with others is a great distraction. You don’t need to throw a 5 course dinner party with the perfect wine pairing and french inspired dessert! You can ask a co-worker you know is missing her kids, who are away at college, to come over for some homemade soup and garlic bread or pack a picnic with handmade sandwiches, a tossed salad and fresh squeezed lemonade, and ask a friend to meet you at a local park! Food is best when shared with people and conveniently so are most of us!
While cooking at home might seem like another stressor, and something better off avoided, the reality is that, for many, shopping for, prepping, and preparing your own food on a regular basis can do wonders to help lift mood and calm stress and anxiety. Turns out, in this case, eating your emotions might not be such a bad things after all!
Sarah Seeds, CNHP and UNOS Ambassador
Sarah, aka: The Plant Based Ginger, has been in the plant-based community for 20 years and has worked in natural skincare as well as the health and wellness sector. Over the years her love of holistic wellness, essential oils, and plant-based cooking has merged to create the PBG website and social brand. Sarah is currently living back in Central Florida, where she was raised, after spending over a decade up in Ohio’s Amish Country! She is a Certified Natural Health Practitioner, UNOS Ambassador, Homecook, Coffee Lover, and Fur Mom!