How Creating a Calming Morning Snack Can Help You Have a Good Day

Calm Body – Calm Mind

“By choosing the right foods we can get our bodies back to a place of calm, so that both physically and emotionally we are much better equipped to deal with whatever life has in store.”

Eat Yourself Calm, by Gill Paul (Published by Hamlyn 2014) – page 6

There was a time shortly after my son started in Reception Class at Primary School when I would return home after dropping him off at school, collapse on the sofa, curl up under a blanket, watch T.V. and “treat” myself to a morning snack (or snacks!!). All the while, telling myself I was having a well-deserved rest.

Each day at this time I would feel quite tired and wrung out. I felt I had no energy to do anything else and needed to rest my body on the sofa for a while.

During this new phase of being a Mum, it felt very strange and quite uncomfortable to leave my son at school and return home without him, especially on mornings when he did not appear very keen to attend. That being so, I was also seeking a way to distract myself from thinking about how my son was settling into all the new routines at school. I believed daytime T.V. and snacks were the answer!

I was often very hungry at this time of day but lacked the enthusiasm or energy to prepare myself any proper food. To ease my hunger and my racing thoughts, I would grab quick and easy snacks from the cupboard. I would choose anything that was comforting and suitable for eating on the sofa.

I got into the bad habit of “rewarding” myself with sugar and caffeine fuelled drinks and snacks such as cups of tea and coffee, biscuits, milk chocolate and crisps.

I told myself that I would just rest and watch T.V. for a little while before starting all the jobs around the house I planned to do. What actually happened was that I ended up camping-out on the sofa for far too long, eating far too many snacks and drinking too much tea and coffee.

However, it didn’t matter how many cups of tea or coffee I drank, or how long I sat on the sofa, I didn’t feel anymore awake or energetic than when I first arrived home after school drop off.

Instead of giving me the boost I needed, my T.V. and snacking habit would drain me further and leave me feeling bloated and lethargic. These physical feelings would be accompanied by emotional feelings of guilt, shame and failure. A feeling that I had wasted the day and not achieved the things I wanted to achieve during my precious daytime hours alone at home.

Each time I repeated this habit, I sunk deeper and deeper into a sluggish, unmotivated way of thinking and behaving. This habit was not good for me, not good for my family and not good for our home.

One day I finally realised that what was intended to be a moment of self-care and rest for me had, in fact, become a destructive habit creating the absolute opposite effect. It was sapping my energy, making me feel bad about myself and setting me up for failure.

I realised that I was longing to feel more energetic, motivated and productive during my mornings at home and that I, therefore, needed to change how I was spending my time.

I concluded that a great first step to feeling better each day would be to improve the food I was eating at that time of day. I decided to be more intentional about when and what I would eat and drink during the morning.

I came up with a new snack that I designed to help my body and mind feel calmer. This snack has now become fondly known to me and my family as my “snack pot”.

I also decided to drink different drinks throughout the morning to help boost my energy levels and treat my body better.

Since changing my snacking habits my mood and energy levels are much improved. I, therefore, feel more capable and motivated to do household jobs during the morning.

Once I get started on the jobs, momentum carries me along so that, no matter how tired I might be feeling from lack of sleep or family circumstances, I achieve much more than I ever did before.

This in turn makes me feel less guilty and improves my self-esteem and overall wellbeing. I then feel even better and able to do even more, thus creating a domino effect of improvements to my day.

One simple, intentional change in my snacking habits has led to a long list of beneficial changes to my day. It allows me to have a good day where once I would have had a bad day.

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If this habit, described above, of “snacking and sofa-hugging” sounds familiar, you may wish to read on and find out more details about how I intentionally designed my new morning snack and vastly improved my day.

However, before you read on, I should make one disclaimer. I am not an expert in any shape or form and have no medical or dietary qualifications. So, the information I have compiled below is simply an honest account of my own personal experience based on research I carried out for myself at home.

I am not suggesting that everybody should start eating exactly the same “snack pot” as me. On the contrary, I am suggesting that each individual will need to work out the exact foods that will work for them. Everyone will need to take account of their own needs, problems, health issues, allergy profiles and dietary requirements.

By sharing my experience, I only hope to inspire you to make a simple, intentional change and design a morning snack for yourself that will help you to get off the sofa and have a good day too.

How I Designed My Intentionally Calming Morning Snack

When I began to research the kind of foods and drinks that might be more helpful and appropriate for me to eat, my aim was to design an easy-to-prepare snack that would create a feeling of calm within me but also give myself the energy and motivation to have a productive morning around the house.

Choosing Appropriate Drinks to Stay Hydrated

I was already aware that dehydration can have a negative impact on stress, anxiety and energy levels. I was also fully aware that too much caffeine is not good for you especially if you are feeling tense, worried or anxious. So, the first decision I made was to try to drink more water throughout the morning and drink less tea and coffee.

I decided I would start to fetch a pint of water in a glass as soon as I arrived home after school drop-off and would treat myself to a stripey paper straw in the glass, so that I could regularly top up my water levels throughout the morning. Since starting this, a good alternative habit I have created, to keep myself motivated throughout the cold winter months (when I often cannot face drinking lots of cold water!), is to boil a kettle and drink mugs of hot water instead.

I did not plan to cut out caffeine completely. I decided instead to limit myself to 4 cups of tea and 1 cup of coffee per day (preferably all consumed before 5pm in the evening).

I had read that some recent research suggests that drinking a limited amount of black coffee can possibly help to improve your mood. So, I planned to drink my one cup of black coffee each day with my morning snack to try and give me a positive mood boost when I needed it most.

Choosing Appropriate Foods For My Morning Snack

Foods to Exclude From My Snack

When it came to picking foods for my snack, I decided, as a starting point, to make it a snack that did not contain Gluten, Milk or Soya.

When you check food labels and read about food groups and special diets, Gluten, Milk and Soya are all common food groups that some individuals can struggle to digest due to autoimmune disease, allergies or food intolerances.

I am aware that my Dad is Coeliac. Coeliac Disease is defined as an autoimmune disease in which the immune system starts to attack and destroy healthy tissue – the villi of the gut. The trigger for this destruction is eating Gluten. Gluten is found in grains, such as Wheat, Barley and Rye and is also contained in most processed foods. So, those who have Coeliac Disease have to completely avoid these foods (The wording of this definition is borrowed from the book “The Clever Guts Diet, How to Revolutionise your body from the inside out” by Dr Michael Mosley, Short Books 2017 – p39).

Coeliac Disease can run in families. While I am not a diagnosed Coeliac, I have always felt that bread in particular does not always suit me well. So, I felt when designing a snack to calm my body it would be sensible to avoid Gluten which could potentially be problematic in my family.

There is also evidence that Milk and Soya may not suit our family well either. My Son has seen a dietician and has a suspected intolerance to the proteins contained in Milk and Soya, which means he now avoids these food groups to maintain a healthy digestive system.

There is evidence that those prone to Eczema are more likely to have allergies or intolerances to Milk. At times in my life I have suffered quite badly with Eczema. So with both Eczema and Milk/Soya intolerance in our family, I also thought it would be sensible to avoid these food groups when designing my ideal snack to calm and energise my body.

Please note, I did not cut Gluten, Milk and Soya out of my diet completely and would eat these foods at other times. I just decided to leave it out of my morning snack each day. This time of day was a pivotal time for me. A time of day when I was trying to take particular care of my mind, body and energy levels.

I would not recommend that any individual completely cuts out any entire food group from their diet without first seeking medical advice. When an entire food group is cut out completely, medical practitioners and dieticians will give advice to ensure that the restricted diet still provides all necessary nutrients and they may recommend specific supplements to help provide nutrients. So a big change of diet of that nature would always require expert advice.

However, when you are designing your own ideal morning snack it may be worth considering any problematic food groups that you and other close family members have struggled with. You may then consider avoiding the inclusion of these food groups in your morning snack to see if the exclusion of those items at that time of day helps you feel better.

Foods To Include In My Snack

Having decided what foods to exclude from my snack, I now had to decide upon the foods I should include instead.

It was when researching suitable snacking foods that I came across the book “Eat Yourself Calm” by Gill Paul, Published by Hamlyn, 2014 which I have quoted at the start of this post. (Please note, from now on in this post, I will refer to this book as “the book” and any page references listed below refer to the 2014 edition of the book as detailed above).

I found the book extremely useful when designing my own morning snack. I would highly recommend it to others who wish to research choosing suitable foods to include in a calming morning snack.

The book outlines how “choosing the right foods . . . can get our bodies back to a place of calm” (p6). The author explains that there are lots of foods that “positively support all the body systems during periods of stress and target symptoms that accompany stress” (p6). As the title of the book suggests, the author believes this means “[w]e can literally eat ourselves calm.” (p6)

I will not spend time here detailing everything I learned about myself and food from reading the book. This post is intended to highlight the potential positive impact of making one small change to your day and being intentional when creating your daily habits. As I have said at the outset, I am an amateur in the field of nutrition. I do not intend to give nutritional advice to others. I am not qualified to do so!!

Those who wish to redesign their own morning snack will need to do their own research before identifying their own needs and the foods suitable for them.

I am not suggesting the exact contents of the snack pot I have designed should be copied by others. On the contrary, everything I have read suggests that each individual should design their own unique snack to meet their own unique needs.

Having clarified the above, I can say that, having read the book (particularly pages 26-29), I was able to identify that I felt I was experiencing the following particular problems and symptoms as a result of ongoing stress:

• Headaches
• Muscle Tension
• Irritability
• Anxiety
• Mood Swings
• Unhappiness
• Sleep Problems
• Low Energy

Having identified my own problems and symptoms, I was then able to select what I concluded to be the most suitable foods from the correct section of the book to create my own snack that would address those problems and symptoms. The resulting snack includes very intentionally chosen foods designed for my own needs.

I wanted my new snack to be as easy to grab from the cupboard as the crisps, biscuits and chocolate that I used to eat. I hoped that making the new snack extremely easy to grab and prepare would ensure that my new snacking habit would be easy to implement and sustain. I used the book (pages 26-29) to compile my list of appropriate foods for my “snack pot” as follows: –

• Grapes (both red and green)
• Dried Apricots (preferably organic and brown to keep my snack as natural as possible, rather than the bright orange ones which have been treated with the preservative sulphur dioxide)
• Dark Chocolate (85% cocoa, with no soya or milk contained in the ingredients)
• Mixed nuts (to include Almonds, Brazil Nuts and Cashew Nuts)
• Sesame Snaps

As you can see, this “snack pot” is made up entirely of foods I can grab straight from the cupboard and the most preparation required of me is to wash a couple of grapes and place everything together in a small pot or Ramekin. Perfectly simple!

This may seem extremely simple after all the build up!! However, this little pot of food, when accompanied by my morning cup of black coffee, was carefully designed to achieve a large combination of things: –

• My “Snack Pot” was satisfying to eat and still felt like a treat.
  • The snack pot contained a mixture of sweet and savoury flavours and a mixture of textures.
  • I was still getting to eat some chocolate, so I did not feel I was missing out there!!
  • The sesame snaps were a good replacement for biscuits as they were crunchy and sweet. The juicy grapes and the sweet dried apricots also added sweetness to the snack too.
  • The nuts were crunchy and savoury which were a good replacement for crisps.
  • The snack pot was made up of lots of small mouthfuls which took a reasonable amount of time to eat. So sitting down to eat the snack provided me with a good break and time to relax.
  • Also, very importantly, the “snack pot” tasted nice alongside a cup of black coffee which lots of healthy snacks do not.
• The “snack pot” is so simple and so easy to prepare that it can be taken on days out or to work
  • I can place all the items in a small Tupperware pot with a lid and take it with me in my handbag with a bottle of water. Then all I need to do is buy a black coffee from a cafe while I am out and I am all set to have my calming morning snack while I am out and about.
  • My partner takes this “snack pot” to work with him. It is so simple to prepare that I can prepare it for him quickly while I am preparing my son’s school lunchbox as part of my early morning routine. Having this snack pot ready and prepared with him, helps to stop him from snacking on junk food while at work.

• All the items included in my “snack pot” were Gluten, Dairy and Soya free.
  • When buying items for my “snack pot”, the only item I had to take care with was the dark chocolate. Some dark chocolates contain both milk and Soya or just Soya, so you have to check the label before you buy. If you look for high quality (often organic) dark chocolate containing at least 70% cocoa solids, the chocolate is less likely to contain Milk or Soya. You always have to check the label when buying a new brand if you want to be sure. I usually buy dark chocolate with at least 85% Cocoa Solids for my snack.

• According to my amateur conclusions drawn from the book (pages 12-29), the foods contained in my “snack pot”, when combined together, should deliver a whole host of benefits
  • My “Snack Pot” was an intentionally small and light snack that was designed to keep my blood sugar as steady as possible and prevent me from feeling sluggish. 
  • It contained some bright coloured fruits to provide me with some antioxidant vitamins to boost my immune system. 
  • It intentionally included Dark Chocolate, Brazil Nuts, Apricots, Grapes and Almonds as they are all listed in the book as “Superfoods . . . functional foods” to “support [my] health on all levels” (p12). 
  • It should promote relaxation, fight against fatigue, improve low energy and irritability, ease muscle tension and headaches, guard against depression, reduce stress hormones, help to prevent anxiety, lift my mood and boost my energy levels. 
  • My snack pot should also contain important nutrients such as B vitamins, Magnesium, Selenium, Manganese, Potassium, Iron, Vitamin E,  Zinc, Calcium, Magnesium and Phosphorus.

As you can see, while simple, this snack pot had the potential to do me lots of good and help me on my journey towards a calm and productive morning.

The Benefits I Have Found From My New Snack

Since getting in the habit of eating this new snack, I have felt a lot less bloated and more energetic. I do not keep going back to the cupboard to grab more and more snacks; I eat my breakfast and then I have my snack pot with a cup of coffee mid-morning and that is it. I find myself less inclined to sit on the sofa watching T.V. I feel more inclined to be productive and I, therefore, feel less guilty at the end of the day.

I feel much calmer because physically I feel better and much more able to function. I do not seem to suffer with headaches as much as I used to. I feel less lethargic and more energetic and, therefore, feel less irritable too.

Also, making the decision to be intentional and taking action to design my new snack and create a new routine for myself has boosted my self-esteem and made me feel like I have accomplished something which has also added to the calm state of mind I now feel.

Overall, just deciding to switch this one snack of the day and taking the necessary action to make it happen has made me feel like a different person.

As an added bonus, researching what to include in my snack has given me lots of knowledge to draw upon when thinking about what to eat in other situations at other times of the day.

Having tried making this one change, I would recommend others take the time to intentionally think about the foods they are fuelling their bodies with (especially at pivotal times of the day) because, from my experience, it can definitely have a real impact and help you feel calm.

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I hope the information I have shared here is helpful and inspiring to anyone who feels they need a change or a boost to their day.

I would really like to hear from others whether they feel stressed or drained by certain foods. I would also be very interested to hear other suggestions for snacks or foods to eat to feel better, calmer and more able to have a good day.

I look forward to hearing from you with your experiences and suggestions. Until then, snack well and have a good day.

Resources

• Books
  • The Clever Guts Diet, How to Revolutionise your body from the inside out, by Dr Michael Mosley, Short Books, 2017
  • Eat Yourself Calm by Gill Paul, Published by Hamlyn, 2014

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