Life has become really stressful, uncertain and challenging for us all as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our lives have changed dramatically, and we are surrounded by blatant uncertainty and subliminal negativity. Combined, these two emotions give us that kind of funny “gut feeling” that tells us something really bad may be just round the corner. Will we lose our jobs? Will the house market crash? Will we get so annoyed with our other halves that we may end up divorcing them? We are certainly anticipating stress – a normal physiological response to the world around us – in a completely different way as a result of COVID-19, and many of us aren’t coping well with the feelings of and anxiety that this bringing out in us. So what can we do in order to optimise our stress response or, in other words, optimise our psychological resilience? When it comes to food, there are certainly some “stars of resilience” that are loaded with nutrients known to support our gut and our brain to make us more flexible, more “plastic”, less easy to be broken by the surrounding frazzled world we are living in. Here are my top picks:

Tea, including green tea and matcha

Green tea is gaining popularity throughout the world in recent years and is frequently referred to as a mood-and-brain food. Previous research has demonstrated that three constituents present in green tea, l-theanine, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), and caffeine, affect mood and cognitive performance.