“Starting from first principles: the brain is a physical organ and if you want it to function well, it needs to be healthy — and nutrition is a part of that.” ~ Kimberley Wilson

Psychologist Kimberley Wilson says we habitually consume a diet that is depriving our brains of nutrients — and that has all sorts of consequences for our health and well-being.

She focuses on “psychology, mental health, food, and everything in between” and I wanted to know how curiosity might fit into that mix.

There are some really interesting, very, very new associations between aspects of nutrition, food, the brain, and behavior….For instance, [research has] found you could effect someone’s sensitivity to unfairness, to social fairness, depending on what you gave them for breakfast.

Listen to Choose to Be Curious #267: Feed Your Brain, with Kimberley Wilson

Kimberley Wilson is the author of two books, How to Build a Healthy Brain: Reduce stress, anxiety and depression and future-proof your brain and Unprocessed: How the Food We Eat is Fueling our Mental Health Crisis, is host of the “Stronger Minds” podcast and has recently released an Audible Original series “Hack Your Body, Heal Your Mind”.

Learn more about nutritional psychiatry, the idea that the food that we eat might have a meaningful bearing on how we think and feel.

Here’s more on that breathtaking research on the intersection of nutrition and violence with incarcerated men. I share Kimberley’s assessment: “The idea that a cheap, accessible, low-risk intervention could meaningfully reduce violence…the idea that something as simple as nutrition (a) has been demonstrated to work, but (b) has not been implemented, continues to blow my mind.”

If your hungry mind liked this conversation, you might enjoy these C2BC Classics: Foraging: Curiosity & Dancing with Nature, with Tama Matsuoka Wong; Cultivating a Curious Palate, with Jack Zhang; and Curiosity & Brain Health, with Dr. Julie Fratantoni.

Theme music by Sean Balick; “Mind Body Mind” by Bodytonic, via Blue Dot Sessions.

You can subscribe to Choose to Be Curious on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.