How A Healthy Diet With Extra Virgin Olive Oil Can Help At Work

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Pack Your Power Lunch With Polyphenols From The Best Olive Oil

Updated December 14th 2021

Extra Virgin Olive Oil On Your Work Lunch
Extra Virgin Olive Oil On Your Work Lunch

While taking time to enjoy a healthy lunch often takes second place to deadlines, opting for a midday meal packed with polyphenols could make you more productive at work. Fruits, vegetables and high quality olive oils are rich in healthful vitamins, minerals, and polyphenols.  And if there is one secret weapon that makes the very best extra virgin olive oil your work place health hero, it’s the high concentration of polyphenols in every bottle.

If a sad sandwich or fast-food meal at lunchtime is creeping into your workday, it may be time to take inspiration from the flavours of the Mediterranean – infused with healthy fats like extra virgin olive oil.

Elizabeth Klingbeil, PhD, a registered dietitian and assistant professor in the department of Nutrition & Dietetics at Johnson & Wales University-Providence, says these foods are great sources of fiber, which prevents chronic, low-grade inflammation, along with antioxidants, which prevent cell damage in our bodies.

“For optimal health, we want to focus on an overall approach for brain health that includes a healthy diet, regular activity, stress reduction and adequate sleep,”

Elizabeth Klingbeil, PhD

Providing healthy food options in the corporate setting is an effective way to get employees to stick to smart eating habits which benefits both the individual and the company.

A Mediterranean Diet With Extra Virgin Olive Oil At Its Heart

Mediterranean Diet For Health
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Stress either within the workplace or more generally is a major concern for virtually everyone, having a negative impact on behaviour, personal relationships and productivity. Even worse, chronic stress is linked to higher rates of mortality as it can lead to severe health risks, including diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, obesity and heart disease.

Researchers at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in the United States conducted a study on animals to examine whether long-term consumption of a specific diet can help in the control of stressful situations and eventually reduce the detrimental effects of stress.

“Our study showed that the Mediterranean diet shifted the balance toward the parasympathetic nervous system, which is good for health”.

Carol Shively, lead researcher

A correlation between stress and eating habits had previously been defined through observational studies. The Wake Forest study was the first long-lasting preclinical study to examine the stress-related effects of different dietary patterns in a controlled environment.

“It is very difficult to control or reduce stressors in our lives,” Carol Shively, the lead researcher of the study, said. “But we do know that we can control our diet, and previous observational studies have suggested that lower perceived stress is associated with high fruit and vegetable consumption.”

The researchers applied two different types of diet on middle-aged animals for a time period of 31 months (equivalent to nine human years). The diets applied were meticulously constructed to resemble human diets, one Western-like rich in animal protein and saturated fats and another Mediterranean-like mostly based on plant protein and fruits.

During the study, the researchers monitored the variations of the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems of the animals, which regulate body functions when in stress, as well as their adrenal gland cortisol, the main stress hormone that operates like an alarm system of the body under stressful circumstances.

The research results, published in the Neurobiology of Stress online journal, showed that the animals on the Mediterranean-like diet had the ability to better cope with stress and could also recover more easily from prolonged stressful situations compared to the animals on the Western-like diet. In advance, the aging of the animals’ sympathetic nervous system was slowed down by the Med-style diet.

The Mediterranean Diet Can Reduce Adverse Effects Of Stress

“Our study showed that the Mediterranean diet shifted the balance toward the parasympathetic nervous system, which is good for health,” Shively said. “By contrast, the Western diet increased the sympathetic response to stress, which is like having the panic button on all the time – and that isn’t healthy.”

The researchers noted that adherence to the healthy Mediterranean diet can reduce the adverse effects of stress on health, especially in populations such as the Americans, who have reported some of the highest levels of perceived stress worldwide.

“Unfortunately, Americans consume a diet rich in animal protein and saturated fat, salt and sugar, so we wanted to find out if that diet worsened the body’s response to stress compared to a Mediterranean diet, in which much of the protein and fat come from plant sources,” the researchers said.

“Our findings suggest that population-wide adoption of a Mediterranean-like diet pattern may provide a cost-effective intervention on psychological stress and promote healthy aging with the potential for widespread efficacy.”

Health Benefits Of Mediterranean Diet To Reduce Stress

Occupational wellness is about enjoying your occupational endeavours and appreciating your contributions. This dimension of wellness encourages personal satisfaction and enrichment in one’s life through work.

While many enlightened companies focus on physical activity in their corporate wellness program, they often don’t prioritize the other pieces of the wellness puzzle – nutrition.

According to the Institute for Health Metrics, poor nutrition has nearly three times the impact on health as low fitness. While more than two-thirds of the U.S. population classified as obese and 86 million Americans struggling with pre-diabetes, the need for better, more accessible nutrition education is evident. 

Eating well in the workplace can have a significant impact on overall health and well-being. Nutritious foods can improve concentration and cognitive function, boosting an employee’s workplace performance. It is well documented that employee well-being leads to higher creativity and productivity. The World Health Organization (WHO) has found that optimal nourishment can raise national productivity levels by 20%. Healthy employees are happier, calmer, more engaged, sleep better and get sick less often. 

A Healthy Mediterranean Diet Uses The Best Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Providing healthy food options in the corporate setting is an effective way to get employees to stick to smart eating habits which benefits both the individual and the company.

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