Beyond the Sugar Rush

A day loved by all, celebrated on the 7th of July every year, World Chocolate Day is always a great time to indulge in some cravings and soothe your sweet tooth! On this day, you get to pamper yourself with the rich aroma and the oh-so-creamy flavour of one of the things loved by all. While chocolate is seen as the ultimate happy treat for everyone, it is also known as the perfect stress buster! But with the passing of World Chocolate Day, there’s an important question for us left to answer.

Does Chocolate really help release stress?

Chocolate, most commonly dark chocolate, is known to help release feelings of stress, tension, and fear through its positive impact on brain chemistry. This is where things get a little interesting, too. Dark chocolate consists of special compounds like flavonoids that are rich in antioxidant properties. Along with this, your favourite indulgence, also consists of a mild stimulant called Theobromine. All of these players get together to help alleviate stress and improve your mood by increasing blood flow into the brain. They also promote the release of the happy hormones, aka, serotonin and endorphins.

There’s also a dark truth behind dark chocolate

While dark chocolate helps release the happy hormones, reduces cortisol and contains magnesium, there’s also another side to this scientific truth that we may not be able to see. The amount of serotonin molecules that you earn after eating quite an enormous amount of dark chocolate is super less. These little bubbles of endorphins too create short spams of dopamine, and don’t help in keeping your mood swings stable the whole day. In fact, while dark chocolate helps in calming down levels of light stress, its effects on other issues like hypertension and anxiety are negligible.

At the same time, to see any stress-busting effects and happy symptoms solely from the consumption of dark chocolate, you may need to devour heavy amounts of it, and that too, on a daily basis. To give you a perspective, a 100-gram bar of dark chocolate consists of 600-700 calories, and this may shoot up depending on the amount of sugar and preservatives used.

Eating such an amount of chocolate on a daily basis may not be the best choice for your body, both in terms of the ingredients and the calories. So, one might end up hogging up tons of sugar and spiking their glucose levels in trade of almost no happiness. And let’s not even get to the weight gain and cacao addiction that may cause, because we all know it only goes bad from here.

In such a case the best way to alleviate stress and truly have a happy time, is to look for some healthy alternatives. Here are the best ones to try out!

 Healthy Alternatives to Manage Stress Effectively

All of us, collectively, need to chill a little bit more – take a break from the deadlines, the tasks, and the everyday hustle. Currently, most of our mechanisms to relieve stress are again either time-consuming or like chocolate, don’t fall under the ‘oh so healthy’ category. Here are a couple steps to get started with. Remember that getting rid of the stress factor is a work in progress and doesn’t happen overnight. Take the road to discipline and watch the magic happen by incorporating these easy stress reducing steps in your life to delete all the tension:

– Start your day and end your day with affirmations

The way you speak to yourself makes all the difference. Start and end your day by spending 5-7 minutes in front of the mirror and affirming the best about yourself. To start with, repeat the affirmation “I love myself and I trust the process of life. I am safe.” Say this to yourself 10 times in the morning and night and watch the magic unfold

– Journal your thoughts

Anxiety and stress are problems that arise from overthinking. The best way to control that is to pen down all your thoughts. This helps in providing you the much-needed clarity so you can separate your thoughts from your feelings and work towards taking measures that uplift your mood

– Incorporate mindfulness and other breathing exercises

Yoga and mindfulness have been known to alleviate stress for centuries. Add a 15-30 min yoga and breathing regime in your day-to-day routine and dedicate that time solely to yourself. Put more thought into every task throughout the day and try to be more mindfully present

– Yummy supplements: Not all stress buster foods are bad!

For example, three60 De-Stress & Chill Gummies are clinically studied and are here to swoop all your gloomies away! They are also non-habit forming, with no added sugar, no known side effects, no drug interaction, no artificial colour and no heavy metals. They are thoughtfully formulated by experts to manage your cortisol levels, mood swings and keep that buzzing anxiety under check – what’s more is they start working in just 30 minutes!

Three60 De-Stress & Chill Gummies are made with clinically proven dosages of award-winning ingredients such as KSM-66 Ashwagandha and Safr’Inside (Saffron) along with lavender which work together to calm your mind and swap hypertension for a stress-free life.

With complete research and synergistic ingredients, these gummies are all you need to whiff a sigh of relief (quite literally)!

Summing up

So, with the indulgence of World Chocolate Day coming to an end, it’s time to leave the unhealthy habits in the past; and that includes saying goodbye to hogging dark chocolate for stress busting also. Follow these steps to welcome a healthier tomorrow for yourself and all your loved ones, because taking care of your health is the biggest gift you can ever give to anyone! Take the chill pill and make an easy move to the healthier and happier version of yourself with three60 De-Stress & Chill Gummies!

(A marketing initiative by Open Avenues)

About The Author

Dr. Kriti Soni

Dr. Kriti Soni is a pharmaceutical scientist specialising in developing drug delivery systems and natural products