Drink 200 ml milk or lime juice and eat a banana a day to beat the occupational stress

Syed Akbar
Hyderabad:  As stress is now increasingly blamed on spurt in
cardiac and brain problems, Indian nutritionists have found a natural
way of beating stress, particularly the one linked to occupation.
Drink 200 ml of lime juice or milk or eat a banana everyday for three
months and your occupational stress level will come down by 40 per
cent, they suggest.

Stress is a psychological and physiological response to the events
that upset one’s personal balance. Consuming select foods will not
only help in busting the stress to a large extent, but also improve
the iron content in the blood.

Nutritionists R Usharani and UK Lakshmi from the department of food
science and nutrition, Avinashlingam Institute for Home Science and
Higher Education for Women, Coimbatore, in their presentation at the
city-based National Institute of Nutrition pointed out that a person
with a stress score of 230 (on the occupational stress index) would
lose as much as 99.9 score by drinking about 200 ml of lime juice
everyday. The score will come down by 73 if the person takes 200 ml of
milk daily. The result in case of eating a banana a day is lower of
the score by 98 points.

The researchers selected four groups of women employed in an industry
and their occupational stress index was measured at 230. The group
that had the lime juice gained the maximum benefit, followed by those
who ate banana. Those who consumed milk daily too successfully busted
their stress levels, but to a lesser extent. The dietary supplement
was given to the groups for 90 days. At the end of the study, the
stress levels were measured. Those who did not consume any of these
three foods had elevated stress levels. The haemoglobin content
increased, making them less anaemic.

“Haemoglobin levels of all the groups, which had taken milk, lime
juice or banana, had increased. In case of lime juice, the increase in
iron content in the blood was by 1.3 grams per decilitre. The figures
for those who had milk and banana are one gram and 1.1 gram per
deciliter respectively. Incidentally, those who did not have any of
these foods showed a significant reduction in their haemoglobin
levels,” they said.