Dark Chocolate Proven To Enhance Mood

A recent study done in Australia shows that dark chocolate can boost one’s mood via giving calmness and a sense of contentment. How is that even possible? It all lies in the polyphenols that cocoa is packed with.

Naturally, polyphenols are abundant in plants and almost always included in the human diet. These compounds are known to decrease oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is linked to a lot of diseases. More to these, polyphenols allegedky have outstanding psychological effects.

“Anecdotally, chocolate is often linked to mood enhancement,” Matthew Pase, a PhD candidate at the University of Swineburne in Melbourne and lead author of the study, claims. “This clinical trial is perhaps the first to scientifically demonstrate the positive effects of cocoa polyphenols on mood.”

This study was based on a randomized study which involved 72 healthy men and women aged 40-65 years. Each participant was given a dark chocolate drink mix standardized to have either 500mg of cocoa polyphenols, 250mg of cocoa polyphenols or none.

These people were then given the drink mixes in the same packaging for the investigators and participants to be unaware of which treatment they were being provided with. They drank their assigned drink once a day for 30 consecutive days.

30 days following this, those who got the high dose concentration of cocoa polyphenols said they had much more calmness and contentedness than the one who got either of the other drink mixes.

The researchers didn’t come up with any evidence that cocoa polyphenols hugely enhanced cognitive performance, though. Only participants who ingested the highest amount of polyphenols reported any remarkable or drastic positive effects. Those who were given a moderate amount (250 mg a day) claimed to have no dramatic effects.

Everybody gets stressed out at one point or another. It’s typical because of our job, but it could be for other personal reasons, too. Chocolate never fails to help some people. How about you? How do you take all the stress away?