At last, there is some good news for the people, who are badly affected with stress. A recent study suggests them to eat walnuts daily to fight off stress. For a majority number of people, stress has become a part of their life and as a result, they are getting affected with various health problems as most of these are related to stress. Managing and controlling stress is also quite a difficult task, when you have to face stressful situations in every alternate hours of the day. When this report says that eating walnuts curbs stress, you can try your best to be stress-free with a pack of walnuts from this week onwards.

Walnuts are normally known as the best source of protein from plant. But, other than this, they are also rich in B vitamins, magnesium, dietary fibers and vitamin E, a type of antioxidant. It also provides the good fat or the omega-3 fatty acids, which helps in reducing the bad or LDL cholesterol. Moreover, this recent study has proved that the alpha linolenic acid, which is a type of polyunsaturated fat, can also help to control the blood pressure from increasing, in stress-free as well as stressful situations.

The study was conducted by a group of researchers from the Pennsylvania State University over 22 healthy adults having high level of LDL or bad cholesterol. The participants were studied for three different diet plans, where each diet plans were scheduled for 6 weeks. The three different diet plans were of same amount of fat and protein constituting same calories and they were – a normal American diet without nuts; a similar kind of diet with 1.3 oz walnuts and a tablespoon of walnut oil substituting certain part of the fat and protein count; and a diet with more walnuts, walnut oil and 1 ½ tablespoon flax seed oil.

The result showed that there is a substantial improvement in the cholesterol side for the people, who had more walnuts. Their LDL or bad cholesterol level dropped and simultaneously, they had a significant control over their blood pressure. The participants were made to face stressful situations as they were asked to deliver speech within a short notice of 2 minutes. They were also asked to submerge their one foot into ice-cold water. Their blood pressure and other psychological symptoms were noted during both of these stressful conditions. The outcome came to be quite surprising as the people under walnut diet showed better response in lowering blood pressure at resting and at stressing situations.

The study author Sheila G. West, PhD, mentions in a news release, "People who show an exaggerated biological response to stress are at higher risk of heart disease. We wanted to find out if omega 3-fatty acids from plant sources would blunt cardiovascular responses to stress."

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