from Huffington Post

While many people use food as a way to cope with a range of emotions, too often when faced with stressful scenarios, we’re reaching for high-calorieand fat-laden disasters.

Usually when we talk about stress eating, we’re warning you against using food to squash unpleasant feelings.

While many people use food as a way to cope with a range of emotions, too often when faced with stressful scenarios, we’re reaching for high-calorieand fat-laden disasters. The foods we usually choose to stress eat lead to higher levels of feel-good brain chemical serotonin and, at least temporarily, make us think we’re beating the blues.

But searching for solace at the bottom of a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, can, for obvious reasons, lead to weight gain, which is likely to only cause more stress.  These seven healthy picks have natural stress-reducing powers of their own.

Tea

Unlike coffee, tea has a reputation as a sip meant for sleepytime. And while there is some caffeine in certain types of tea, both black and green varieties can help you relax. Green tea contains an amino acid called theanine, which has been linked to reducing anxiety and promoting sleep. And a 2006 study found that black tea drinkers were both quicker to de-stress and less stressed in general than people given a tea substitute, WebMD reported.