Can eating eggs lower your stress or anxiety?

If you’re deficient in the 9 amino acids that can be found in egg protein, it can have mental effects. A 2004 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences described how supplementing a population’s diet with lysine significantly reduced anxiety and stress levels, possibly by modulating serotonin in the nervous system.

Lysine is an essential amino acid that your body can’t produce on its own and you must get it through your diet. Eggs are one of the top food sources rich in lysine, containing 455 milligrams of lysine per whole large fried egg. The World Health Organization’s daily requirement for lysine is 30 mg/kg. So, for a 70 kilogram, or 154-pound person, one egg would serve 22% of your recommended daily intake of the essential amino acid.