Food is one of the most popular ways to feed emotions. Food can give us pleasure, and when it is laden with sugar, salt, fat—then even more. It is one of the quickest ways to numb our emotions and temporarily make us forget about our worries. But does it serve us, in the long run? No. In fact, it’s one of the most damaging habits.
Why does it happen?
Seeking comfort from food mostly stems from an unhealthy relationship with it. When we equate food with comfort, our brain knows what we must reach out for while going through a low phase emotionally. Instead, we must treat food as a source of nourishment. We must eat it to power our body with real nutrition and energy.
When we are stressed, we start to deplete the feel-good neurotransmitters in our body, like endorphin, serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. Thus, we are more driven towards foods that are laden with sugar, salt, fat because they help release the same chemicals. Stress amplifies the reward centre of our brain—which is why we feel extremely good when we eat an ice-cream on days, we feel low. Our brain then saves this feeling like memory and reminds us to reach out for something sugary every time we feel that way. Sugar lights up our brain activity as much as a psychoactive drug.
Stress cuts off the oxygen supply to our brain, lessening our ability to make wise decisions and choices towards food. With stress comes lack of sleep, fatigue, grogginess making it easier for us to reach out for quick fixes like sugar, salt, caffeine and alcohol. Chronic stress is also known to cause gut dysbiosis—an imbalance in the good and bad microbes in the gut. More the bad microbes, the more our body craves sugar since the bad bacteria need sugar as fuel to survive. So, unexplained cravings could sometimes just mean bad bacteria overgrowth in the gut.
Lastly, stress can also create an imbalance between hunger hormones namely leptin and ghrelin. Leptin (a hormone responsible for satiety) rises and ghrelin (a hormone responsible for hunger) drops during stress and that can make us overeat.
Why is emotional eating bad?
Food may make us feel good when we are going through a stressful period, however, it can get us in a vicious cycle of stress—bingeing. In a nutshell, stress leads to bingeing on junk and processed food which further leads to feeling guilty and then eating more junk and then feeling stressed. When we are stressed, our cortisol levels shoot up. Cortisol level is a fat-storing hormone and thus foods that we eat during stress can easily make us gain weight. We are better off not eating anything when we are stressed because it messes up with our digestive system.
What is the solution?
A change in mindset in the relationship with food can solve all the above issues. People misinterpret certain food items as “comfort food”. While certain foods do contain compounds and active ingredients that can help to alleviate stress, for example: magnesium-rich foods can help induce calm and relaxation, the problem arises when we turn towards unhealthy foods to numb our emotions.
If you are emotionally low, do something that feeds your soul, not your body. If you are bored, fill your time with an activity that involves your body and mind. Exercise, lovemaking, sleep, a hug, meditation release the same feel-good hormones that sugary and fatty foods do, but we often fail to adopt these healthier ways and choose negative behaviours instead.
The author is a Mumbai-based holistic lifestyle coach