How to Avoid Stress Eating and Drinking

During the Covid Pandemic, there has been a mix of stresses faced by individuals; financial stress, stress from potential job loss and, stress about the safety and health of loved ones to name a few. While for some people, work from home has been a boon and a bonus, for quite a few, that too has become a source of major stress. And being at home when stressed could also translate to easy access to food and drink! 

Stress has a serious impact on our eating patterns and appetite. The brain’s emotional control center is a small, almond-shaped region called the amygdala. This region plays a crucial role in recognizing not only one’s own emotions but also recognizing them in other people. This is also the region of the brain that is responsible for the fight or flight response when confronted with danger in living organisms.

Research carried out by Tonegawa Lab in Cambridge, MA, shows that the amygdala also demonstrates two inbuilt pathways, that drive and suppress appetite. Research from the lab reported that the region of the brain was capable of a push-pull mechanism with respect to food in response to positive and negative stimuli. Research has shown that the amygdala among other parts of the brain is implicated in the coding of rewards, memories for highly emotional events, and reward-cue-based learning and feeding. 

During exposure to acute stress, the activity of the areas of the brain responsible for functions of higher cognition, regulation of emotion, impulses, and desires is dampened, whereas the activity of the area controlling responses to stress reactivity and emotions memory is increased. The stressed-out brain expresses a strong impulse to eat and an inhibited capacity to regulate or control eating, thereby in the long run causing obesity. 

Anytime you’re feeling stressed out for any reason, the first impulse for a human being is to try and avoid the unpleasant feeling. For some, it could be work-related stress, it could be loneliness, boredom, fear; any negative emotion when felt in excess is stressful for our brains. And, working from home means you’re closer to the kitchen or your bar, and it is super easy to just go and raid the refrigerator for your favorite foods or grab a beer and avoid that uncomfortable feeling, by giving the body a food item that brings with it a pleasant memory. 

How do You Avoid Stress Eating and Drinking?

Dos

• Do keep a Food AND Mood Diary – Writing down every single thing you eat during the day is something most of us have done often. This time, start doing a food and mood diary and evaluate what sort of mood you’re in when you are 1) eating your regular meals and 2) experiencing a food craving 
• Watch your meal portions
• Eat regular meals. 
• Stay hydrated. Tea / Coffee/ Beer don't account for hydration. Drink regular water. If you don't like the taste of normal water, add slices of lemon/ orange/ basil leaves/ ginger to eat to make it more flavorful
• Stock up in advance with enough fresh fruit and veg and healthy snacks in the house.

Make sure you get some form of regular exercise. It has been shown that regular exercise decreases food cravings (Rocha et al, Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2016;41(11):1129–36) 

Don'ts

• Avoid skipping one meal only to binge on the next
• Don’t eat when you’re bored (the food mood diary will help with this one)
• Don’t keep junk food in easy reach. Easy access to junk food tests the willpower
• Avoid irregular sleep patterns. Lack of sleep has been shown to cause hormone shifts; especially in ghrelin (hunger control hormone), leptin (appetite-suppressing hormone), and cortisol (a stress hormone that increases appetite) Research shows that sleep deprivation causes an increase in cravings for fat or sugar or both! 
• Avoid drinking alcohol when stressed. Instead choose another activity that can help take your mind off things such as a walk, meditation, a simple board game with kids
• Decrease your focus on the negativity on the environment around you. Use social media wisely for uplifting the spirits by focusing on the positivity around. 

Use of EFT for Decreasing Food cravings - contact me to know more!