The surprising connection between stress, food anxiety and eating
Many people feel stressed all the time. After all, there seems to be a continuous parade of reasons to worry. But most of the women I work with have an additional stress load when it comes to food. A cluttered headspace with continuous thoughts about what their eating is not uncommon. “What should I eat?” “Will I gain weight with this?” “Now I’ve really blown it.” are all the kinds of thoughts that create anxiety and stress around food.
If this resonates with you, it’s worth contemplating whether that additional stress outweighs any benefits of the food you chose to eat.
What happens within our body when we are stressed?
The brain still reacts to stress today as it did in the days when we were still roaming the savannah. Humans that encountered a predator had two options: to run or to fight. Stress hormones cause blood sugar to rise, providing the energy required for physical exertion. At the same time, they widen the airways, your heart beats faster and increases blood pressure to transport sugar and oxygen to the muscles of the extremities, which need them most right now.
To ensure an adequate supply to the muscles, blood is temporarily withdrawn from other areas, such as the digestive tract or the reproductive system.
From an evolutionary point of view, the physical stress response is perfectly designed to put the body on alert in case of imminent danger and to mobilise the energy required to escape. But the key here is that these are meant to be temporary measures.
But if acute stress persists, the systems become exhausted, the counter-regulation fails, and the body is in a permanent state of activation. In addition to adrenaline, which impairs your ability to rest, large amounts of cortisol keep circulating in the blood.
Cortisol suppresses immune reactions in the body, and constant stress costs uses a great deal of energy, resulting in a permanent lack of it.
The stressors modern life has in store for you are rarely of the kind that requires you to run or fight. However, worry can trigger the stress response just as if the thing you are worrying about is actually happening.
The unfortunate relationship between stress and eating
Earlier I mentioned how the digestive system does not work at its best when we are experiencing a stress response. Blood and energy is diverted away from the gut which affects how we break down, absorb and digest our food. If you are constantly anxious around food and experience symptoms such as bloating, the stress response may also be playing a role here. Furthermore, eating because you are stressed often results in mindless eating – where you are completely disconnected from your appetite cues and more likely to overeat or binge.
So what can you do about it?
Start by taking some deep breaths to get yourself into the rest and digest state. Engage in eating mindfully – avoid having meals and snacks in front of the TV, your phone or computer or when on the go. Sit at a table, take your time, chew properly. This will allow time for signals from the senses to get to the brain and stimulate production of digestive enzymes and muscular contractions before the food arrives. Increase awareness and listening to your body whilst eating. This can impact your eating behaviour, improve how you metabolise your food and help with digestive problems.