WHY WE STRESS EAT: A PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE, NOT A WILLPOWER PROBLEM
WHAT DOES STRESS HAVE TO DO WITH OUR NUTRITION, ANYWAY?
One of the questions in our clients’ weekly check-ins asks them about their sleep and stress levels from the past week. Sometimes this may seem like a throwaway question, but the reality is that stress can have a huge impact on our nutrition.
Managing our stress levels can feel like a nebulous concept, and a lot of the information and advice I ran into while doing a deep dive into how stress impacts our eating wasn’t really helpful in a practical way.
I believe it can be really helpful to understand what our body’s physiological response to stress looks like and how it relates to food (including digging into why stress eating can feel so good). From there, we can get into a few practical exercises to help manage our physiological response to stress to help interrupt the physical urge to stress eat.
STRESS IN OUR BODIES
You may already be familiar with the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), or the body’s “Fight or Flight” system. Your SNS is what is activated when you feel stressed out.
The parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS), or the “Rest and Digest” system, is what is active when you feel relaxed.
Both are a part of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which is responsible for regulating a lot of unconscious processes in our bodies -- including heart rate, respiratory rate, and digestion.
WHY STRESS EATING HAPPENS
I know this may be getting a little complicated already, but bear with me a moment here. We are getting to the good stuff:
When you’ve had a long, stressful day, your SNS has been active that entire time. Maybe that has been apparent through an elevated heart rate, feeling anxiety, or a wonky appetite.
When you sit down and have dinner at the end of that day, your PSNS becomes activated to tell your body it’s time to slow down a bit so you can digest your food, including slowing your respiratory and heart rates. This can feel really, really good because your body is literally lowering your stress levels - possibly for the first time all day. Even if you don’t feel physically hungry, it may be hard to stop eating because of that physiological response relieving your stress.
To add another curveball, cortisol (a stress hormone) is often associated with an increased desire for foods that make our brains release larger amounts of dopamine (a feel-good hormone). When our cortisol levels are extra high, foods that are high in sugar and/or fat are particularly good at creating a dopamine response. Research has shown that our brains release more dopamine when we eat food we really, really like. Those foods are generally hyper-palatable, high-reward foods.
Long story short: Stress eating is not a willpower problem. It’s a physiological response.
HOW WE CAN ADDRESS STRESS EATING
The good news is that you can activate your PSNS intentionally, and you can do so fairly quickly. A lot of these practices work by stimulating your vagus nerve, which is located at the base of your cranium and connects to systems all over your body. Here are a few methods you can try to immediately lower your stress response:
Deep, slow, rhythmic breathing or belly breathing. I like to use a visual guide to help me breathe in a slow tempo
Humming or singing
Gargling (yes, gargling!). Bonus points for making a humming noise while you gargle.
Splashing or submerging your face in cold water.
Talking rhythmically and slowly, as though you are soothing a child or a pet (this is called prosody)
Taking a short walk outside
Instead of coming home after a long, stressful day at work and heading right for the pantry, try using some of these methods before you have a meal or snack when you’re feeling stressed. Additionally, try to make sure you’re managing your hunger levels throughout the day to avoid becoming simultaneously over-stressed and over-hungry, both of which can make it harder to make decisions that are aligned with your goals.
Sure, pre-measuring your snacks or planning your meals may be a good strategy most of the time, but it doesn’t really address the root of why we may have the urge to overeat or to eat certain foods in response to emotional triggers.
That means we may still end up relying on a dwindling supply of willpower, which can only hold out so long when we have a lot of stress. As my husband once elegantly said, “it’s just harder to eat grilled chicken breast when you’re upset.” So instead of making yourself stress-eat chicken breast anyway, work on bringing those stress levels down to make everything (including eating for your goals) a little easier.
Emotional eating is very real and very reasonable - life is emotional! Read more in this post on how to enjoy an intentional meal, or get our free guide to Intentional Eating that includes a great worksheet that helps you better enjoy a mindful meal.