When it's been a particularly stressful day at work, even the thought of making dinner can be overwhelming. We've all been there, where the last thing you want to think about is cooking and doing the dishes; we'd rather kick back on the couch with our favorite comfort food and just relax and unwind.
For some it may take a more stressful scenario than the one described, or maybe the stress has to be experienced over a longer period of time, but many of us will turn to food at one time or another to help us cope. This isn't a totally surprising reaction.
Food, especially comfort foods, tend to be rewarding. Comfort foods are typically high in fat and sugar, which are naturally rewarding to our brains. But comfort foods can also elicit strong emotions and memories, like being with our friends and family, which may take us back to "better times," helping us to cope with strong negative feelings.
Recently, a paper from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Australia has been making the rounds in the media. A research team found that the lateral habenula, a region of the brain that integrates reward response, may play a role in stress-related eating. The researchers found that this region of the brain didn't seem to dampen the reward response to food like it should. While interesting, there are two important aspects of the study that we should note. The first is that the subjects were mice, not humans. The second is that the effect of stress was seen only in the mice consuming a high-fat diet.
The human brain does have the lateral habenula, however, and the majority of US residents also consume high-fat diets, so while evidence in mice isn't necessarily directly translatable to humans, it does raise the question of whether a similar mechanism could be at play in people.
Although little is known about the lateral habenula, we do know that the brain is involved in our body's stress response. This might be because experiencing stress can lead to increased activity of reward areas of the brain while reducing the effectiveness of control areas.
Over time this can lead to a particularly bad feedback loop which may drive excessive overeating. At the same time, we're less likely to summon the self-control to stop ourselves, resulting in weight gain in some individuals. When the brain experiences stress, it signals the release of hormones, some of which influence appetite and weight. One of these is cortisol, which is likely to lead to increased food intake. Another, insulin, signals the body to store energy as fat.
Stressors can be physical (eg, rolling your ankle or undergoing surgery), physiologic (eg, participating in exercise or having a restricted diet), psychological (eg, dealing with anxiety or depression), or social (eg, navigating relationships with family or at work). Stressors can vary in their strength and length, and that is likely to affect how we respond to them.
Some studies have shown that short-term stress — for example, having to meet a deadline — can lead to reduced food intake. But longer-term stressors, like working every day in a toxic workplace, may lead to increased food intake. Our responses to these different stressors can also vary. Factors like personality, body weight, diet, sleep, chronic levels of stress, and many others may change how one responds to a stressor. It's estimated that 40% of people will increase their food intake when exposed to a specific stressor, while 40% will decrease their intake and 20% won't change it. For example, people with higher body weight tend to eat more in response to stress than those with lower body weight, and those trying to stick to strict diets also seem to increase their food intake more than nondieters in stressful situations.
Most comfort foods are classified as convenience, or ultraprocessed, ready-to-eat meals, which means they take less effort to prepare. While it may be fine to indulge in these types of foods occasionally to deal with stress in the short term, if they are repeatedly eaten over a long period of time they are likely to lead to increased weight gain.
Helping patients deal or cope with stressors without turning to food is a potential way to affect weight outcomes without having to directly address weight or eating. Ways to help patients deal with stress may include:
· Encourage exercising, which can be as simple as walking 30 minutes a day
· Focus on improving sleep, practicing structured nighttime routines and sleep hygiene
· Suggest relaxation activities such as mediation or yoga
· Encourage them to address work and personal relationship stresses; this may include referring to a trained psychologist or therapist to address larger issues
· Refer patients to a trained dietitian to address dietary issues and discuss stress-eating in more detail
Overall, it appears that managing stress can help people build better relationships with both food and health, whether or not the lateral habenula is involved.
Any opinions, views and beliefs represented in this article are personal and belong solely to the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the opinion, views and beliefs of the organisation and employees of New Image™ International
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