Why do I Eat when I'm Stressed

00:04 - 00:38 Speaker 1: Life can be really hard at times, and the body a really painful place. It can be a place of fear, distress, care, scarcity, sorrow, pain and even loss. All of these bear a heavy burden on the human spirit. In the pursuit of solace, many of us turn to a seemingly comfortable companion, food. In today's episode, we're going to delve into the intricate relationship between stress and our eating habits.

00:38 - 01:41 Speaker 1: We'll explore the depths of emotional connections to food and unravel the physiological mechanisms at play here and discover evidence-based strategies to navigate the turbulent waters of stress-induced eating. It's time to understand why we eat when we're stressed and more importantly know how we can break free from this cycle. So welcome to your continued journey of self-discovery and empowerment. I'll never forget this. Following a tumultuous year, filled with this string of a relationship breakup, the heartache of my first pregnancy loss, and this disorientating fog of losing my sense of direction in life yet again, I made this really bold decision.

01:42 - 02:26 Speaker 1: I was gonna leave my job and move from my role running 1 of Australia's prestige women's health clubs and embark on a solo journey around Australia. Yep, me and my trusty Corolla, that was it. In the aftermath of these profound losses, I really sought solace and I needed to rediscover myself and sense of purpose. I needed a little place to heal and reconnect and find my way again. I wanted to focus on me and my health instead of the health and wellness of the 2,000 health club members that I actually felt responsible for.

02:26 - 03:17 Speaker 1: Now traveling alone, it sounds really glamorous to some, yet the aloneness can it can have this really deafening void that amplifies the relentless inner chatter. While striving on my own, kilometre after kilometre, and in the midst of awe-inspiring landscapes, This internal dialogue turns into this discord of self-doubt, haunting reflections, and this distressing sense of isolation. I used food to self-soothe. I used food to dampen the intensity of my discomfort. I use food as this momentary escape to suppress the grip of overwhelming waves of painful emotion and the untethered sensation in my body that accompanies that emotion.

03:17 - 03:32 Speaker 1: So this particular day I was driving through the colorful countryside of Tasmania, Australia when I hit a proverbial wall. I was emotionally exhausted and I was done. I was done. I was done with crying. I was done with feeling.

03:32 - 04:00 Speaker 1: I was done just screaming to music that was turned up to this offensive level. I was done. I stopped at the next food outlet that I came along and it kind of looked like If the health authorities checked it out, it would be closed down. It was like this little fish and chip shop at the side of the road. I went in and I ordered a battered fish burger, chips and a few potato scallops, sat in my car and absolutely inhaled them.

04:02 - 04:21 Speaker 1: Sweet relief. Fat, salt, and carbohydrate. Connections of comfort. I enjoyed it, and it shifted my state for a moment. Then I just got on with feeling the discomfort that I'm actually used to.

04:21 - 04:42 Speaker 1: The discomfort that I can control. The guilt, the shame and this disgust in myself for eating fried food. For eating food that I knew better not to. The thing was, these feelings, although uncomfortable, they were also familiar. And I was like totally okay with that.

04:42 - 05:25 Speaker 1: It feels safer to have Familiar uncomfortableness than unfamiliar uncomfortableness. Because you see, we all make decisions based on what we consciously or even unconsciously will assume give us more advantage over disadvantage at any given moment. We see food as this welcome relief because many of us don't have any other momentary, viable alternatives to balance the holds of stress or dampen the grips of emotional discomfort. We just want to check out for a while in the land of saturated satiation. Give me that over stress.

05:25 - 06:09 Speaker 1: Now, even though we consciously know that overeating or gorging on processed food is toxic, in those moments it becomes our tonic. The toxic becomes a tonic and the brain links that emotional and chemical connection of comfort and pleasure to the food that we're consuming. Now, each time we do this, each time we repeat this behavior, the stress strategy that you've come up with, it becomes reinforced. Our reward centers in our brain light up like the night sky on the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve. Now, I was and I actually still am 1 of those annoying kids.

06:09 - 06:25 Speaker 1: And now people that, you know, I want to know why. Like, why do we do this? Why does this happen? Why against all of our learning and knowledge and knowing what to eat and what's healthy and what's not? Why do we keep coming back to these foods?

06:25 - 07:02 Speaker 1: And why do we keep repeating these behaviours that we know are holding us back? So let's just take a look at the mechanisms at play here, some of the physiology or the biology of what's going on. So biological factors, they really play this key role in stress-induced eating and it involves hormonal changes and brain responses to the craving and the reward of what's going on. So let's just look at the hormonal changes going on first. So stress, we all know, releases cortisol.

07:02 - 07:32 Speaker 1: Cortisol is a hormone associated with the body's fight or flight response. Now there's many hormones at play here and they all work as a symphony, but I'm gonna keep this as simple as possible. So elevated cortisol levels, they really can increase appetite, especially for high calorie and comfort foods. So stress also stimulates the production of ghrelin. Now ghrelin is sometimes referred to as the hunger hormone.

07:32 - 08:13 Speaker 1: Now elevated hunger hormones, ghrelin, may contribute to an increased desire for food during these stressful situations. Now what also happens here is stress also decreases leptin. And this is another hormone associated with eating, but this time leptin is the hormone that actually signals that you're full. So let's repeat that. Stress can increase ghrelin, the hunger hormone, because the body needs some extra fuel to aid the process of the stress response, and it decreases leptin, the hormone that signals satiety.

08:14 - 08:54 Speaker 1: There we have the perfect mix of overeating. Stress also influences insulin levels through the same fight flight activation pathways that fight or flight governed by the release of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Now we're going to take a little bit of a look at how they all work together. When stress occurs, cortisol is released from the adrenal glands, prompting the liver to produce glucose. Now this surge in glucose is part of the body's preparation for this quick energy mobilisation in response to whatever the perceived threat is.

08:54 - 09:51 Speaker 1: To manage this increased glucose, insulin is released from the pancreas to facilitate the uptake of glucose in our cells. Now, that is all well and good if the perceived threat is some sort of growling pit bull terrier that you need. The energy from the glucose release and the insulin delivering it to the cells to hightail it out of there as fast as you can, which is the flight response. Or some angry Karen comes wielding fists at you claiming that she had her hands on that Boxing Day bargain you've just squirreled into your trolley and you have to defend yourself from her kung fu cross grappling strikes. But if you're sitting in traffic or at your desk or changing your kid's nappy or scrolling on the socials when stress levels spike, then you're probably not going to be able to utilize that rise in blood sugar.

09:51 - 10:38 Speaker 1: How low elevated blood sugar levels. This is why prolonged elevation of cortisol, as seen in chronic stress situations, they can actually lead to insulin resistance. In insulin resistance, the cells become less responsive to insulin signaling and glucose uptake becomes less efficient. This can result in elevated blood sugar levels and over time can contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes. Now I go way further into the explanation of this and how it works and how to overcome it in my online program, Mindful Eating Mindset and Metabolism Mastery.

10:39 - 11:23 Speaker 1: Okay, so now let's look at some of or 1 of the brain responses to stress. Firstly, the amygdala activation. Now the amygdala is a region in the brain that is associated amongst other things with emotion. Now, when we're stressed, we're basically kicked out of our higher mind logical thinking, which is our cognitive function, sometimes called the executive center or systems to thinking and into this reactive emotional state, which is a lower brain state. So rather than a measured response, we basically just go on autopilot and start reacting to the world around us.

11:24 - 11:57 Speaker 1: Now, the amygdala drives you to seek support of that which supports survival or comfort while actively steering you away from that which challenges your survival or discomfort. Now this part of the brain is activated by your mere perception of challenge or support, or threat or pleasure. Okay? Your mere perception of challenge or support. It could be your boss walking past your office and looking at you in a weird way.

11:57 - 12:36 Speaker 1: And you think, oh my gosh, I heard there's gonna be pay cuts. Why is my boss looking at me in a weird way? I reckon I'm on the list Right. So this is just a mere perception and story that you've told yourself but your body will believe that story, your body, your somatic sense, and you feel that, and this is the stress response in action, right? We can also take a look at these mechanisms in context to yoga and Buddhism as what we call avoidance or attachment.

12:36 - 13:14 Speaker 1: Now we want to avoid pain and attach ourselves to pleasure. It's a mere human response to life. The problem is the food landscape has dramatically changed over the past 40 years with the introduction of highly palatable also known as ultra processed foods. In the book by Chris Tullican, Ultra-Processed People, ultra-processed food is described as an industrially produced edible substance. So not actually food itself, right?

13:14 - 14:28 Speaker 1: It's an industrially produced edible substance. Processes and ingredients used to manufacture ultra-processed foods are designed to create highly profitable, low-cost ingredients and long shelf life, convenient, ready-to-consume, hyper-palatable products. When we look at our craving and reward system, these highly palatable and profitable to food manufacturers foods, when consumed send out dopamine levels soaring, creating a neurochemical response that reinforces the desire for these highly palatable and often commercially successful foods. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and hormone associated with the anticipation of pleasure and reward and pleasure and reward itself. Now consuming certain foods, especially those high in sugar, salt and fat, can further activate the brain's reward system, reinforcing the link between stress relief and specific food choices.

14:29 - 15:25 Speaker 1: So we're literally hooked. And as I said earlier the toxic becomes a tonic When we stress we rarely feel like a pun of the strawberries or a carrot, right? We always tend to go for these highly processed and hyper palatable foods I don't know about you but for me, it's like the chocolate or the ice cream or the pizza and for a lot of people, the chips or the dips, whatever it is. So eating these comfort foods increases dopamine, reinforcing the reward system and also releases amongst other things endorphins, providing this sense of pleasure and comfort in the moment. Now This release of endorphins continues to provide positive reinforcement and contributes to the ongoing tendency to use food as a coping mechanism.

15:26 - 16:38 Speaker 1: Understanding these biological mechanisms really helps to shed light on why stress often leads to specific food preferences and increased consumption. Now we're going to look at what to do now that we've learned to understand ourselves a little bit better and why it isn't just all about willpower or sometimes, you know, I like to refer to it as won't power, but we needed to really look at these mechanisms in the context of what is it doing at a biological level. So delving into strategies to manage stress and promote overall wellbeing is really crucial in breaking the cycle of stress-induced eating. Developing a toolbox of alternate coping strategies is also key to steering you away from food-based coping and towards healthier, viable alternatives. Now, another important step is to really identify your eating triggers.

16:38 - 17:29 Speaker 1: So we know stress in general, but what is triggering the stress itself? You can do this by reflection or working with somebody who understands this. Now let's look at some other viable alternatives. Mindful eating can really assist people in this whole process as 1 of the first steps to the mindful eating cascade, which is a 7 step system that I've created to help people understand themselves better, their eating triggers and enjoy food even more, is to just stop and check in with yourself and really ask yourself, am I actually hungry? If not, then we can start to delve a little bit deeper and question ourselves about why are we reaching for food right now?

17:29 - 18:03 Speaker 1: And then we can move towards and through the eating triggers checklist. We all know that mindfulness and mindfulness practices can also help us with managing stress in general and has also proven to help with nervous system injuries such as post-traumatic stress. Okay, so then there's another 1 which we've all heard before. Exercise and movement can be a really great way to release endorphins and manage stress. Now, I always say as long as you're participating in something you enjoy doing, you're actually more likely to do it.

18:03 - 18:46 Speaker 1: Finding a way you like to move or a place you like to go or a particular exercise, whatever it is for you, that you enjoy doing to help balance your stress can really help. Calming and coping breath techniques have also been proven to help individuals calm down that stress response. Now I love these because they can be done in the moment. You don't need anything special or breathing, right? You just need to know what to do to change your breath to, I don't even like to use that word, hack your nervous system, but I'm going to explain that the breath is sometimes referred to as a bridge to the nervous system.

18:46 - 19:12 Speaker 1: So manipulating the breath can really help to balance the nervous system. This is why the military are using many of these techniques because they have now been proven to work thanks to research. Thanks guys and women who are doing all of this research show calming and coping breath techniques. Also somatic movement and somatic sensing can help. I don't like to leave you guys hanging, so I have a free trial available.

19:12 - 19:46 Speaker 1: I'll put the link in the show notes of my Radiant Relaxation Online Program. This Radiant Relaxation Program is really to help people let stress melt away and a sense of calm and peacefulness flow in. Now the whole program consists of 18 short yet impactful practices for a balanced more nourishing life. There's breath techniques, there's mind and also body techniques. Now I have a free trial which includes 5 different practices.

19:47 - 20:21 Speaker 1: So if you go to my website on the homepage, everydayinspiration.co, so everydayinspiration.co, and scroll down about halfway, it'll just say free Radiant Relaxation five-day mini course. So you can grab that. I'll also put the link in the show notes. But if you're truly serious about unraveling the grips and behavior of stress eating, you might like to consider purchasing the whole Radiant Relaxation Program and the Mindful eating mindset and metabolism mastery course. Now we all know how to count calories, right?

20:21 - 21:09 Speaker 1: It's a no brainer, but most of us have never learned to cope with life and manage our stress in a healthy way. Now, instead we compound the negative effects of stress with food that takes away our energy and our vitality even further. Now, if you're a stress eater, know that it's actually not your fault. This behavior was probably modeled to you by adults in your life or encouraged by media and advertising. We don't live in a culture, well maybe we do now, but many of us haven't grown up in a culture where these stress balancing practices were even taught or readily available.

21:09 - 21:32 Speaker 1: And I know me, I'm at the time of recording this, I'm 45. So I didn't have the internet until I was in my mid-20s, right? Not like we do today. Now, just as a side note, it's also important, I think, to add that some people, when stressed, actually lose their appetite. So, they stop eating.

21:32 - 22:15 Speaker 1: They don't want to eat. Or I've known people in the past that they don't feel like eating, so they just drink Diet Coke or Coke or drink coffee because they still kind of feel like they need that energy boost. So, this reaction can also over time impede our health, whether it's our mind or body health. It's all about striking this elusive balance of understanding, you know, wisdom and being able to take knowledgeable action moving forward. So let's take a few moments, I encourage you to take a gentle breath and reflect.

22:18 - 23:02 Speaker 1: You might like to consider any insights you've gained about yourself or your own behavior after listening to today's podcast. What small intentional steps could you take to redefine your relationship with stress, eating, health and your own wellbeing? Health and your own wellbeing. Remember that we're all just doing the best we can until we know how to do better. Then we can do that.

23:04 - 23:39 Speaker 1: So if you found today's discussion valuable, feel free to share it with someone who you might feel or think may benefit from it. Feel free to connect with our community online and share your thoughts to support each other. You can also find the link to today's show notes. I always include the transcript. So if you're someone who likes to read through the information to receive or absorb it a little bit better, then I do always include this the transcript.

23:39 - 24:04 Speaker 1: So please go to the show notes. I also link out a discussion post at everydayinspiration.co. So that's everydayinspiration.co forward slash podcast. You'll find the links to all the show note pages there. And finally, please consider subscribing to the podcast, leave a review and stay tuned for more episodes.

24:05 - 24:33 Speaker 1: Your commitment to your wellbeing is a powerful force and I'm here to help you every step of the way. So until next time, Take a nourishing breath, savor the journey and embrace the opportunity to live with everyday inspiration. From my heart to yours, thank you for listening and I look forward to sharing with you next week. Bye for now! .

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