Comfort Foods, Stress, and Cortisol. What's the Connection?How are stress, comfort foods, and cortisol related? It's important to understand that stress affects your whole body. When you are stressed, your body interprets it as a need to prepare to meet an emergency and automatically reacts. This causes most people to shift into emergency eating mode. Stress Causes OvereatingAccording to Robert Sapolsky (Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers - 2004), over 2/3 of people who report feeling stressed say they tend to overeat when facing stress. That's from the chemicals acting on the brain, keeping you ready to meet the real or imagined threat that stress is indicating.Initially, stress hormones decrease appetite as adrenalin is preparing your body for the emergency. But this is short-lived.Then comes the recovery phase, when the slower moving cortisol is activated, causing the appetite to kick in. On days when you are moving from one stressor to the other, there is continual recovery. The cortisol just remains in your system and you can easily overeat. The overeating can be a result of both the increased appetite and the pleasure and comfort that food gives during this time. The Need for Comfort FoodsComfort is the key word. People eating under stress crave comfort foods. Cortisol is again the culprit. This stress hormone acts on the hypothalamus to increase craving for foods high in fat, sugar and/or salt.Why these foods? These foods cause the brain to release natural opiates, which in turn decrease pain and create euphoria and your body learns to gravitate toward them. (Levine, Kotz, Gosnell - 2003). Cortisol and "Bad Fat"Next, cortisol causes the fat you gain to be stored in the fat cells of the abdomen. This fat is called visceral fat and is often referred to as "bad fat".There is good reason that visceral fat is called "bad fat".This fat causes poor absorption of nutrients, leads to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cholestoral and triglyceride issues. (Goldbacker, Matthuos, Salomon - 2005. There is some indication that this visceral fat is involved in releasing chemicals that cause that comfort feeling. In addition, while elevated levels of cortisol results in increased visceral fat, this visceral fat, in turn, contains enzymes that actually activate cortisol - thus perpetuating the chronic stress state! This fat is dangerous to have on your body, and you are doing yourself a great favor with any effort you put out to get rid of it. Turn It AroundYou can see how it becomes a vicious circle, one that takes some untangling to turn around.But it can be turned around. And You can do it! There are great rewards in reducing your stress level. Improving your diet and eating habits is a big step in this cycle.
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