JANUARY 2017 MIAMI for web

HEALTHY FOOD
THREAT STRESS: Includes fear – a feeling
that we cannot cope with the stressor.
When the “threat stress” includes public
embarrassment or social failure it’s an even
bigger response, physiologically.
Challenge Stress: Includes a feeling that our
stressor is controllable – that we are capable
of dealing, and that it’s a demanding BUT not
fear-inducing situation.
In short, if you experience your stress as
threat, where you are fearful, or emotionally
distressed, you are more likely a stresseater
than if you experience your stress as
a challenge. Cortisol stimulates hunger and
feeding- adrenaline is part of the fight/flight
response which shuts down digestion. Threat
stress stimulates eating more than challenge
stress. Sam, the agro dude is activated by
challenge stress. Hence the reason most don’t
overeat from this kind of stress. Challenge
stress types eat less, on average.
SO WHAT PREDICTS THE WAY YOU
EXPERIENCE STRESS AKA YOUR
STRESS TYPE?
It’s probably a combination of factors. It
has a lot to do with your genetics, your life
experiences and how you cope based on
those factors. If you were shy as a kid and
you went through something super scary and
traumatic at unpredictable times, this would
exacerbate your stress sensitivity. Regardless
of how your stress type was set up, it doesn’t
mean you can’t LEARN better skills and grow
new abilities to handle stress, now. In my
experiences, everything is trainable, including
new reactions to old triggers. Which is what
we’re going to learn some more about in the
tools.
You might also be more effected by the
food stimuli of your environment – maybe
because you’re dieting or image-conscious,
and you are not inclined to self-sooth in
another fashion. You’re also biologically more
sensitive to the food soother – maybe you’re
more vulnerable to the opinions of others,
like you are especially delicate or fearful of
disappointing others. Or maybe you’re just
type-A and feel a heightened need to control
everything in your environment – even when
that’s just an illusion.
People who are stressed have a low-level
of something called NPY, that causes a high
level of anxiety. NPY is an anxiolytic peptide,
leading to decreased anxiety. There are low
levels of this in people with PTSD – or high
stress. And Glucocorticoids stimulate NPY
release, which decreases anxiety. You are
eating to lessen anxiety! (So part of your
solution is to attack the anxiety from other
angles.)
WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME!?
It’s your brain’s self-protective mechanism
gone wrong. Your brain is trying to protect
from the harmful threat-stress response by
pushing you to eat foods that will release
opiods. The foods sustain opiod release. It’s
actually a highly effective coping behavior!
Your body is smart– only problem is, while it
solves the other stress hormone problem, the
brain grows dependent on it. It could easily be
something else – like cocaine, but once your
brain finds a way to regulate the danger, it
grows reliant on it.
“Opioids decrease activity of the HPA axis
on different levels in order to terminate and
attenuate the stress response, providing a
negative feedback control mechanism.”
Your body is empowering itself to stop the
damage of the stress-response. Fatty foods
release the same chemicals as cocaine in the
brain reward system (opioid, dopamine and
endocannabinoid) which creates a powerful
addiction loop. It also makes you dependent
on the reward center chemicals– your body’s
natural morphine, and you can literally go
through withdrawals from eating lots of fatty/
sugary foods to calm yourself. It’s no small
thing! This shit is potent!! Neurobiological
adaptations occur from repeated use of this
drug called “stress-eating,” aka you form new
muscle memory, so the more you use it, the
more you’ll increase the compulsiveness of
your overeating.
Cortisol/stress stimulates your appetite and
causes you to crave high-fats more often and
increase your food intake, while making your
body less able to process to the sugars, aka
insulin resistance, which is what happens in
diabetes. Because your body is in this mode
of saving sugar and needing sugar you are
getting hunger signals to your brain while
storing unused sugars as fat.
And this becomes an addiction – because it
alters your neural pathways. It gets stronger
with each practice – because of how it alters
your reward system. Because it’s a chemical
loop, a need for high-fat / high sugar foods
continues on after the stress has been
removed. There’s also research that suggests
stress inhibits your right prefrontal cortex
activity, which lessens your ability to think
and control your food intake.
What else predicts becoming a stress-eater?
Another MAJOR predictor of whether or not
you are going to be a stress-eater is whether
or not you already are a “control eater” or
restraint eater – meaning, if you’re always on
a diet. Restraining your food intake makes
you a ton more susceptible to stress-eating,
because in part, the withholding of calories
sets up the downfall. And for what it’s worth –
people who diet usually eat the same amount
of calories (and then-some) as those who
don’t, but in the form of a rollercoaster. Diets
are usually a longer loop of withholding then
eventually binging / breaking down: it’s like
your body’s way of leveling itself to normal,
again.
BUT WHY AM I EVEN MORE EMOTIONAL
WHEN I’M STRESSED?
Stress-eating also fucks with your emotions
because it’s tied to all sorts of levers in
your body, besides your immune system.
Because fatty and sugary foods mess with
your glucose, you might experience mood
swings that make you feel like a baby, crashes
of depression. Not to mention, messed up
periods and decreased sex drive from the
hormone fluctuations.
MOST IMPORTANTLY:
In order to help yourself out of this habit,
you’ve got to tackle the stress and the stresschemicals,
overall. Not just the symptom
– which is stress-eating. Tilt the scales in
your favor. Give yourself a leg up where you
actually have access to your highest thinking:
when you’re outside of that habit’s powerful
loop.
Once you can build up a rhythm and be
successful in this soothing, you will naturally
tend toward that thing: it’s not this hard
forever. It one day will be a faint memory! You
will not “be” this person when your chemicals
are balanced and you have another proven
method of soothing. This is when you actually
become addicted to the new, healthy habit.
It will be something you CRAVE completely
organically. Like your body will actually say
to you, “I want salad.” Or “I really need to go
running.” It’s not just that you’re different
than other people – this is just what comes
from creating chemical balance.
Sarah May Bates
Founder of Yay With Me a hub of
practical tools to create change in
yourself, from Podcaster/Author,
Sarah May Bates, @sarahmaybee
34 / HEALTHY MIAMI