Emotional Eating
Friday, February 2, 2024.
Humans are no strangers to emotional eating. The self-loathing which sometimes results from overeating compounds overeating’s role as a well-known physical reaction to stress.
After a stressful experience, many humans tend to crave high-calorie fare.
We now have reason to believe that a specific molecule explains why some humans do crave high-calorie foods after experiencing anxiety-provoking events.
A hormone called proenkephalin just might explain the link between stress and emotional eating, according to breaking neuroscience.
Emotional eating and the brain…
Food helps to calm the mind and boost energy levels, which is useful after stressful events that may have depleted them.
However, stressed people frequently do not notice they are satiated and end up overeating.
Normally, after eating the brain sends a message to reduce the pleasure we get from eating.
But, under stress this message is deactivated and we continue to feel the pleasure from eating despite being full.
Dr. Sora Shin, study co-author, explained:
“We don’t always eat because we are hungry and we have certain physical needs.
Whenever we get stressed or feel some threat, then it can also trigger our eating motivation.
We think this molecule is the culprit.”
Turning off the dreaded Proenkephalin…
The researchers focused on an area of the brain called the hypothalamus, which regulates eating behaviors.
They first confirmed that mice, when stressed, would act depressed and eat more afterwards — which they reliably did.
Then, using light to stimulate specific brain cells, they turned off the action of proenkephalin.
The mice were then no longer depressed and did not overeat as before.
Dr. Shin said:
“So something about this molecule itself is very critical to inducing overconsumption after the threat.
We have much more to learn about this molecule, but we found its location and it could be a good starting point.”
Final thoughts…
These research findings are significant because emotional eating is not only the largest impediment to weight loss, according to a survey of 1,000+ psychologists, it’s also can be an acute form of meaningless suffering.
Emotional eating can provoke marital bickering in a wide variety of ways. Trust me on this…I know this first hand.
Effectively losing weight, by any means, requires a healthy awareness of the durability of your intimate relationship, and with the behavior emotional eating itself.
Therapists can help humans break their own particular cycle of emotional eating by identifying the specific circumstances and situational feelings that trigger it.
Changing the habit of emotional eating is mostly about spotting the triggers and then changing the response. This is a classic, cognitive-behavioral intervention.
Strategies recommended to help you escape the habitual clutches of emotional include mindfulness, cognitive-behavioral therapies, and skills for problem-solving within your intimate relationship. I can help with that.
Be well, stay kind, and Godspeed.
RESEARCH:
You, IJ., Bae, Y., Beck, A.R. et al. Lateral hypothalamic proenkephalin neurons drive threat-induced overeating associated with a negative emotional state. Nat Commun 14, 6875 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42623-6
