And knowing that you will be struck with astonishment: Emotions affect the ability to digest and absorb fat from food. In other words, your sense of the "bite" that you put in here can affect your metabolism, obesity, and health. This is according to psychological research conducted in the United States.
Now think about all those times when you ordered a dessert at a restaurant, or you rioted with another slice of cake: Are you feeling guilty or guilty? It turns out that a positive reaction to food actually helps to utilize the nutrients it contains. This is because excitement, for example, as an example of a positive feeling, stimulates the digestive organs, from the salivary glands to the intestines, to "burn" more efficiently calories, for example.
But what happens to the digestive system in emotional eating, when eating food and feeling negative feelings about it, like guilty feelings? Well, negative feelings and especially guilty feelings are actually a form of stress. In such a situation, your body tends to release a hormone called cortisol, which, in part, affects the heart system by increasing your heart rate and blood pressure. Accelerated cardiac activity reduces and slows down digestive activity. Matters of the body's resources: The more blood flows from the heart to the heart, the less blood flow to the digestive tract and less oxygen reaches the gut. This means that stress inhibits the absorption of various nutritional components.
After food gets to the gut, the nervous system sends signals to the digestive system that begin to move the food as part of its decomposition process, to release the essential nutrients it contains and separate it from what will later be transmitted as waste to the colon. At the same time, the nervous system secretes neurotransmitters, neurotransmitters, such as the hormone serotonin (the mood hormone, popularly called) and the cortisol hormone, which is secreted in stressful states. In this situation, where cortisol slows down gut activity, the process of food breakdown and absorption is less effective. The result of emotional eating, as stated, is expressed by the body's inability to make good use of the various food components, but may also manifest discomfort and even stomach pain and other symptoms sometimes associated with irritable bowel syndrome.
Another negative effect of slowing digestion and absorption of food is the population of gut bacteria. As mentioned earlier, stress slows blood flow to the gut, and as a result, the amount of oxygen that reaches the digestive system decreases. This has an effect on the prosperity of the “good bacteria,” which, as we know, aid in the proper digestion and absorption of effective nutritional components.
And if that is not enough, it turns out that increased secretion of cortisol, as a result of stress, increases the accumulation of fat absorbed by food, especially in the abdominal area. Belly fat is considered a risk factor as it is known to be linked to heart disease, blood vessels, and diabetes. In addition, cortisol affects the sugar balance (glucose) in the body, triggering an increased secretion of insulin - the hormone responsible for the absorption of sugar in the body's cells. As you know, increased insulin secretion over time is one of the risk factors for diabetes.
Incidentally, and perhaps no less amazingly: all these processes are more common in women than men.
Well, what behaviors and recommendations will help you fight emotional eating and obesity and health?
- Eat slowly.
- Try to understand how you feel about the food you are about to eat.
- Distinguish between feelings of hunger versus thirst, and boredom - which, according to many studies, and the experience of many - causes overeating. It is important to understand that you should only eat when you are really hungry and avoid emotional eating that results from other causes.
- Try to understand what you want: Do you deserve to eat meat? Is your need for bread or pasta? These cravings usually have a reason: Your body probably signals you what it needs. If you decide to fulfill these desires, do so wholeheartedly and not judiciously.
- Learn to feel when you're full. Your body also signals you about satiety, and understanding the sensation may prevent overeating. As well as the feelings of guilt you might develop about what you ate.
- Eat consciously, and not distractedly. That is - when you eat try this is the exclusive action you do, as opposed to, for example, eating in front of the television. Conscious eating, which shares in food with all your senses - vision, smell, sensation - will help you understand better and faster when you are full.
- Be forgiving of yourself, emotional eating is a common occurrence and it will not hurt to practice self-compassion in order to avoid it, to avoid guilty feelings associated with eating.
- Feeling stressed? Try walking around the room a little, practicing breathing, meditation, or guided imagination to help you get out of stress.
- Exercising breathing exercises, that is - consciously activating the diaphragm muscles - will not only help reduce stress but also promote normal blood flow to the digestive organs.
