Stress Eating These Foods Will Increase Your Stress Levels

Shaliza Somani
Aug 23, 2017 · 2 min read

Emotional eating is a difficult habit to spot, but it’s even a more challenging habit to break yourself of. Food can become an addictive outlet for channeling anger, stress, and anxiety just like alcohol, shopping, and the internet can.

If you start to feel yourself turning to food as a way to handle your emotional responses, it is important to start paying attention to your behavior so you can combat your emotional eating tendencies. One place to start is identifying the stressors in your life and working to reduce their effects, which will work to reduce the amount of times you seek solace in a meal.

However, it’s important to be mindful that it isn’t even the act of emotional eating that can be dangerous for your physical and mental health. Consuming certain types of foods and drinks can also put added stress on your body, which will cause your junk food cravings to skyrocket:

Drinks That Give You Energy

For those that need coffee and tea to function are in serious detriment of making their emotional responses to stress more powerful. Not only do high doses of caffeine cause coffee and tea drinkers to become more energized and jumpy, it also causes cortisol levels to rise. One way that extra cortisol shows itself is in food cravings and, adversely, more fat storage.

Foods That Seem Too Good To Be True

For individuals who believe they can have their cake and eat it too — both figuratively and literally — are falling for one of the most common dieting myths. Foods that are “sugar-free” are, in fact, not entirely free of sugar. Diet soda and sugar-free cookies all contain artificial sweeteners, like aspartame, which increases norepinephrine levels in the brain. Norepinephrine is the scientific term for what others refer to as the stress hormone.

Foods For Those With A Sweet-Tooth

Depending on your preferences, the majority of people tend to reach for a sweet treat instead of a savory food item. Similar to caffeinated drinks, baked goods that contain white flour cause blood sugar levels to rise which, in turn, leads to an increase in cortisol. More cortisol means that you will be more prone to crave delicacies like baked goods in the future, which only adds to the cycle.


Originally published on shaliza.com.

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Shaliza Somani

Written by

Shaliza Somani is passionate about marketing, sales, wine, health, fitness, nutrition, tennis, running, and the outdoors | Health & Fitness: http://shaliza.com

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