During a bout of the blues or simply after an extended, disturbing day, many people flip to the pantry, fridge or quick meals for a tasty, pick-me-up meal that appears to assist ease anxiousness and soothe heartaches.
The meals we regularly crave in these instances are consolation meals, that are normally excessive in mood-boosting carbohydrates and sugar, relying in your cravings preferences. These meals set off the mind’s pleasure facilities and reward system, which boosts your temper short-term.
Registered dietitian Kate Ingram explains, telling Yahoo Life: “Research is mixed, but it looks like comfort foods — particularly highly processed foods — may improve mood for an hour or two after consumption. This may be due to the release of dopamine and other feel-good hormones in our brain.”
The time period “comfort food” first appeared in a 1966 article within the Palm Beach Post newspaper, however folks have been doubtless consuming chocolate after a heartbreak lengthy earlier than. The phrase was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1997. No matter the way it’s outlined, the satisfaction you get when having fun with your favourite meals is plain.
What else makes one thing a consolation meals? One cause we flip to those meals are the associations we now have with them, says Dr. Uma Naidoo, director of dietary and way of life psychiatry at Mass General Hospital and creator of the forthcoming e book, Calm Your Mind With Food.
“Memories play a huge part in recollections of food and food associations and books have been written about this,” Naidoo tells Yahoo Life. “Unlike other species, humans can make choices and decisions around the foods they eat, and by doing so, this naturally taps into our psychological makeup.”
For Naidoo, her go-to consolation meals is “my beloved late grandmother’s golden chai recipe that she taught me to prepare — it always gives me that warm and fuzzy hug-like feeling,” she says. “For someone else it may be the delicious aroma of hot chocolate around the holidays or the first snowfall.”
How does consuming consolation meals have an effect on your well being?
Aside from the preliminary temper enhance we would really feel, most consolation meals aren’t good for us, says Naidoo. “While the short-term effects may feel positive, the long-term physical and mental effects are seldom positive — unless your comfort food is broccoli.”
Naidoo says this goes additional than only a “sugar high” and the next crash.
“Foods high in simple carbohydrates like pasta, donuts, pastries, breads and candy increase insulin levels and allow more tryptophan — the natural amino acid building block for serotonin — to enter the brain, where it is converted to serotonin,” Naidoo explains. “Many people refer to serotonin as the ’happiness hormone.’ Initially, there is a ‘calming’ effect of serotonin, which can be experienced within 30 minutes or less after eating these foods.”
But that enhance of happiness has a worth, Naidoo notes, saying, “In the short term they may make you feel happy, and you’re wondering why this would be bad. Unfortunately, by also causing a blood sugar spike, these levels over time are associated with brain atrophy and dementia — in other words, a direct impact on brain cells. This may be one of the reasons simple carbohydrates are so addictive.”
Ingram echoes this, saying, “Because comfort foods are often high-fat, high-sugar, low-nutrient foods, we have to think about the long-term consequences of this type of comfort. While it is certainly okay to have these foods once in a while, a steady intake is linked with long-term health risks like heart disease, diabetes and obesity.”
In phrases of how consolation meals have an effect on your mind and psychological well-being, Naidoo says that it actually depends upon what meals you’re craving and the way usually you’re consuming them, says Naidoo. “Let’s be honest, most people are not selecting cauliflower here as a comfort food,” she says.
It’s OK to indulge once you’re feeling down
That stated, you don’t have to surrender your favourite consolation meals or really feel dangerous about consuming them occasionally. “I prefer not to create hard and fast rules as they are not sustainable for improved mental well-being,” says Naidoo. “Shaming people over their food choices does not support their overall mental health and makes them feel worse.”
She says that whereas it’s higher to keep away from commonly consuming extremely processed meals, denying your self utterly may do some hurt.
“I try to remind my clients about course correcting at the next meal or opportunity and not staying in the fast food lane, for example,” Naidoo says. “In other words, if you enjoy a slice of cake on your birthday, I would much rather you ate that and moved back to your healthier eating the next day than deny yourself — then crave it and next find yourself eating the entire cake. I’ve seen it happen.”
