Stress – it’s that all too common feeling that has somehow become synonymous with modern day life. But aside from the tension and worrying thoughts, how else does stress hijack your body? If you’re someone that reaches for the chocolate in the shadows of a looming deadline to find comfort, you’re not alone. Research shows that our response to stress can influence our food choices, but what is it about stress that makes us eat what we do, and can we overcome stress by making healthier choices?
How can stress influence our diet?
Prolonged stress can be detrimental to our health, by stimulating unhealthier eating behaviours and changes in appetite. Chronic stress has shown to be associated with a greater preference for energy-dense foods, especially those that are high in sugar and fat.
This may be explained by an increase in emotional eating and the reward centres within our brain. Stress drives us to eat more “comfort foods”, a term that reflects the idea that palatable foods reduce the stress response, thereby providing a potential means for people to “self-medicate” for stress relief.
On the other hand, if you’ve experienced knots in your stomach and couldn’t stand the sight of food when you feel stressed, you’ll know all too well that stress can also have the reverse effect. More commonly, acute stress rather than long-term stress, is associated with loss of appetite. Research shows that approximately 35–60% of people report eating more total kilojoules when they experience stress, whereas approximately 25–40% of people report eating less.
If stress can lead to unhealthy eating, can healthy eating help us cope with stress?
Currently, most of the studies exploring diet and stress have focused on the effects of stress on dietary behaviours, rather than how diet may influence stress. As such, we do not have enough research to help us understand the direct effects of healthy or unhealthy diets on coping with stress.
At best, studies have shown that in the short-term, intake of palatable and/or high carbohydrate food is associated with improved mood, decreased perceived stress and reduced plasma cortisol concentrations. This is not surprising, otherwise we wouldn’t get any benefits from comfort foods as they seem to do. But sadly, chocolate is only a quick-fix. In the long-term, healthier dietary patterns are known to be associated with better mood. In addition, we know that healthy diet may play an important role in our stress-regulation system – the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis – which controls the body’s cortisol levels. For example, adherence to a dietary pattern close to the Mediterranean diet, which is abundant in vegetables, fruits, fish, nuts and olive oil, was shown to be associated with decreased levels of HPA axis disturbances.
What does this all mean?
While we know that stress can influence our eating behaviours, research is not yet at a stage where we can recommend specific dietary advice to help cope with stress. However, we do know that from our own research at the Food & Mood Centre, long-term adherence to healthier dietary patterns is associated with better mood. Of course, occasional comfort or stress is not always a huge problem, but may be something to consider focusing on if it’s happening frequently, adversely affecting your health, or is the only method you have to cope with stress. There are plenty of other stress-reduction techniques you cam incorporate such as enjoyable physical activity, chatting with a friend, or mindfulness.
This article was authored by Meghan Hockey and Dr Anu Ruusunen and based on an interview published here for Deakin’s this lifestyle magazine.
