How do comfort foods work

Funerals involved having food brought to the bereaved. The funeral ritual is one of special interest to this topic. We are given messages early in our lives and then reinforced throughout our lives about how food can make us feel different, to feel better.

Because we equate food with happiness, we continue to turn to food for such comfort. And we do feel happy or better, albeit temporarily.

The key to changing this lifelong pattern of equating food with happiness is to first be aware. Take some time to reflect on how food was used through your life and its connection to emotional states for you. Next, take some time to reflect on your own emotional states. You may keep a feeling journal and write down how you felt each day.

In reflecting, you will be more aware of the connection of food to your feelings in the past and more aware of your feelings in the present. Then, the work begins. Take each emotion connected to food and create a list of other things you may do to tend to that emotion. Alternative ways to get comfort when sad may be:.

Post this list of alternatives in a place that you are likely to see it regularly. The first step in putting a stop to emotional eating is identifying your personal triggers. What situations, places, or feelings make you reach for the comfort of food? Most emotional eating is linked to unpleasant feelings, but it can also be triggered by positive emotions, such as rewarding yourself for achieving a goal or celebrating a holiday or happy event.

Ever notice how stress makes you hungry? When stress is chronic, as it so often is in our chaotic, fast-paced world, your body produces high levels of the stress hormone, cortisol.

Cortisol triggers cravings for salty, sweet, and fried foods—foods that give you a burst of energy and pleasure. The more uncontrolled stress in your life , the more likely you are to turn to food for emotional relief. Stuffing emotions. Boredom or feelings of emptiness. Do you ever eat simply to give yourself something to do, to relieve boredom, or as a way to fill a void in your life? You feel unfulfilled and empty, and food is a way to occupy your mouth and your time.

In the moment, it fills you up and distracts you from underlying feelings of purposelessness and dissatisfaction with your life. Childhood habits. Think back to your childhood memories of food. Did your parents reward good behavior with ice cream, take you out for pizza when you got a good report card, or serve you sweets when you were feeling sad? These habits can often carry over into adulthood. Or your eating may be driven by nostalgia—for cherished memories of grilling burgers in the backyard with your dad or baking and eating cookies with your mom.

Social influences. Getting together with other people for a meal is a great way to relieve stress, but it can also lead to overeating. You may also overeat in social situations out of nervousness. You probably recognized yourself in at least a few of the previous descriptions.

One of the best ways to identify the patterns behind your emotional eating is to keep track with a food and mood diary. Every time you overeat or feel compelled to reach for your version of comfort food Kryptonite, take a moment to figure out what triggered the urge. Write it all down in your food and mood diary: what you ate or wanted to eat , what happened to upset you, how you felt before you ate, what you felt as you were eating, and how you felt afterward.

Maybe you always end up gorging yourself after spending time with a critical friend. Children's Health. Resources for Children. Women's Health. Overview Specialty Care. Resources for Women. New Patient? Patient Services. Customer Service Hours. Refer a Patient Giving. Why UT Physicians? Play Video. News Why you crave comfort foods in times of high stress.

Are your salivary glands starting to activate? Can you almost smell the scents of so much home-cooked goodness? These many sources of food pleasure, originating in the body as well as the brain, can be nearly as satisfying as consuming the meal itself. Even imagination, i. Glorious comfort food for Americans: Macaroni and cheese.

Food that triggers the reward system has been shown to elevate mood and release stress, albeit temporarily. This experience, common to all of us, is often set off by foods — like family holiday meals — with which we associate a positive social memory.

Physically, comfort foods work to make the body feel full or satisfied. Emotionally, the experience of eating can make us recall and re-experience a feeling of belonging or connectedness. Our response — comfort — is often less about the stimulus, the food itself, than it is about the motivation behind it. That motivation is squarely in the emotions, and it can be described in one word: love. We devour comfort foods because, in essence, they remind us of being loved. Researchers rated emotional responses to a comfort food found in many cultures: chicken soup.

They discovered that those with the strongest positive responses to the stimulus also had stronger primal emotional relationships with family caregivers. Bottom line? The more love you feel by eating chicken soup, the stronger your life relationships have been. Our bodies naturally secrete a wide array of substances to keep our internal systems running and to help us react to various stimuli in our environment. And dopamine production is stimulated by, among other things, the experience, and even the promise, of satisfying foods.

Everything from reading a good book to sex brings forward a dopamine response. And, of course, drugs from nicotine to opiates rely on dopamine to enhance the sensations you feel while using them. Released when expecting a reward, dopamine soon comes to be associated with pleasure.