I nodded because I recognized her feeling so well. Who hasn’t eaten something to comfort themselves? Only, for some it is a piece of chocolate, but for others it becomes an extreme pattern. Eating so you don’t have to feel.
Normally our appetite disappears when we are stressed. The stress hormone cortisol ensures that the body focuses on survival and not on enjoyment. But for emotional eaters, the system works the other way around. They actually eat more when they are stressed, sad or angry. A reaction that often has its roots in youth.
Professor Tatjana van Strien, who specializes in eating behavior, discovered that this behavior often arises in children who have not properly learned what they feel. For example, if you had parents who could not tolerate your emotions. Then you don’t learn: I’m angry. You learn: when I am angry, I am rejected. And so you put your feeling away or dampen it, for example with food. In psychiatry we call this alexithymia, a difficult word for sensory blindness.
Psychiatrist Esther: ‘Young people have learned to talk about emotions, but not to bear them’
Sometimes I also see people who grew up with constant tension: arguments at home, insecurity, neglect. As a result, their stress system has started working differently. While most people experience a brief peak in cortisol during stress, they actually see a flattened response. Not a fight or flight response, but a kind of freeze. And eating can then become the only way to feel some comfort or control.
So food can literally have a numbing effect. Sugar, fat and salt activate the reward system in our brain. The same system that is also active with drugs. Dopamine makes us want to repeat that pleasant feeling. The sharp edges of the day disappear for a moment. Until shame strikes and the vicious circle starts again.
And then there’s the excessive dieting. Our body has a kind of ‘set point’, a weight at which it feels comfortable. Anyone who tries to suppress this for a long time will be presented with the bill: metabolism slows down, hunger increases, and at the first misstep, disinhibition follows. The famous who-don’t-I-care moment.
Esther van Fenema: ‘As a psychiatrist I often see smart, capable women who constantly feel inadequate’
We live in a world that is constantly pulling at us with temptations: advertisements, scents and comfort food on every street corner. Our ancient brain is simply not up to it.
The solution is not another diet, but learning to listen better. Not: what am I hungry for? But: what do I actually feel? Sadness, tension, loneliness? If you learn to recognize that, you may need to sedate less often. Because hunger in your heart mainly requires recognition, love and attention.
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