A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety. – Aesop’s Fables

Stress! We have it. It’s part of the fabric of our daily lives. Some of the words we use to describe stress are very telling as to the physiological effects of the experience. We get: hot, worked up, fired up, butterflies in the stomach, antsy, tense. What’s happening to us when we experience those feeling is that some conflict has stimulated our adrenal cortex to dump hormones into our system to better prepare us for “fight or flight.” And stress makes us HUNGRY.

The hormones like the steroid cortisol, promote the breakdown of fats and proteins so they can be synthesized by the liver into glucose (blood sugar) for our “fevered” brain and to prepare the muscles for action. Bodily systems not essential to the conflict are suppressed so that all of our available resources can go towards prepping us for action: the immune system changes, our digestive system slows way down. The sour feeling we feel in our stomach is now attributed by researchers not to increased acid production but rather a slowdown of the flow from our stomach to our intestines; as blood and oxygen are stolen away from our stomach to be used by our brain and muscles. The stomach contents sit there longer, churning away, making us nauseas or causing acid reflux.

When the stress hormone levels drop, our blood sugar levels drop. Oxygen and blood flow return to our digestive system. These two effects combine to make us feel very hungry. This can promote weight gain if we didn’t actually burn very many calories during our stress. Most modern stress, such as a boss hovering over your shoulder while you’re at your computer, doesn’t burn calories the way running from a bear might have for some ancestor. We can very easily end up over compensating by eating far more calories than what we burned. The opposite state of “fight or flight” is “rest and digest.” Food has enormous power to help us to relax. Turning to food in times of stress is actually quite natural but it has to be done very consciously. If your body hasn’t exercised away the stress, to physically burn off the products of it, then you are in real danger of overcompensating.

The purpose of food is to take care of us, to comfort us, it is what we should turn to. But what we must acknowledge is that it isn’t just the nutrition that calms us, it’s the sensation. Think about the last time you were really hungry to the point it made you tense and anxious. When we are in that state it’s usually the very first bite that calms us down. This is long before any of the nutrients of the meal have hit the bloodstream. Your mind is sated before your body. This is the proper way to eat when we feel strong emotions. Ideally you’d like to physically burn off the products of stress with exercise to relieve it but that’s not always possible. It is always possible to take a morsel of food and fully experience it; to lose oneself in the sensations of it. The more of your mind that you concentrate on your food the less of your mind left to concentrate on your troubles. The quicker you can lower the stress the less effect it will have on you.

A few tips for eating after you’ve been stressed:

• Be aware of why you’re hungry. Don’t try to shut your hunger off or tune it out. You are supposed to be hungry after stress!

• Find some way to do some exercise when you’re stressed to burn off the effects. Climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Take a walking break outside. Do some stretching.

• Focus on the calming aspects of the food. It’s not really the nutrition, it’s the ritual of preparation, the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations that are truly calming. A very small sensual morsel can accomplish more than a banquet.

• Realize that the feeling will pass. It’s best to think of stress hormone swings like a pendulum: the harder they swing one way the harder they will swing the other. To stop a child on a swing you can’t just push hard from the other side! Try to dampen the swings to achieve a sense of balance.

It’s very important to keep in mind the relation between food and stress. Stress makes us hungry and unquenched hunger is a stress of its own. So now you have two stresses, but only one that can be relieved by food alone. The usual dynamic is that we get stressed and through biology we become hungry… and then hunger becomes its own stress. We eat some and we feel better, since we’ve relieved the stress of hunger, so in our minds we do the math and figure if we eat more we will feel even better. But we can’t relieve non-hunger stress with food… unless we use food as a platform for meditation.

Food can be an excellent distraction. One can focus all of one’s concentration on it and completely lose oneself in the sensual pleasures of a small morsel of some really good grub. If we eat a small amount when we become hungry after stress, using the somaception exercise, we can transform the eating experience into a meditative relaxation experience. Food is therapy. A small amount to quench the hunger eaten with full concentration can calm the nerves and bring far more comfort than a stuffed belly.