Do you overeat when you're stressed?

A new study on the relationship between diet and stress confirms what we already suspected: people who reach for the refrigerator in anxious situations and devour whatever they find tend to consume less food after moments of tension, while individuals who lose their appetite tend to eat more when experiencing positive events. Our friends at ActitudFEM share this information with us.   According to the study's author, Gudrun Sproesser from the University of Konstanz (Germany), “both those who skip meals and those who overeat show different ways of compensating for their usual patterns in response to positive and negative emotions.” Learning to Behave While conventional wisdom suggests that those who eat more when stressed need to regulate their habits - between 40% and 50% of the population, according to this study - the research suggests that this behavior can be beneficial in non-stressful situations. “It should not be automatically assumed that those who overeat when stressed are at risk of gaining weight,” Sproesser points out, “we need to adopt a dynamic stance regarding eating in multiple situations, both positive and negative.” This expert believes that it is necessary to reevaluate common recommendations regarding eating habits when we are stressed. For example, recommending more control to those who snack when overwhelmed could negatively impact their compensatory mechanisms. Not Everyone Reacts the Same Way For his part, Kennenth Orange, an expert in nutrition and natural therapies, explains it better: What is medicine for one person is poison for another. Prange emphasizes that each person has their own biology and compensatory mechanisms. “Homeostasis is a key concept in relation to stress. In biology, most biochemical processes seek to maintain equilibrium, a stable state that exists more as an ideal than as an achievable condition. Environmental factors, internal and external stimuli, continuously affect homeostasis. The current condition of our body is a state of constant flux that oscillates around a homeostatic point which is the optimal condition of our body for living. This condition often refers to the body's self-healing mechanisms. The current conditions of the individual, their culture, habits, sex, age, etc., will greatly influence the biological needs to create balance or homeostasis,” summarizes Prange. The Happiness Diet Beyond this research published in Psychological Science, it is important to remember the existence of what we could call a happiness diet, made up of foods that provide energy and improve mood and concentration. It consists of foods such as whole grains, oats, or eggs, while what we could call the aggression diet would include trans fats. These fats, which are obtained from the partial hydrogenation of vegetable oils, are not only detrimental to the heart, something well known, but also to the brain.     View original article.     Recipes to Avoid Stress    Oatmeal and Blueberry Muffins  Oat Quesadillas  Baked Apples with Oats and Walnuts  Ham, Cheese and Egg Panini  Potato Salad with Egg And you, what do you eat when you are stressed?