Strawberry Donut by Natalie Gazul
Cookies, brownies, ice cream, candy bars, donuts, etc.—have you ever found yourself turning to sugar when you’re stressed out? It turns out there’s a good reason for this. Well, maybe not a good reason. But at least a very compelling reason. A recent study Excessive Sugar Consumption May Be a Difficult Habit to Break: A View From the Brain and Body in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology showed that eating sugar actually reduces your cortisol levels (cortisol is one of the stress hormones—see Cortisol and Good Health for information).The study was done at the University of California, Davis, Clinical and Translational Science Center’s Clinical Research Center and the University of California, Davis, Medical Center Imaging Research Center. The researchers tested 19 women (age range 18–40 y) with a body mass index (range 20–34 kg/m2). They had 11 of the test subjects drink a beverage containing 24 percent sucrose (table sugar) three times a day for two weeks. The control group of 8 drank identical beverages sweetened with aspartame, an artificial sweetener, on the same schedule.
Before and after the experiment, the researchers measured the subject’s saliva cortisol levels and performed functional M.R.I. scans while they took arithmetic tests designed to be just beyond their abilities (a procedure “known to increase cortisol levels”). The researchers found no differences in the test results between the two groups before the two-week diet. But after the two-week diet, cortisol levels were lower in the sugar group and higher in the aspartame group. In addition, the M.R.I. scans showed increased activity in the areas of the brain controlling fear and stress in the sugar group, while the aspartame group showed decreased activity in those areas.
So eating sugar really does reduce your stress levels! No wonder some of us crave it. The problem is—well, I’m sure you guessed there is a problem here—that not only does sugar over-consumption cause obesity and related health problems, but as the study concluded:
"These experimental findings support a metabolic-brain-negative feedback pathway that is affected by sugar and may make some people under stress more hooked on sugar and possibly more vulnerable to obesity and its related conditions. Rodent studies suggest that sugar consumption may activate a glucocorticoid-metabolic-brain-negative feedback pathway, which may turn off the stress response and thereby reinforce habitual sugar overconsumption."
So sugar’s ability to lower cortisol levels is one of the things that makes it so addictive, and that addiction leads to even more sugar consumption and then to health problems that result from the addiction.
As Baxter wrote in Cortisol and Good Health, high cortisol levels on a regular basis aren’t a good thing. This can cause increased risk of stomach ulcers, increased risk of hypertension, heart disease and other vascular disorders, excess sugar in the blood stream, and more chance of developing diabetes. But eating sugar to lower cortisol levels isn’t—so sad—a good solution. So is there a better way to lower your cortisol levels? Why, yes, so glad you asked! It’s called yoga for stress management. Any form of conscious relaxation that switches you from Stress mode to Relaxation mode—and this includes meditation, breath awareness, supported inverted poses, restorative yoga, Savasana with a mental focus, and guided relaxation—will also reduce your cortisol levels. (See Stress, Your Health and Yoga and The Relaxation Response and Yoga.)
And if you become addicted to yoga? Well, that’s actually a good thing. Practicing yoga for stress management on a regular basis will have a long-term benefit of re-patterning your nervous system so your overall stress levels are lower and you react less intensely to life's stressors. I will be writing more about this in the near future.
In the meantime, see these related articles:
Yoga, Stress, and Weight Management
Stress Eating and the Healthy Eating Meditation Practice
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