Have you ever felt stressed and immediately turned to a childhood favorite of boxed mac and cheese or a warm piece of cake? Guilty. Feeling stressed can often lead people to reach for a high-calorie, sugary comfort food. While it’s easy to feel that the initial sugar rush of a pleasurable bite might ease feelings of discomfort, new research suggests stress may have a longer-term impact on how the brain craves certain foods.
What’s more, what we eat can affect our energy and mood, making an impact during stressful times. In a study published in the journal Neuron , researchers from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research found the combination of chronic stress and comfort food may influence the brain to continue craving comfort food (often higher in processing and calories), negating people’s feelings of fullness and increasing the chances of developing obesity. How the brain responds to chronic stress “Our findings reveal stress can override a natural brain response that diminishes the pleasure gained from eating—meaning the brain is continuously rewarded to eat,” says Herbert Herzog, Ph.
D., senior author of the study and visiting scientist at the Garvan Institute, in a press release . Using mice in their model, researchers examined how different diets affected the brain’s response to chronic stress.
The results suggest a link between stress and the body’s response to food. Stressed mice on a high-fat diet gained twice the weight compared with non-stressed mi.