How Comfort Foods Affect Patients’ Mood and Stress Levels


When you’re feeling stressed, sometimes there’s nothing like picking up your favorite comfort food — chocolate, chips, fries, ice cream, soda, or an alcoholic drink — to self-soothe.

You know the feeling, and you can be sure your patients do, too.

The message, then, to help patients is: Although it may feel good in the moment, a repetitive cycle of boosting your cortisol levels and seeking solace in food can make stress worse. Eating too many “treats” regularly can also shift your microbiome, metabolic health, and gut-brain relationship as a result.

Roxana Ehsani

“Although many people may not realize it, there is a connection between how we feel and our food choices. We make hundreds of choices a day, including the type of foods we choose to eat, whether we order takeout or make a home-cooked meal, or whether we choose to fry a filet of fish or bake it,” said Roxana Ehsani, a registered dietitian nutritionist based in Miami.

“How we feel mood-wise can dictate these food choices,” she added. “If we are feeling stressed, we may gravitate toward choosing a meal that provides stress relief or comfort, which may not be the most nutritious food choice.”

Feeling and Feeding Our Emotions

While it’s natural for people to reach for comfort foods during times of stress, strong emotions, or even boredom, it can become a problem when a pattern of subconscious behavior emerges.

Whitney Linsenmeyer, PhD, RD

“I see people get into these patterns of feeling a negative emotion, reaching for comfort food, and feeling guilty, which creates a negative cycle of guilt and shame,” said Whitney Linsenmeyer, PhD, RD, assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics at Saint Louis University in St. Louis and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

This isn’t to say physicians should tell their patients to ban this type of comfort-seeking. They just need to know the consequences of too much of a good-tasting thing.

“It’s fine to recognize you’re feeling sad and enjoy a food that brings you comfort,” she said. “The key is bringing awareness to it, understanding the reasons why you’re doing it, and maybe thinking about other ways you might comfort yourself, such as calling a friend or going for a walk.”

These patterns emerge due to strong relationships across the body. When stressed, for instance, the body releases a hormone called cortisol through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, which increases blood flow, heart rate, breathing, and other factors such as blood clotting. Over time, persistently high levels of cortisol can lead to long-term health issues, such as obesity, insulin resistance, and metabolic syndrome.

Comfort foods, in turn, can add to those long-term health issues due to added sugars, sodium, and unhealthy fats. As a result, spikes in blood sugar and blood pressure can then lead to even greater irritability and stress — as well as brain fog, poor memory, and low energy.

“The gut-brain connection between your gastrointestinal [GI] tract and central nervous system goes both ways, where you might feel stress in your brain, but it manifests in your GI system as a stomachache or IBS [irritable bowel syndrome] flare,” Linsenmeyer said. “It can go the other way, too, where a disruption in healthy gut microbes through illness or poor diet can affect your cognitive health and well-being.”

Chronic inflammation plays a role in the cycle of stress for both mental and physical health, which has become increasingly common in recent years as more people consume ultraprocessed foods that contain dyes, preservatives, and stabilizers but lack the fiber or nutrients of whole foods.

“Studies have shown that when there are inflammatory markers in the gut, there are markers of neuroinflammation as well,” said Uma Naidoo, MD, director of nutritional and lifestyle psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and author of the book, This Is Your Brain on Food.

“Neuroinflammation has been linked to a host of mental health and neurological conditions, including anxiety, depression, mood disorders, and cognitive problems,” she said. “In my practice, I’ve seen that adjusting the diet of those with various psychiatric problems can help to calm this inflammation and improve mood, stress, and emotional well-being over time.”

Trying Other Coping Strategies

Another good message for patients: When you feel stressed and in need of a comforting snack, stop and bring awareness to the moment, Linsenmeyer said. Consider what’s prompting them to eat and identify where in the body the “hunger” is coming from, which could be physically in the stomach or more emotionally in the brain or heart.

If a patient realizes they’re simply bored, encourage them to choose another activity to satisfy the craving for action, she said. If you realize your mouth wants to taste flavor or a crunchy texture, try to choose a healthy alternative. If they feel emotional, maybe they can find release through physical activity, journaling, meditation, or connection with a friend.

To get started, Linsenmeyer recommends people become familiar with their behavioral patterns by tracking what they eat and drink across 3 days — and record their emotion each time. Consciously stopping and reflecting on both the foods and feelings can reveal when someone may feel stress throughout the day, how they react, and what else they could do instead.

After learning the patterns, planning can start by setting up meals or snacks to make healthier choices throughout the week, Ehsani said, adding that it doesn’t have to be an extensive or stressful process. Once per week, she suggests people write down a few meals and snacks that they plan to make, check their inventory, and set themselves up for success. This could include buying healthy snacks, chopping fruits and vegetables for easy access in the fridge, and putting comfort foods in less convenient locations.

“Then throughout your busy week, you don’t need to be as mindful about considering what to eat or cook, since you’ve already thought about your food choices ahead of time,” she said. “This can help eliminate making poor food choices when you’re feeling stressed or tired, especially at the end of a workday.”

Naidoo also advised using the “SAW Method” to swap out unhealthy options, add in more vegetables and fiber, and walk to reduce stress and boost mood. For instance, swapping ice cream for fruits can help satisfy a sweet tooth, and adding cruciferous vegetables can provide a crunchy texture while cutting down on the sugars and salt in ultraprocessed foods that compound stress.

“It’s about adapting these principles to what you need to do to help yourself,” she said. “When you’re making food choices, it’s important to consider how they will affect not only your physical body but your emotional self as well.”

Carolyn Crist is a health and medical journalist who reports on the latest studies for Medscape Medical News, MDedge, and WebMD.



Source link : https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/how-comfort-foods-affect-patients-mood-and-stress-levels-2025a10003si?src=rss

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Publish date : 2025-02-13 12:21:29

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