Here's How Stress Can Make You Eat More | Nourished With Tish

I want to tell you a story, and I want you to let me know if you relate to this.

I used to work for an agency creating video and photography content around food. The job was good, but often stressful. Sometimes the workload was heavy, sometimes the clients were particular, sometimes things would go wrong on set, and I’d be running around trying to put out fires. And I noticed something funny: whenever I felt stressed, I’d find myself snacking on chocolate. It wasn’t even a conscious decision. The more I found myself running around, the more I’d find handfuls of M&Ms or Lindt chocolate in my hand as I quickly moved from problem to problem. And because I worked with food, chocolate was rarely in short supply.

Or how about this? On a day where I would have a big meeting or presentation, I’d find myself super anxious and not hungry at all. So I’d sip on coffee and not really eat. But later that night, before I’d go to bed, I’d feel like an insatiable pit, constantly going back to the cupboards to see what else there is to eat. And even if I thought about eating something healthy, it just didn’t feel as satisfying as something like ice cream or chips.

Does that sound familiar?

Here’s the thing: stress impacts our eating behaviours. This can be especially true for women, because of the influence that the stress hormone, cortisol, can have on hormones. And what’s important to note here, isn’t just that we eat when we’re stressed as a form of emotional comfort, although that can definitely play a part. It’s that there’s also physiological changes that happen in the body that actually dysregulate your hunger. In other words, it’s not a lack of willpower, it’s a result of biology.

So first, let’s talk about how stress messes with our eating habits, and then let’s talk about why that matters and what we can do about it.

Why We Need To Stop Focusing On Weight Loss

Eat More To Weigh Less?

How Stress Can Make You Eat More

1. It Increases Your Cravings.

When you’re stressed, your body releases the stress hormone, cortisol. Cortisol is responsible for a variety of things, including metabolism, insulin sensitivity and immune function. In a stressful situation, your body goes into fight-or-flight mode, and cortisol suppresses non-essential functions, like reproduction and immune function, and stimulates the metabolism of fat and carbohydrates.

As this happens, appetite increases to keep up with the energy demand. Under stress, ghrelin, the hunger hormone that drives appetite, also increases, and drives both food cravings and reward-driven eating behaviours. (source)

This means that hyperpalatable foods (foods like french fries, ice cream and pizza that are super tasty and usually high in calories) become extra irresistible and rewarding to the brain. (source) It makes ignoring those cravings almost impossible.

2. It Messes With Your Sleep Cycle, Causing You To Eat More.

Cortisol has an inverse relationship with melatonin, and together they control the body’s sleep-wake cycle. When everything is working as it should, cortisol is highest in the morning, peaking at about 9am. It’s the body’s “get up and go hormone”. As it declines throughout the day, melatonin increases, getting us ready to wind down.

But when we’re under stress, this can disrupt when cortisol spikes and falls, so we have a harder time falling asleep, and feel sluggish in the morning even when we’ve had a full night’s rest.

Here’s where it gets interesting: research shows that lack of sleep and cause you to eat more. A meta-analysis of 17 studies found that people who were sleep deprived ate an extra 385+ calories the next day. (source) So it’s not surprising that after a night of tossing and turning, you might find yourself reaching for a donut.

3. It Slows Down Your Metabolism

To add insult to injury, not only does stress cause you to eat more, it also slows down your metabolism so you burn less calories. In fact, this interesting study with mice, found that mice that were stressed out (they were being bullied) gained weight on an obesogenic diet, but mice who were not stressed did not gain weight on the same diet. (source) And since I’m not a huge fan of using weight as the primary metric for measuring health, I want to point out that it’s not the weight gain that is the issue. It’s the dysregulated cortisol, hormonal and metabolic changes that come with this stress (that may in turn lead to weight gain).

These changes not only drive hunger, but also increase the risk for Metabolic Syndrome and Type 2 diabetes. And as always, mice aren’t people. Similar things were studied in humans. For example, one study found that women with just one stressor the previous day burned 104 fewer calories the next day.

If you want to read more on this there’s this article “How Stress Wrecks Your Metabolism” that gives more examples and a more thorough breakdown.

What You Can Do About It

The reason I think we need to talk about this is because if you are trying to make healthy changes when your body is in a state of stress? It’s going to be really hard. It’s essentially an uphill battle.

So what can you do then?

1. Manage Your Stress.

First and foremost, you need to find ways to manage, and, if possible, eliminate your stress. I understand that there are times where this can be really difficult (for example, financial stress or being in the midst of a global pandemic). But if it’s a job you hate, can you find a new job? If it’s an unhappy relationship, can you take steps to improve the relationship, or potentially get out of it?

If you can’t eliminate the stressor, can you find ways to manage your stress and become more resilient to it? For example, can you find a hobby you enjoy that lights you up? Do you have friends and a social network to build meaningful connections. Can you find ways to relax or cope with stress: journal, yoga, a bath, a walk, meditation. Find ways to bring more calm (and fun!) into your life.

2. Get Some Sleep.

Not only will this help alleviate stress, but it will also help with cravings. If you struggle with sleep, make sure you’re practicing good sleep hygiene: sleep in total darkness, stick a regular sleep schedule (go to bed and wake up at the same time), get blue light (window light) in the morning, avoid blue light from your screens at night, and sleep in a relatively cool room.

3. Eat Enough Of The Right Foods.

Here’s what you’re not going to do: ignore your cravings and try to eat less. If you are in a stressful place, cutting calories is going to cause more harm than good. So first and foremost, make sure you’re consuming enough.

Secondly, make sure you’re consuming enough of the right foods. Eat protein at every meal. Eat complex carbohydrates (because FYI low carb diets are also a stressor). Eat healthy fats. By doing this you can help to calm your hunger hormones and feel more satiated.

And if you find that after eating enough calories, and eating enough protein, fat and fibre, that you still crave the cupcake? Eat the damn thing.

I hope this tips help! And if you aren’t subscribed already, be sure to join my newsletter below so you don’t miss any nutrition tips!

Ps. Have you heard about Diet Freedom Academy? It’s my online program where I teach you how to restore your metabolism and finally ditch diet culture. I only launch it a few times a year, and I’ll be launching it in July. So if you want in (and want to save money) get on the waitlist here.

With love,