Stressed all the time? Eat something We're all too familiar with the effects of stress, either the acute kind that passes quickly or the chronic kind that comes with accumulated bouts of acute stress (like those jerks on the freeway, an overly neurotic boss, etc.). How do you deal with this chronic stress thing? In yet another scientific endorsement of the obvious, the New York Times: Science section reports that Comfort Foods Switch Off Stress, Scientists Find.
According to the article, "Until now, no one has known how chronic stress gets turned off. A year ago, researchers in Dr. Mary Dallman's laboratory at U.C. San Francisco removed the adrenal glands from rats and exposed them to chronic stress. When they added stress hormones to rats' brains, the animals remained stressed. But when they fed them sugar, the animals calmed down." Ah hah! The article didn't say just how they chronically stressed rats.
Also in the article, in humans it turns out that other rewards could also be used to squash the chronic stress, stuff like sex, drugs and rock and roll. (I'm not making this up; it's in the article.) But, as stated in the article:
"If you use sex, drugs or rock 'n' roll instead of high-energy food to get stress-reducing pleasure, you miss out on the metabolic feedback," he said. "You don't shut down the chronic stress system. You just seek more cocaine. Things like saccharin won't cut it. You need the real thing or the system won't stay in balance."
I wonder what would happen if some sort of somatic practice was put into the mix. Interestingly, the Times articles was authored by Sandra Blakeslee who was the co-author of the well-told neurological tales in Phantoms in the Brain. (I've posted stuff about it previiously here.)
- Posted - 9:16:37 AM -
