Does it continually happen to you that you feel very anxious and to calm the anxiety you feel like eating sweets? This situation happens to many people even though they are aware that doing it so often can be harmful to their health, however they have the feeling of not being able to avoid it. The problem, apart from threatening your health, is that after having satisfied your craving by eating a slice of cake, chocolates, candies, etc. It is the guilt that comes from having done it.
But why does this happen and how can you remedy it? In this Psychology-Online article we will explain in detail the Causes and treatment of cravings for sweets.
Sweet cravings, also known as sugar binge disorder or sugar cravings, refers to an intense and recurring urge to consume foods high in sugar, such as pasta, chocolates, cakes or other similar products. This situation can be related to various factors, both emotional and physiological, and arise whether the person is hungry or not.
This phenomenon can have various manifestations and degrees of intensity in each individual. In this sense, while for some people, anxiety over eating sweets can be an occasional and mild experience, while for others it can become a more persistent and difficult to control pattern of behavior.
It is important to keep in mind that, although the desire to consume sweets is common and can arise for various reasons, such as in response to emotions or eating habits, cravings for sweets can become problematic when negatively affects a person’s quality of life or health. In these cases, seeking guidance from a health professional can be beneficial in understanding and managing this behavior in a healthy way.
Why can’t I stop eating sweets? Some of the main causes why anxiety over eating sweets may appear in a person include:
1. Decrease in blood sugar levels
One of the reasons why some people may experience anxiety over eating sweets is because they are used to eating 3 times a day. So if you stop eating one of these foods, the body will experience a drop in blood sugar levels, which will cause the brain to quickly send a signal to the body telling it to need to replenish energyglucose being the best choice.
Glucose becomes the best choice to recover from this imbalance since sugar is a food that is easily digested and therefore by ingesting it, we quickly inform our brain that we have already replaced the energy we were missing through that food.
2. Being exposed to high levels of stress and anxiety
Have you noticed that the more stressed you are, the more anxiety about eating sweets appears? When we find ourselves living in situations that generate a lot of stress and anxiety, our body begins to need glucose excessively.
Why is this happening? This is because when we are too stressed, for example, when we have moved to live in another city or country, when we have changed jobs, when we have many personal problems, etc. our brain begins to produce a hormone called cortisol, which is in charge of making us react when we find ourselves in dangerous situations.
If we constantly produce cortisol and our body and mind remain alert almost all the time, we tend to spend a lot of energy, which causes our body to need glucose, which is what will provide us with the necessary energy the fastest.
3. By consuming sugar our reward system is activated
Our reward system is activated when we carry out activities that we find pleasurable. One of the activities that we find pleasurable is eating our favorite foods, mainly foods that contain simple carbohydrates, such as sugar. Therefore, the pleasant taste that sugar produces causes us to our brain begins to release dopaminethe so-called happiness hormone.
Especially when we find ourselves experiencing negative emotional states, which is when we most need to consume a type of food that causes the release of dopamine in us and therefore improves our mood. What happens is that the pleasurable effect produced by consuming sugar is very short, so we will quickly feel the need to eat sugary foods again to increase dopamine, creating a vicious circle from which it is increasingly difficult to get out.
4. Submit to very strict diets
People who undergo very strict dietsespecially when they are used to eating what they want without measure and from one moment to the next they want to start eating a diet that is too restrictive, it is very likely that they will end up abandoning it and feel the need to consume foods that they find extremely pleasant, such as sugar and quickly replenishes that energy they needed after having stopped consuming the foods they were used to.
This begins to produce a vicious circlesince when consuming those foods that they considered prohibited, such as sugar, they feel great guilt that causes them to start the same diet again or another more strict one and again fall into the same situation.
5. Extreme boredom
When we are very bored and we cannot find something to distract our mind, we often tend to fall into states of anxiety and despair. This can lead us to want to fill that momentary emotional void that we feel with some food, especially with those that we like the most and that generate pleasure for us, such as the case of sugar, which, as we saw previously, causes us to release it.
Despite the causes described above, it is important to mention that there may be many more and it is necessary for each person to learn to identify them.