your eating habits. Did you catch that?
Stress makes it even harder for us to resist
our cravings.When you are under stress, the urge to
“pleasure eat” (eating for reward) is strong—
and you are far more likely to overeat. Stress
also causes you to change the type of foods
you eat, moving away from healthier choices
toward—you guessed it—highly palatable
foods that are sweet, salty, and high in fat.
(Who craves grilled chicken and steamed
broccoli when they’re stressed?) And when
you finally, inevitably, indulge, one thing is
true:
Eating sugary, salty, fatty foods makes you
feel less stressed.This works via the same old mechanism
we’ve been talking about—dopamine and
opioid pathways in the brain. We experience