Anxious Sugar Cravings
“I need just a little something sweet after each meal”
“Why don’t I feel full after eating?”
“I have an uncontrollable urge to consume tons of carbs, I need pasta and pizza now!”
These are all extremely normal thoughts that indicate you’re experiencing a craving.
Every one of us has experienced a craving for one reason or another. Maybe it’s chocolate around our period, needing a little something sweet after a meal or wanting our Mom’s homemade cake. Cravings can have a few root causes, and knowing how to identify them is an important tool in optimizing and prioritizing your health.
There are four main types of cravings: physiological cravings, emotional associations, environmental desires and habitual cravings.
Physiological cravings happen when your body is in need of a specific nutrient. Your body sends a signal to your brain to crave foods it knows has that nutrient.
This type of craving could happen when you have a nutrient deficiency or when your body is burning through nutrients at a higher rate. This happens leading up to your period or when you are sick. You will begin to experience cravings, consume that food, and in the process give your body what it needs to replenish. You might think this is just a symptom of your period or illness, but it is your perfectly designed body knowing what it needs to function optimally. Pretty amazing right?
Another reason for a craving could be due to an emotional association. This is an emotional connection with a specific food or the process of eating the food.
We have thousands of neural pathways wired in our brain, and specific emotions or lack of something we feel we are missing could trigger a craving. This could look like stress eating, or eating foods that give us comfort. With these types of cravings, it is our job to evaluate that emotion with the associated craving and decide what action to take. Remember this; you are a whole unit. Your mind, body, and nervous system are undoubtedly connected. Take the time to think about what your mind and body are really asking you for when you experience these cravings.
The third type of craving is a simple want or a desire caused by your environment. Imagine you are at work and you get up for some water, when you walk in the break room. You suddenly remember it is your coworkers birthday because of the delicious looking cake on the table. At that moment, all you want is to take a bite of that cake, even though you weren’t even thinking about cake until a few minutes ago.
A habitual craving is an anticipatory craving that results from repeated behavior forming a prioritized pathway in the brain. Put simply, a habitual craving is your brain’s anticipation of consuming a specific food because you’ve done it so often. This anticipation works directly through your dopamine response to associate your next step with the consumption of a specific food, and there are two main ways you will likely experience this. Maybe you were rewarded or bribed with food during your childhood, like something sweet after a meal. Because of this, you’ve learned to anticipate that reward after dinner, well into adulthood. Also, with a dysregulated blood sugar, you will often need “something sweet” after lunch/dinner due to a physiological craving. You might experience the anticipation of this craving even if you’ve corrected the blood sugar craving.
You may be thinking, how do I know when to indulge in these cravings? How can I be sure what my body is asking for?
At Kacy Shea Nutrition we break down these different types of cravings in detail, giving our clients the wisdom to decipher their cravings. With this knowledge, they can choose whether or not to indulge. Along with the ability to read their body’s signals, our clients also learn how to feel confident that they are supporting their physical and mental health.
Our NeuroNutrition practitioners are trained in a holistic, mind-body approach that treats the body as the whole unit it is. By providing our clients with tools, skills, and knowledge, they can feel connected to their body’s communications. This connection allows for true optimization of their health and confidence in their ability to thrive.
To learn more about how your diet and lifestyle affects your mental health and to inquire about our holistic health counseling for anxiety and depression, visit our NeuroNutrition program page.
If you want to deep dive on cravings, check out our Cravings Guide.
