Emotional Eating

Emotional Eating in Relation to Dopamine

Dopamine (a neurotransmitter) is involved in pleasure, reward, focus, drive, euphoria when doing well, ambition, and alertness. It is vital for our bodies to have it and make it so we have these feelings!  

Sometimes when we have lower levels of dopamine (we may be feeling down, anxious, stressed, etc.), it can make us feel hungry for comfort foods.  What’s happening is that your brain is looking for a hit of dopamine to relieve that sad/anxious/stressed feeling.  We turn to food, because eating naturally increases your dopamine levels, especially high fat and high sugar foods.  These types of foods increase your appetite, so this ends up becoming a cycle.  This explains why some days you feel like you can’t stop craving more and more food; the cycle has started.  When dopamine is released in large amounts, it makes you feel pleasure and reward, which motivates you to keep doing the specific behavior!  This can be good or bad, depending on the way you originally received the rush of dopamine!

On a side note, many alcoholics are low in dopamine – this is why they tend to drink, because alcohol boosts dopamine. 

So now that we know why we crave food when we feel down, how do we get that dopamine hit in a healthy way?  Here are some easy ways below:

When you urgently need dopamine:

-Meditation.  There are tons of Apps to help guide you through meditation.  You can also just sit in a nice quiet spot and focus on your breathing for 5 minutes a day, working up to 2X a day.  When you notice your thoughts coming back, notice them and gently put them aside and just focus on your breath! 

-Listen to music.  Listening to music increases activity in the reward and pleasure areas of your brain.

-Get a massage.  Massages can not only increase your dopamine levels (by an impressive 30%), but also reduce cortisol, which is a stress hormone.  Ask your partner for a quick one if you can’t get into a massage place!

When you don’t urgently need dopamine, but want to proactively work on it so your brain doesn’t crave it so intensely later:

-Yoga – Doing yoga 1 hour a day for 6 days a week can significantly increased dopamine levels in the brain.

-Take a probiotic – certain species of bacteria that live in your gut are capable of producing dopamine. 

My recommendation is this one (I fully trust EquiLife products because I know about their quality and 3rd party testing): Daily Probiotic Support

-Get at least 8 hours a day of high quality sleep.  Dopamine is supposed to be highest in the morning, and lessen throughout the day.  When you aren’t getting quality sleep, it can disrupt that natural rhythm.

-Food/Supplements- Your body requires several vitamins and minerals to create dopamine.  These include niacin (beef, chicken), iron (beef, chicken, beans), vitamin B6 (bananas, oats, poultry), and folate (cruciferous vegetables, dark leafy greens).  If you feel you aren’t getting enough foods in that contain these, consider a daily vitamin and whole food in a capsule. 

My Recommendations: Daily Activated Multi-Vitamin and Juice Plus+

-Get out in the sunlight!  As you know, SAD is a thing, and periods of low sunshine can make your mood just blah.  Get out whenever you see the sun out!

-Eat plenty of protein that contains tyrosine, such as eggs (if you don’t have sensitivities to them), turkey, beef, and legumes.  Your body has the ability to convert tyrosine, through enzymes, to dopamine!

Side note: You need about 15% of your diet to be protein, so ½-1cup at both lunch and dinner (roughly the size of your first), and a good protein powder in your morning smoothie.  I highly recommend this protein powder JP+ Complete, as it is vegan and has 15 different plants in it, which is great for your microbiome health!