If you were to meet a lion while walking down the road, what would happen? Would you run away? Or would you stop and take a picture?

When we’re faced with stress, our body goes into fight or flight mode. It doesn’t know that our stress is not something scary like a ‘lion’ so to speak, so it responds as if there is a lion right in front of us.

When faced with real stressors, initially, your appetite decreases. Your body starts to shut down processes that are non-essential, and you start using the energy already stored in your body to run away. The last thing on your mind is usually: “I want to snack.”

Once you’re not stressed anymore, the opposite happens: you stop using the energy stored in your body and start needing to take it in again, so your appetite increases to encourage you to get more nutrients into your body.

There are two hormones involved during this process:

– CRH, which suppresses your appetite

– Glucocorticoids, which stimulate your appetite

Both CRH and glucocorticoids are secreted when we are stressed, but it’s their timing and how long the stress lasts that’s important.

The effects of CRH, which suppresses your appetite, are felt within seconds. If you see a lion and you’re about to run away, your body immediately starts releasing this hormone. Feeling hungry will be the last thing on your mind! It’s a short, sharp burst to get you moving, and then CRH is cleared from your body as quickly as it was released.

Glucocorticoids, however, take minutes to hours to be released and also take minutes to hours to clear. Depending on the type of stress, the effects can manifest in different ways.

If you have a truly stressful experience for 10 minutes, such as a sudden emergency where it feels like your heart is in your mouth, CRH is released quickly, lasts for about 10 minutes, and then clears. 

The glucocorticoids are released a little later, but their effect lasts longer too. So, the ultimate effect of that 10 minutes of truly stressful experience is an increased appetite.

If you have a stressful few days, say someone’s in hospital or you have another serious, longer-running emergency, then this effect will be less obvious. The CRH will still be released quickly but may continue releasing for longer. 

The glucocorticoids will again follow behind, but they’ll both drop off at the same time. Your appetite is suppressed for that period of stress, and it might not even increase for a long time afterwards because the glucocorticoids have been released and diminished at the same time the CRH was still being released. 

This explains why, when you are going through a loss or something that happens over a longer period that’s truly stressful, some people do lose their appetite.

But the kind of stress we tend to experience day in, day out is more of a constant, low-level stress. For example, you lose your car keys, you’re going to be late for work, you’ve got a deadline looming, you haven’t got time to make lunch, you have to go and pick something up, but you haven’t got time to do it, the kids are whining and complaining at you… and on and on it goes.

In this situation, the CRH is getting released then suppressed, released and suppressed, and the glucocorticoid never has a chance to clear from your system. So, you have this constant need to eat, especially sugary, starchy snacks, because the glucocorticoid is encouraging you to do so.

So, what’s the solution? If you can simply stop being as stressed, that would be wonderful, but not necessarily totally possible! 

Consider ways to mitigate your stress levels through turning to God, exercise, relaxation, energisation, time with friends, time doing hobbies that you enjoy, even breathing, or going out for walks.

All of these can help reduce your stress, which in turn will help to suppress your appetite. 

There are other practical things you can do too, to mitigate the problem of reaching for sugary, starchy snacks if you are stressed.

For example, having healthier alternatives and making it a priority to prepare proper, healthy meals even if you are busy, will help.

Are you one of the people who finds themselves eating more, or do you lose your appetite?

Either way, it helps to be mindful of how stress affects our appetite and consequently, our health and weight goals. 

Having the ingredients for lots of quick, healthy meals you can turn to when you’re stressed can be helpful. Why not consider our Meal Planning Masterclass to help with that?