Stressed with a sweet tooth?

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Recently I've been so stressed with school and other personal matters. My neuroticism scores in personality tests are actually quite high. I am prone to feeling stressed and I can't help but eat and eat when I feel stressed. I try to study but I end up taking a trip to the fridge to make myself a sandwich or get basically anything that I can eat.

I bet this has also happened to you. I mean, in a fast-paced world like ours, how can you not experience stress? Some of us go to school and get stressed over the academic workload. Some of us go to work and experience stress because of our bosses and work demands. Some even experience stress at home - with family, financial, relationship matters. 

And of course there are many different ways of relieving stress. Different stress management activities are available. These would include yoga, playing games, and shopping. Many, like me, resort to the easiest thing to do, which is to stress eat. Food is everywhere. People have a tendency to just eat "comfort foods" when they are stressed. Many comfort foods would include fatty foods such as french fries. Research suggests that a hormone called ghrelin is responsible for this behavior (Chuang et al., 2011). Ghrelin, or the so-called "hunger hormone", is released from the gastrointestinal tract and it sends hunger signals to the brain.

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So, while we eat a lot of food when we're stressed, does stress have an effect on our perception of taste? Research suggests that stress does have an effect on taste perception. The group of Al'absi, Nakajima, Hoooker, Wittmers, and Cragin (2012) studied the effects of stress using the principles of magnitude estimation. Magnitude estimation is a method in psychophysics where the participant assigns a number to a stimulus that is proportional to their perceived intensity of the stimulus (Goldstein, 2010). Basically, the participant estimates the magnitude of a given stimulus.

In the study of Al'absi, Nakajima, Hoooker, Wittmers, and Cragin (2012), they first asked some participants to participate in different stress-inducing activities such as public speaking (preparation and delivery), mental arithmetic task, and a cold pressor test. Other participants were asked to rest for 30 minutes. Then, the taste test was administered. Five solutions were presented (water, sweet, salty, sour, and savory). After administration, the participants were asked to rate verbally the intensity of the solutions. The participants saliva were also taken as samples during their recovery from the stressful events.

Results of the research show that stress was associated with reduced sweet taste perception. It was also shown that poststress cortisol levels reduced intensity of salt and sour.

So, sorry to all those with a sweet tooth. When you're stressed and you want to stress eat, lay off your favorite cakes and chocolates first. You might not be able to appreciate the taste as much as when you're not stressed. Maybe you can munch on a few fries or other healthier salty foods first, then when you're no longer feeling stressed, indulge in all the sweets you want. 

-Samantha Rae M. Sanchez

References: 

Al'Absi, M., Nakajima, M., Hooker, S., Wittmers, L., & Cragin, T. (2012). Exposure to acute stress is associated with attenuated sweet taste. Psychophysiology, 49, pp.96-103. 

Chuang, J. C., Perello, M., Sakata, I., Lawrence, S. O., Savitt, J. M., Lutter, M., & Zigman, J. M. (2011). Ghrelin mediates stress-induced food-reward behavior in mice. J Clin Invest, 121(7), pp. 2684-2692.

Goldstein, E. B. (2010). Sensation and perception (8th ed). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.