What is comfort food and can it help our psyche?

What is comfort food

Comfort food is food that has nostalgic or sentimental value to humans. For example, the usual food from childhood, which is associated with comfort. Thanks to this, she, according to the idea, should improve her condition if a difficult day has turned out.

The comfort food is often high in calories and high in carbohydrates. And of course, everyone has their own. A person's preferences depend on the region in which he spent his childhood, national and cultural characteristics. If for one it is borscht, for another it is curry.

Yulia Kuznetsova Psychologist of the Teledoctor-24 service.

A comfort meal is any nutritious food that provides a sense of peace and security. The term is often used by psychologists as well. Food that can give a taste of childhood or an association with grandmother's concoction, in many ways helps to cope with seasonal depression, improves mood and generally improves a person's attitude. Most often, you want a comfortable meal during a period of stress, as well as during the period of restructuring of the body during the change of seasons, so that acclimatization is smoother.

What the research says about comfort food

It would seem that delicious and wonderful food cheers everyone up. However, not all so simple.

In one small study, researchers tested how emotional people, who tend to eat stress, respond to comfortable food, and their opposites, who don't get a lump in their throats in stressful situations. It turned out that the former were in a better mood, while the latter, on the contrary, as this contradicts their usual eating behavior.

In another study, researchers concluded that eating comfortably did improve mood. But at the same time, they practically did not notice the difference with the cases when the participants were given "uncomfortable" food. Moreover, even if they were not fed at all, after a while their mood still improved and did not deteriorate anymore.

In addition, polls have shown that men and women prefer different comfort foods. For the former, these are full-fledged main courses like casseroles and steaks, for the latter, snacks and desserts like chocolate and ice cream. Presumably, this is due to the fact that men want to feel care and are ready to accept it in the form of a dish that involves the investment of someone's efforts. And women do not want to cook and clean up the kitchen after that, so they choose something ready to eat.

Why comfort food isn't the best way to help your psyche

According to a psychologist from the Austrian health center Verba Mayr Vyacheslav Lyubimov, during a meal, a person satisfies one of the basic needs - satisfies hunger. Sometimes this is accompanied by pleasant conversation, music, atmosphere and surroundings that are pleasing to the eye and ear. Then we are talking about the satisfaction of another need - in social interaction.

Food can provide what a person needs, and also helps to feel calm in situations that are stressful. It can also become a reward for achievement when you want to celebrate the result.

Vyacheslav Lyubimov Psychologist at the Austrian Health Center Verba Mayr.

If food is not related to satisfying the basic need to satisfy hunger and is used as a tool to achieve some psychological state, and at the same time a person loses control over the quantity or quality of food, we can talk about an eating disorder.

The fact is that food can improve mood and alleviate the condition for a while, but it does not solve the problem. At the same time, a person gets used to this "magic pill", which makes it possible to feel better. And even if someone does not have the habit of seizing stress, it may well develop. And since the reasons for feeling unwell from this do not disappear anywhere, there is a great risk that a person will resort to food more and more often, which can negatively affect his health.

When comfort food can still help

A well-fed person is a calm person. Psychologist Yulia Kuznetsova explains that satisfying hunger gives a feeling of security and reduces anxiety. Food is also about survival, which is why it has so much place in our lives.

However, food can help, and not harm, only in the case of a meaningful attitude towards it. For example, if you cook your grandmother's signature dish for dinner, something bad is unlikely to happen. But it makes a difference whether you eat, say, one plate of fried potatoes or the whole pan at once.

Julia Kuznetsova

Everything requires balance and a conscious attitude towards your life. The hormones of joy, and with them a sense of calmness and security, a good mood, can be obtained in other ways, not related to food. And let delicious dishes be an adornment of your life, but not its meaning or problem.

You can also develop a good habit of eating healthy food in joyful and happy moments. Then, during a period of stress, it will be enough to crunch a celery stick to regain mental comfort and not harm your health.