Why a busy brain can lead to unwanted weight gain

What does a busy brain and weight gain have to do with each other? You may well have experienced it yourself if you are trying to lose weight. 

You have 101 things to complete at work. There are children to collect, you need to get their things ready, and you need to take them to their activities. The dinner needs to be cooked, food needs to be bought, and each person has a different food requirement. Plus the million thoughts that go through your brain each day on daily matters, such as what to wear or what to eat at lunch. What should I not eat? What do others think of me?

It can be tiring and draining. It may feel like your brain is a washing machine on spin cycle, and it never stops. But what does your busy brain and weight gain have to do with each other? 

The psychological part 

A busy mind places a level of stress on your body and brain. Here are 5 ways in which it can affect us and our eating habits.  

Tiredness 

Stress places a large workload on your brain. It is like a machine that works 24/7 with no breaks. Eventually, it is going to wear or tire out. When we are feeling tired and overworked, it is harder for us to make rational decisions about our eating. We might not have the energy to cook from scratch or the mental energy to think about what to eat. In this state, a takeaway, or ready meal, looks very appealing.

Fast gratification

When stressed, tired, and hungry, we get into the hangry zone. Hungry and irritable. This means we want food very quickly. In that moment, we do not have the willpower to hold out and perhaps go for a healthier option. When our stomach is grumbling, the quickest, easiest, and most appetising thing to eat will hit the spot. You do have enough willpower, but not when we are physically and mentally stretched.  

Inability to feel emotions

When we have a busy brain, it can keep us away from feeling and processing our emotions. Our emotions are a driving force in our lives, whether we like it or not. Being able to feel them allows us to know what is going on for us. It can help us to make decisions based on what is right for us. It helps us to understand ourselves better, knowing what we like, what fills us with joy, and what we want to stay away from. It enables us to connect to others and gain fulfilment from positive relationships. We are humans, not robots. We are designed to feel. 

Processing our emotions means making sense of them. For example, when something angers us, it is not about stopping the anger. What tends to happen is we either direct it towards ourselves inwardly or project it onto others outwardly. It is being able to use that anger constructively. If we can’t regulate our emotions, we can feel out of control or not in control of ourselves. We can end up turning to something outside of ourselves to make us feel better.

This outside thing, be it a substance or a behaviour, can calm us down, make us happy, put some excitement back into our day. Food, overeating, using food as an emotional crutch, and or binge eating can fit in this category.

Overwhelm

With so much going on in our brains, we can feel overwhelmed. It can feel like a finely tuned balancing act, keeping everything together. At times, a small thing happens, and that tips us over. When we are feeling overwhelmed, we can end up going two ways. 1. We don’t think about food; food and eating are not a priority, so we end up grabbing whatever is quick and easy. Or 2. We think about food all of the time. It takes over our thoughts. We do that unconsciously because it can take us away from what is stressful. Food might be the one thing that fills us with pleasure. It might be the one thing that we can have control over. Overeating gives our brains a way to escape and relax.

Feeling separated from our body

Having a busy mind can keep us from connecting to our bodies. This means we might not recognise the signals our stomachs give us when we are full or hungry. Not being able to pick up on signals or interpret them can mean our eating becomes disordered. That can look like eating at 12.00 pm because it is lunch time and not because we are hungry. It can look like not eating for hours at a time, and when we do, we overeat and eat processed food. All of this means it can feel like you are not in control of what you eat. 

The science bit

When we are stressed, Cortisol is released. Cortisol is a steroid hormone released by the adrenal glands. Among other functions, it regulates our sleep-wake cycle and decreases inflammation. An important function of Cortisol is to prepare the body for the fight or flight response by releasing blood sugar for energy. Cortisol can trigger our brains into wanting high-fat, high-sugar food because it gives us instant fuel. Chronic stress is going to have a negative effect on our immune system, an effect on our weight, and disrupt our sleep. Therefore, learning ways to help keep yourself calm and clear your mind can help stop the busy mind weight gain relationship. 

5 tips to help you keep your busy mind calmer

1. Short bursts of deep breathing

Walking away from what you are doing and taking some short but deep breaths can help you pause and recharge your brain. We are calming the nervous system and giving ourselves a few moments to relax. 

2. Pause and feel

When we pause for a moment, we can start to build that connection between our emotions, our body, and our mind. Take yourself away from your workspace for a minute. Take a deep breath in and a slow breath out. In that moment, just notice how you feel. It could be an emotion, it could be hunger, or it could be a state such as being tired. We are not judging ourselves, just noticing. 

3. Expectations

Many people with busy minds have high expectations of themselves. This could look like setting yourself far too many tasks that are not realistic to get done that day, or expecting a high-quality output on a task. If we do not achieve these, then we can easily dismiss what we have done as not being good enough, or we have not achieved enough.

This rarely makes us feel good, so we start again the next day, hoping for a different result. Overall, it can leave us feeling as if we are not good enough. Food can come in as a comforter, or we grab it on the go because we are too busy trying to achieve all of our tasks.

4. Going with the flow

Going with the flow is flowing along with life, taking what life throws us and dealing with it. Handling each day as it comes. Being a little laid back, maybe. This can be a challenging change for someone who is very task-oriented and goal-oriented, so finding space for both, rather than being one or the other, is ideal. Eating well works when we eat how we feel. This means not feeling rushed or stressed but feeling calm and relaxed. 

5. Relax

When we are stressed, rushing around, being busy, or feeling overwhelmed, there is little time for fun and relaxation. Many times, relaxing can be seen as a waste of time. We achieve nothing, neglecting to take into account how important relaxing is. If it were such a waste of time, athletes and sportspeople would not build it into their training routines. It is vital for our health and for our brains to be able to pause and slow down. 

How hypnotherapy can help stop a busy mind and unwanted weight gain

Helps the brain relax

Hypnotherapy puts us into a relaxed state, very much like when we doze off to sleep. In this state, the brain learns to relax and that it is safe and OK to relax. 

A therapist helps the brain organise your thoughts

The therapist will help you to let out what is on your mind and help you to reorganise your thoughts so you gain clarity, which gives you a sense of peace and calmness. 

Learn how to de-stress

The therapist can teach you how to do self-hypnosis and breathing techniques, so you can learn how to keep yourself stress-free in your day-to-day life. 

Helps you to emotionally regulate

Talking to a therapist and experiencing hypnotherapy can help you to recognise and start regulating your emotions. You will learn it is safe and OK to feel them and be able to express them. 

Helps you connect to your body

The therapist can help you connect to your body so you can learn to recognise your stomach signals and be able to start paying attention to them. This means being able to have control over food and being able to stop eating when full. 

Learning to be calm, de-stress, and go with the flow is vital for wellbeing, but also for developing a healthier relationship with food. Finding a hypnotherapist who specialises in eating problems can help support you in developing a healthier relationship with food.