Emotional Responses

The mind is wired to look for threats or rewards around us in our environment.  So we wanted to give you some basic information on how this works, and what this means for your healthy eating plans.

Anxiety, worry and stress are emotional responses to a threat.  This threat can be real (ie. A tiger about to pounce on us) or imagined/perceived (i.e. we feel we might starve, or might never be able to eat our favourite food again).

These threat responses are designed to keep us out of danger.  When the alert systems are triggered, cortisol and adrenalin are secreted as a warning for us to take protective measures.

We have a tendency to over-estimate any threats, as this gives us a guarantee that actual risks are never missed.  Unfortunately for us, this same process is given to ambiguous threats.  Negative thinking and negative self-talk also send the same alarm messages, interfering with our ability to make rational decisions (especially about ourselves).

When we are in a negative emotion, we go into Fight or Flight mode.  When we’re in this threat mode, we also tend to see more negatives and this spirals out of control (and this happened…. And then this …. And then this etc).  So when we worry, our worries seem a lot bigger to us than they might ever be in reality.

And during times of stress, we’re likely to put on more weight, as the body’s response is to store calories in preparation for the threat.

The answer lies in a positive state of mind.

More information is available for Workshop Attendees.