How we feel when we eat is just as important as what we eat. After all, our physical and emotional hearts are interconnected, says MARK BUNN
Years ago, a Georgetown University study showed that our physical and emotional hearts are interconnected. When participants were emotionally stressed, the ability of their hearts to operate got compromised. When we think of health conditions such as angina (heart pain), stroke and heart disease, we usually associate them with physical factors such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure. However, many studies now demonstrate even stronger connections between these diseases and non-physical events such as how happy they are in life and whether they feel loved at home. One particular study done in 2004 showed that people had a higher risk of dying from stroke when there were perceived family difficulties or when they felt that their wife and children tended not to listen to them.
The good news is that it is not just negative emotions that affect our health. Positive emotions do too. Three decades ago, researchers at Ohio State University were studying atherosclerosis — the build-up of plaque in the arteries. They inadvertently found that the cholesterol levels of rabbits were reduced by up to 60 per cent when they were stroked and petted for a few minutes before being fed a high cholesterol diet (as compared to rabbits who were fed like ordinary lab animals). If a pharmaceutical company developed a new pill that could naturally reduce cholesterol by 60 per cent without any side effects, it would be front page news across the world! Patients would be banging down doctors’ doors and the company would be rolling in billion dollar profits. Yet, simply reducing stress and taking more time to be affectionate or intimate with our loved ones may very well deliver similar results.
In more recent times, a 2010 study published in Europe’s leading cardiology journal suggested that experiencing positive emotions may help prevent heart disease. Over a period of 10 years, 1,739 healthy men and women were assessed for what’s known as ‘positive affect’ — the experience of pleasurable emotions such as joy, happiness, excitement, enthusiasm and contentment. Researchers found that people with no positive affect were at a 44 per cent higher risk of heart attack or angina than those with a moderate positive affect.
A lot is said about the French and Italian cultures having relatively low levels of heart disease, despite fairly rich, high fat diets. Common explanations point to the antioxidants in the wine they consume, the prevalence of olive oil in their cuisine, and the freshness of their food. However, what is often overlooked is the emotional connection. Some years ago a sociological study was performed where people from France and America were each shown a piece of rich chocolate cake. They were asked what first came into their mind on seeing the cake. The overwhelming consensus of the French was that of pleasure, joy and ‘celebration. Almost unanimously, the Americans’ overriding emotion was that of ‘guilt’!
For most of us, eating is often connected with guilt. Have you ever seen women on diet plans eating cheese and crackers while sipping a glass of wineIJ Most of them don’t even enjoy it because they are so focussed on how many ‘points’ they are accumulating. It’s almost as if they are eating and drinking points rather than something to be enjoyed and savoured. At McDonald’s, they always ask, “Do you want fries with thatIJ” But wherever we eat, it could well be asked, “Would you like pleasure or guilt with thatIJ” and then, “Do you want low-fat, standard or double guiltIJ” The reason all this is important is that it’s not just fats and calories that our bodies need to metabolise, it is also the biochemical residues of whether we feel guilty or joyous when we eat.
In time, factors such as our emotional state will be found to be the most critical influences on how we metabolise our food. This is because feeling good and being happy literally change the biological pathways by which we process, absorb and assimilate food.
The Vedic sages knew all about the power of our emotional state. That’s why for thousands of years before ‘modern science’, the timeless Ayurvedic texts have encouraged people to eat only when settled and happy. Eating when anxious or upset was known to disturb the internal digestive processes, such that even the healthiest food could literally become poison to the body. Most of us have experienced eating a large meal of rich foods with friends and family in a relaxed, jovial atmosphere. At the end of the night we feel full but satisfied. We lean back, pat our bellies and say, “Ah, that was good.” The next night, we eat the same food alone in front of the evening news, and we feel so bloated and heavy that we can’t get off the couch. The reality is, how we feel when we eat is just as important as what we eat. Better be happy and eat a slightly less than perfect diet, than to have the perfect diet but eat without joy.
The writer is a health expert based in Australia