Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Sugar As Safety

I had an interesting realization last night, that in my brain I have an over-coupling involving safety and sugar. To me, eating sugary foods feels like physical safety. Some where along the way those two ideas got wired into the same circuits in my brain (that's basically what over-coupling means, in this case).

When I was a kid, sugar was kinda verboten in my house, so whenever I got my sneaky little hands on some, I would hide to eat it. I think that's where this over coupling came from: the warm, cozy feeling of my hiding spots got mixed in with the act of eating the sweets.

I had this realization kind of out of the blue yesterday. Last night rather than going for a sugary snack, I did other things that felt like safety to me. It was a mildly successful experiment that I intend to continue.

1 comment:

Lynn said...

I know what you meana bout sugar. It is comfort. I hear that is because it causes a release of seratonin or endorphins or something like that. It really is a drug or acts like one in our bodies. I have yet to kick the habit myself. If I was to limit myself to dates or something rich like that it might help, but I don't particularly like dates. Old habits are hard to break.