It’s almost as if you can hear it whispering to you. That tiny, but oh so compelling voice urging you to give in and unwrap. Just one square you tell you tell yourself.
Of course you’re being very grown-up and balanced about it… everything in moderation really is an excellent mantra to live by. But as that one square begins to melt on your tongue and you get that first "ah" moment, it feels like your whole body melts along with it.
Then, before you almost have time to register it, you’re popping the last square in your mouth and the words balance and moderation have been temporarily erased from your vocabulary.
Chocolate. It seems we have been succumbing to its power for the last four thousand years and it’s still got quite a hold over so many of us.
We often use the word "chocoholic" in a lighthearted sense, making fun of our own ability to over indulge, but for some people it’s no joke. If addiction is defined by three criteria; experiencing an intense craving, losing control when confronted by the object of that craving and continued use leading to detrimental consequences, then its fair to say that addiction to chocolate is a very real problem for some people.
High in fat and sugar, chocolate has the ability to fire up the reward pathways in our brain that were probably formed in early childhood, and lead us to associate eating it with comfort, pleasure and reward. This is a deeply seductive trio for the human brain and for some, eating chocolate in large amounts provides a short cut to satisfying these powerful emotional needs.
Our early experiences of chocolate are immensely important in forming our subsequent responses to it. Parents often give it to their child as a reward, which can create the connection in the brain between eating chocolate and receiving parental praise (something which is continually sought by a child).
Sometimes chocolate is used as a distraction to nullify misbehaviour and sometimes it is used to soothe and comfort when a child is upset. All three of these early experiences can help to form complex emotional bonds with chocolate and any other sweet foods offered so that the child learns to crave them with increasing intensity in order to resolve difficult emotions easily.
Of course childhood obesity is an increasing problem in the developed world and this pattern of eating in response to difficult emotions often continues into adulthood, when of course the emotional side of life usually becomes far more complex and demanding.
These deeply entrenched behaviours of over indulgence in the sweet stuff naturally have consequences that most of us are only too aware of. Obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease are of course the big players when it comes to the risk factors of a high fat high sugar diet, but also you may not be aware that chocolate actually contains approximately 380 different chemicals, some of which can contribute to a range of health problems.
Downing so much sugar in one big hit can increase your body’s demand for insulin and when insulin levels are high, your body becomes increasingly desensitized to it, causing weight gain, lethargy and driving up blood pressure levels. Eating too much sugar can actually make you feel more hungry as it scrambles your brains ability to tell when it’s feeling full, so it might not just be the chocolate bar you end up eating!
If chocolate exerts an extraordinary amount of power over you and you feel anxious or negative without it, then it’s probably time to think about taking back that control and breaking the habit. To achieve this it’s vital to explore the connection between your cravings for chocolate and the emotional triggers behind them.
Seeking expert help to guide you through this process can be invaluable when it comes finally breaking free of the addiction, but this doesn’t mean there isn’t a number of strategies that you can also use to help yourself.
Firs, identifying why chocolate has become a problem for you is a good place to start. For example, are you using it to fill a void in other areas of your life where you feel unhappy? Are you reaching for it in response to feeling like you need an energy boost because you’re so tired all the time or is it triggered by a connection to a memory of chocolate making you feel good? All of these questions can help you get to the crux of the matter.
Once you’ve worked this out, spend time understanding when your most vulnerable times occur during the day. It may be that post lunch slump when you feel you need a pick-me-up or it might be that you eat it secretly and you’re in denial about it.
Start by trying to wean yourself off it by gradually reducing the amounts you eat on a daily basis. When cravings threaten to overwhelm you employ distraction techniques and get yourself away from temptation. Take a brisk walk, force yourself to focus on a challenging puzzle - anything that will allow you to ride out the feeling of need. Make sure you eat a healthy, balanced and filling lunch so that you are less likely to succumb to those afternoon munchies.
Change your environment too. Buying endless amounts of chocolate is only going to mean one thing. Instead make it hard for yourself to get hold of it. This way you’ll get more time to deploy your distraction techniques. Learning deep relaxation techniques such as self-hypnosis can also help you to learn to deal with the inevitable early feelings of anxiety when you are trying to live without the thing you crave the most.
And most importantly, learn to reward yourself in other, more creative ways. When you manage to make it through the day without chocolate treat yourself to something that’s going to make you feel good about yourself, because rewards aren’t always foil wrapped and sugary!
About the writer
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Russell Hemmings is a renowned cognitive |
