Chocolate activates a part of the brain that blunts pain and makes it difficult to stop eating. A study by the University of Chicago gave rats chocolate chips to eat while a heat source under their cage warmed its floor. Normally this would cause them to lift their paws, but while they ate their pain response was dulled and they kept their paws in place for longer. They also kept on eating.
For anybody trained as a Cognitive Hypnotherapist the idea that eating dulls pain is instantly interesting because I wonder whether emotional pain also responds in the same way? If it does, it provides an insight into those clients who respond to negative emotions by overeating. Studies have linked eating disorders to traumatic memories in as many as 40% of sufferers, and this could provide an insight into why so many people view food as ‘comfort’.
What the study also shows is that drinking water also has the same effect, so it is the act of ingesting that seems important, not what is ingested. With Wordweaving, our approach to hypnotic suggestion, it would be possible to adjust a client’s choice of food or drink at the same times as working with them to clear the emorional root of the pain. In that way their issue is being worked on in several different ways at once. Food for thought.
Read about the study here.
