Welcome to Wisdom & Sol! If you haven’t subscribed, join our community of 95,000 intelligent, curious folks who want to boost their emotional well-being by subscribing here.

Subscribe

For years, we’ve been fed a guilt-inducing narrative about cravings: Giving in to a craving means you lack willpower.

The advice we typically give about how to counteract a craving is to distract your mind from it. But that solution ignores the very important fact that our bodies always keep track of the emotions we don’t process.

When emotional stress goes unmet, it manifests in your HPA axis, the primary neuroendocrine system in the body that responds to stress. When that gets activated, your cortisol levels (stress hormone) spike.

Next, your brain starts to look for the fastest way to do disaster control and calm you down. The easiest option is to get a hit of dopamine, the reward and pleasure chemical. A quick snack like sugar treat, something crunchy, or a glass of wine often fulfills that need. For the mind, an endless scroll works for a while, and then it stops.

A study at Harvard validated the fact that repeated use of hyper-palatable foods to soothe emotional stress conditions the brain to seek out that response. Which means, every time you reach for the snack instead of resolving the feelings beneath, you reinforce the loop.

A craving is usually never about hunger or the thing you want to do or eat. It's really an emotion you didn't have the time, space, or courage to feel during the day, and now your body is demanding to process it.

The Physics of Emotions

Noted chemist Antoine Lavoisier once said, “Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.” The energy of an emotion never disappears either. When you bite your tongue during a tense meeting, smile politely in response to a hurtful remark, or silently absorb someone else's stress so as not to spoil dinner, that energy is bottled-up.

Your body is brilliantly pragmatic. While facing the weight of a heavy emotion, it seeks the quickest way to comfort you. It translates the emotional hunger into physical hunger because physical hunger is a problem you know how to solve.

Everyone knows exactly how to buy a cheesecake or order takeout, but we don’t always know how to ask for a hug, set a boundary, or admit we are feeling lonely. And so, the body asks for a substitute.

The Texture of Feelings and Somatic Release

Fun fact: What we’re craving for can sometimes give us useful information too.

The texture of food you're reaching for is a clue about the emotion you haven't met.

A recent study surveyed 1,000 people on which foods they actually wanted when experiencing different negative emotions. The results were striking. Anger produced cravings for intense, refreshing, and chewy textures—chips, crackers, anything that gives the jaw something to push against. Sadness produced cravings for rich, soft, and mild textures—chocolate, pastries, warm milk-based drinks.

The next time you have a craving, make the connections between the texture and your needs:

❝

If you’re seeking a loud, aggressive crunch, it usually means there was something you needed to push back against and didn't. Perhaps your jaw is looking for a physical release, or you feel a need to smash something. This is craving of unspoken frustration, irritation, or boundaries you didn't defend.

❝

When you want something soft, sweet, and warm, it usually means you're tired, lonely, or under-comforted, and your body is asking to be cuddled from the inside. Notice the mechanics of consumption, too: Soft foods require almost no jaw work, and have litte resistance. They ask absolutely nothing of you. It is your nervous system looking for a blanket.

❝

If you’re sucked into screen time—a scroll that goes from informative to numbing—it usually means you're trying to outrun a feeling rather than soothe it. This is related to a need to disconnect, usually when the cognitive load of the day has been too high and you simply want to blur everything.

You don't have to avoid every snack, but once you know that a snack is a substitute for something else, you unlock different ways to handle it. You can call a friend instead of pouring the third glass of wine. You can write down the things you didn't say at work. You can sit with loneliness for 10 minutes and find it doesn't kill you.

The Bottom Line

Working with emotions instead of around them is the single most useful thing anyone can do for their relationship with food, alcohol, scrolling, spending—any of the late-night reaches. This is not a quick fix but a practice—and it does something almost nothing else does: It makes you a slightly different person each time you do it. You’ll become a little more honest with yourself. Less afraid of your own inner world. Less reliant on outside things to regulate what was always meant to be felt.

Next time you feel the pull of a craving, try this: Pause for 60 seconds, note the texture you're reaching for, then ask your body what it actually wants. Most nights, the answer won’t be in the kitchen at all.

❝

Help us make this newsletter even better for you! Was this issue useful? What would you be excited to read about next? Reply to this email with your thoughts and suggestions. We read every response!