Comfort

We all get knocked about from time to time.  Our hearts get broken, friendships are lost, loved ones develop medical problems.  As Roseann Roseannadanna used to say...

For some reason, when our hearts hurt, we want to eat.  And not just any food, but comfort food... hot bread, macaroni and cheese, cookies.  Poor us!  We want the food that brings back our childhood, when we depended on someone else to solve our problems. 

I don’t know anyone who flies to Swiss chard or hard-boiled eggs to make their hearts feel better.  It’s more often high-fat, high-carb combinations.  I suspect it’s something built into us for survival. 

When our well-being is threatened, as when we lose a loved one, the evolutionary response is flight-or-fight.  Built into us is the hardware that is able to burst into a sprint from the saber-toothed tiger or turn to fight it.  The flight-or-fight response is heavily dependent on fats in the bloodstream to fuel that instant strong response. 

So when you heart breaks, it makes a weird kind of sense that you might drive yourself down to Old West and order up a giant cinnamon roll with double white icing. 

And it actually does seem to work in the very short-term, which is all that flight-or-fight response is meant for. 

But then we have to notice that comfort food does not actually solve the pain.  It doesn't take it away; it postpones it, and very briefly, at that.

Isn’t it interesting that when we suffer emotional pain, it registers in the body?  We try to solve our spiritual pain with a physical solution... food.  What we suffer in our minds and souls is also somehow a part of our bodies.

Here’s the other side.  There really can be a physical analgesic to emotional pain.  You know what I’m going to say.  Activity.  Food is the easier, more immediate go-to, but we all know it only lasts a few moments.  A hike, a bike ride, a jog around the block lasts so much longer and has nothing but good consequences, whereas a food fest... well, you know the consequences.  Guilt, remorse, recriminations. 

The consequences of seeking comfort in activity are strength, serenity and a fatigue that helps you rest at night.  All things that really do help us survive difficulty in life.  It's harder to get up and do it when your heart aches, but so worth the trouble.

If you see me walking up and down the Irish hills at all hours, riding down Los Osos Valley Road into the wind, running circles till I drop… it lasts longer than Chips Ahoy and it's less expensive than therapy!