As you read this I’m en route to Brisbane to present at the Happiness & It’s Causes conference…and to interview His Holiness The Dalai Lama for Channel Seven. As fate would have it, I’m chairing the presentation and panel discussion at the conference on Friday that sugar expert David Gillespie is doing – Eating Your Way to Health and Happiness. Any of you coming?
photo via pinterest.com
If you’re not going to be there… you might enjoy this. David shares why fructose makes us unhappy. I can personally vouch for the connection. I’ve been so very very much more stable since I quit sugar. Every now and then I’ve “tested” things by eating a bit of chocolate or having some honey in my chai. The effect is IMMEDIATE. I’m buzzy-grumpy. And I get ulcers. And I bloat. And it takes 24 hours for things to settle. It’s no big deal. Our bodies do detox the stuff out overnight. But I get the lesson clearly: not worth the pain.
Anyway…David’s thoughts (annotated a little by me):
Even seeing food improves our mood. This is because the anticipation of a feed, fires up the hormones responsible for how we feel. The sight (or smell) of food gives us a squirt of the pleasure hormone, dopamine.
- Dopamine focuses our attention, makes us think more clearly and helps us move faster and more effectively. It’s an important signal to our body that we are in for something good and we need to pay attention. And that was probably pretty handy in times gone by (when dinner was on the hoof rather than in the burger box)