A study by the University of Chicago demonstrates how chocolate activates a part of the brain that blunts pain and makes it difficult to stop eating. The study gave rats chocolate to eat while a heat source under their cage warmed its floor. The heat would normally cause them to lift their paws, but while they ate they kept their paws in place for longer because their pain response was dulled. They also kept on eating. You can read more about the study here.
If eating dulls pain we can wonder whether emotional pain also responds in the same way. If it does it provide an insight as to why many clients I see for weightloss respond to painful emotions by eating (‘comfort eating’). 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 in dulling the pain, so it is the act of ingesting that seems important, not what is ingested. With clients I use Cognitive Hypnotherapy’s approach to hypnotic suggestion 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.