

Craving sugar, sweets, chocolate anxiety symptom

Craving sugar, sweets, chocolate:

You have an increased desire for craving sugar, sweets or chocolate. Although you may have a 'sweet tooth', these cravings are unusually high. Many times, even though we eat a healthy meal or ingest raw sugars (candy bars, pastries, cakes, chocolate, soft drinks, juices), a short while later we are craving sugar, sweets again.

You are persistently hungry. Even though you ate only a short time ago, you are hungry again, and what you are craving most are high calorie foods, such as sugars and sweets.

Why does anxiety cause craving sugar, sweets, chocolate, and high carb foods?

Stress taxes the body's energy resources much harder than normal. When the body runs low on energy, it demands to be refueled with high energy (raw sugar) foods, which can be quickly converted to blood sugar (which the body uses for fuel). This is why when we are overly stressed and/or anxious, we crave raw sugar foods such as sugar, sweets, chocolate, and high carb foods. As the body's overall stress increases, so can the demand for craving sugar, sweets, chocolate, 'junk' foods, and raw sugar foods.

In fact, an early indication of elevating anxiety and/or stress is craving sugar, sweets, chocolate, and junk foods.

Fortunately, we can reduce and eliminate these types of cravings by containing our anxiousness and reducing stress.

For more information about why the body can be craving sugar, you can read about it in Chapter 3 in the Recovery Support area of our website.





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Authors: Jim Folk, Marilyn Folk, BScN. Last updated January 10, 2017. Information, support, and coaching/counseling/therapy for problematic anxiety and its sensations and symptoms, including why anxiety can cause a craving for sugar.