Why do people eat at night. Habit to eat at night - how to fight

Many do not sleep at night, but raid the refrigerator and in remote corners of the kitchen, stealing food that they forbade themselves to think about during the day. Where does this craving come from? Scientists investigated the behavior of food lovers at midnight and revealed interesting patterns.

Night appetite: illness or deception?

The portrait of a night gourmet is not very attractive: excess weight, dark circles under the eyes and a guilty expression on the face. It is also a restless dream with frequent awakenings for going for food. In the morning I don’t want to eat at all, the maximum for breakfast is a cup of coffee. As a result, the body does not know in what rhythm it needs to work: metabolism is disturbed, problems with hormonal status arise.

All this in his scientific work back in 1955 was described by Dr. Albert Stankard. A well-known psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine believed that such symptoms could be combined into one - "night appetite syndrome." Describing their condition, patients said that they cannot fall asleep until they feel full. These are rather sudden outbreaks of hunger, rather than a permanent night state, which is also indicated by the short time of nightly meals: only 3.5 minutes were enough for the observed to have a bite and feel relief. In his notes, the doctor noted that such people at night consumed more than 25% of the daily diet. All had abnormalities in the functioning of the brain — a decrease in the transmission of the “hormone of joy” of serotonin. As a result, sleep rhythms were lost, and the body turned out to be disoriented. Not understanding the time of day, he tried to provide himself with a supply of nutrients, so he increased his appetite.

Despite these facts, for a long time the syndrome was not taken seriously in the scientific community. It was believed that bouts of gluttony at night suffer those who are simply too lazy to take care of themselves. For example, psychologists from the University of California report that people have more control over their behavior in bright light, but at dusk, on the contrary, they relax, so in order not to overeat at bedtime, you really need willpower. But still the night "hunt" is not always a whim.

Why is it so hungry at night?

Sometimes, the cause of hunger in later times lies in problems with the gastrointestinal tract, primarily in gastric ulcer. Eating for such people is often painful, you don’t always want to eat during the day, but at night the appetite comes with double strength.

Psychotherapists say that the cause of nightly gluttony in healthy people is stress, fatigue, loneliness, and the level of self-esteem in those who look at the refrigerator at night is very low.

But researchers from the Skolk Institute in the United States published a study that confirmed the original theory of night gluttony syndrome. Scientists report that people cannot be blamed for licentiousness or psychological difficulties: a genetic malfunction pushes them to midnight meals. During the experiments, they found that in case of dysfunction of the gene, which is responsible for the rhythms of sleep and wakefulness, the likelihood of night outbreaks of hunger increases.

So, problems with the gastrointestinal tract, stress or genetics lead a person at night to the refrigerator, and you won’t be able to quit this habit abruptly. And there’s nothing to it. Scientists at the Dunn Nutrition Center in Cambridge believe that hanging a lock on the refrigerator and refusing to eat late is optional. According to the results of their research, the process of fat deposition depends not so much on the time of food, but on the total calorie content of the diet. Doctors of the World Health Organization recommend consuming no more than two thousand calories per day. It is impossible to indulge in all serious, because overeating at any time of the day, even in the morning, can harm health and figure.

How to eat if endured unbearable?

Albert Stankard, who in the middle of the last century for the first time studied the characteristics of people with such a habit, recommended observing some rules. The most important thing is to ignore your unwillingness to eat in the afternoon. A hearty breakfast is required in the morning, even if you feel full. Over time, the body will get used to it and will orient you to eat at the right time. During the day you need to eat 4-5 times, but in small portions. Among the products must be more protein. This, of course, is meat - you should choose low-fat varieties, for example, chicken - and dairy products (low-fat cottage cheese). Precautions are related to the fact that such products contain a high concentration of meat and milk fat, which, if abused, can lead to the development of cardiovascular diseases.

By evening, the calorie content of foods should be reduced. For example, a vegetable salad is good for dinner. Since lovers of food at night do not have enough serotonin, you need to eat those foods that will increase its level in the body - this normalizes the brain and restores biorhythms. Serotonin is not found in food in its pure form, it is formed during metabolism from a special substance tryptophan. Most of all they are rich in bananas, it is in dark chocolate with a high cocoa content, but you should not absorb all the chocolate at once. Tryptophan is also found in oily fish: mackerel, herring, trout. Despite the fact that the percentage of fat in these varieties of fish is high, it is more beneficial for the heart, since it is a well-known beneficial omega-3 fatty acid.

Useful Secrets

Drink a glass of water.  Often the body tells us that it does not have enough fluid for metabolic processes, but we confuse this feeling with hunger and eat excess.

Allow yourself a little sweet.  Feeling of hunger may be associated with low blood sugar. To raise it, you need simple carbohydrates, that is, glucose. Try to eat some fruit or drink tea with a spoon of honey - the body perceives natural sugar better, so hunger will be satisfied with minimal damage to health.

Relax.Whatever the causes of night hunger, in any case, there is such an important factor as the emotional state. Try not to overload the nervous system in the evening: do not watch the news that are alarming, do not load yourself with computer work, allow yourself to relax, then the night-day rhythms will recover by themselves, and the question of night hunting will be closed.

There is good news for night food lovers: doctors recommend eating two to three hours before bedtime, even if you go to bed very late.

Eating at night helps to overcome stress, failure or loss, but it threatens myocardial infarction, obesity, the development of type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, so you need to be able to cope with night appetite. It is curious that there are supporters of food after midnight who believe that 80% breaks between meals for more than 12 hours

You still can’t overcome yourself and stop eating at night? Relatives call you a glutton? But, do not rush to despair and once again execute yourself for the next sandwich or eaten. Dietitians and psychotherapists claim that eating at night is a real disease that needs to be fought.

Strange disease

Those who are used to eating at night in a strange way describe their condition. They argue that it is at night that they have the sensation of a wild “zhora”. And to cope with such a feeling is almost impossible. Moreover, such people at night eat those foods that usually do not allow themselves during the day. For example, during the day you refrain from eating another piece of cake, but at night there are no restrictions for you - you can eat a whole cake and not notice it.

Patients say that they are trying to deal with such food addiction as soon as they can, up to taking sleeping pills (so that they can sleep soundly at night and not wake up). But, why does the nightly “eat” addiction apply specifically to harmful products, and not to healthy ones - salads, healthy sweets, etc.?

Do you like to eat at night? What is the problem? Prepare exclusively healthy and healthy dishes in advance, set an alarm for a certain time and go ahead - eat as much as you like. You can be sure that after a month of such nightly gluttony with salads, you will not want to get up anymore at night.

Night meal syndrome

Dietitians and psychotherapy experts say that everything described above is called nothing more than a night meal syndrome. Such a syndrome is classified as an eating disorder, which is equated by the complexity of the symptoms and the consequences after anorexia nervosa or. Accordingly, what you go to eat at night can be called a painful condition.

Syndrome of night food is cured extremely difficult and not always. And if you really deal with the treatment of the syndrome, then you need to contact not a gastroenterologist or a nutritionist, but only a psychotherapist.

According to statistics, the syndrome of nocturnal food most often occurs in women.

The reason for night food is not at all gluttony. Such a violation of eating behavior affects even those who adhere to the rules of a healthy diet and are on. Most of those who look at the kitchen at night prefer not to go to the doctors, but to cope with this addiction on their own.

Psychotherapists say that the more a person has life problems at the moment, the more often he will turn to the refrigerator for help.

Psychochemical theory of addiction

The first cause of night gluttony syndrome is a violation of the functioning of the brain, namely, a malfunction of the "inhibition-excitation" system. It's about hormones. If adrenaline predominates in our body, then we feel a surge of strength, vigor, enthusiasm, a readiness to rush, do something, and not stand still. If the hormone serotonin predominates, then we are constantly falling asleep, we are very relaxed, lazy. In the case of a deficiency of the dopamine hormone, the body overcomes muscle weakness. With a sharp increase in the body of substances called brain opiates, a person experiences real pleasure.

That is, it turns out that all our desires, emotions and diseases are the result of a complex interaction of the central nervous system and other organs in the body. It is difficult for us to understand all these processes that occur in the vital systems of the body.

Doctors say that night gluttony syndrome is closely related to processes in the brain. But, so far all these processes have not been thoroughly studied. Some patients complain of restless sleep, which makes them wake up and occupy themselves with something. What else can you do at night? Of course - eat! In this case, patients are advised to take sedative drugs with sleeping pills at night. But, the whole catch is that when you stop treatment, the desire to eat at night resumes repeatedly.

Psychogenic theory

The second reason that a person cannot tear himself away from the refrigerator at night is psychogenic. Let's consider in more detail. Here the so-called inverse effect is triggered. For example, you are trying to give up sweets, but your brain does not want to understand and accept this. Therefore, the so-called breakdowns occur. During the day you can still control your needs, but at night - no. And just at night, the desire to eat a chocolate bar is so great that you get out of bed and eat sweets.

Do not deny yourself the pleasure of eating a piece of chocolate at night. The prohibition system has not yet led to anything good.

Treatment

The gluttony therapy at night, according to the vision of psychologists, is very simple. Who said eating at night is bad? I want to eat - we take it and do it without scolding ourselves for minute weaknesses. Eating at night is harmless if your body requires it and if the food is not harmful. To do this, pre-cook healthy sweets, salads, possibly cereals,

Syndrome of night appetite (eating, eating): magic ends at midnight. In our society, I perceive night food as a prank or as a given for a certain mode of work. Moreover, many are justified by the fact that in the morning there is no appetite, no time, tired at work, etc. In fact, these are not your personality traits, but manifestations of a disease called night eating syndrome (night appetite syndrome), (Night eating syndrome, NES) and is included in the classifier of mental illness. This condition is not as harmless as it seems and can progress, leading to serious health problems.

Night Nutrition Syndrome (SNP) was first described in 1955 by Albert Stankard, a researcher at the Overeating University of Pennsylvania. This syndrome is at the junction of mental, nutritional, stressful and daily regimen disorders. Stankard found that people with SOR consume more than half their daily food intake between dinner and breakfast the next day, often interrupting sleep for nightly snacks. In the morning they have no appetite, and breakfast is in the afternoon. Another sign of SNP can be emotional tension, anxiety, and depression, especially at night.

About 9% of the population suffers from this syndrome regardless of gender and age. Despite the fact that eating disorders are traditionally considered a “female” disease, the frequency of occurrence of these conditions among men is also significant. This is also characteristic of the CHE studied in this work. Two studies have shown that CHE is significantly more common among men than among women. In people suffering from this syndrome, biological rhythms, hormones and metabolism are disturbed, a state of emotional hypoglycemia is observed.

Over the next few years, Stankard and a number of other researchers found that people suffering from SNP have hormonal disruptions. In those suffering from NES, the daily hormonal rhythm is disrupted, which leads to a malfunction of the biological clock, and therefore to metabolic disorders. A healthy person produces the hormone melatonin at night, which allows a person to fall asleep. If a person is susceptible to SOR, the level of melatonin becomes insufficiently high, as well as the level of the hormone leptin, which is responsible for suppressing hunger. At the same time, in the human body, the level of the stress hormone cortisol begins to increase throughout the day and night. Thus, SOR is a complex disorder of diet and sleep, which also leads to a decrease in stress resistance.

People with overnight eating syndrome may suffer from gluttony. It has now become known that despite the tendency of such people to be obese, a small percentage of people with normal weight are also susceptible to DST. Many people suffering from SOR have the belief that: “If I don’t eat, I won’t be able to fall asleep.” Studies have shown that the problem of overeating is more than three times more common among people with SOR than with healthy people. This is comparable to the number of cases of overeating problems in people suffering from diseases such as bulimia.

Experts, including Dr. Stankard, co-author of the book “Overcoming Night Nutrition Syndrome,” agree that the first step in the fight against SOR is awareness of the problem. If you are obese, eat more than half of the food at night, have difficulty sleeping and don’t want to have breakfast, you may have an SOR. If you are under medical supervision, you may be offered special medical treatment. But independent techniques such as exercise, deep breathing techniques and other methods can help overcome stress. Restrictions on the time of meals and on the amount of food consumed at night and keeping a diary also proved to be effective.

Unfortunately, SNA is not harmless and can cause damage to your health, as well as worsen the quality of your life, causing an increased risk of obesity and many other diseases. This condition has a negative effect on the function of the stomach and intestines. People with night appetite syndrome have a tendency to flatulence and constipation, because due to deviations in diet, food stays in the intestines for a long time. In addition, eating just before bedtime can cause gastroesophageal reflux disease.

Experts are ready to consider regular nightly snacks as one of the signs of a serious mental disorder. For the syndrome of night snacking, it is characteristic that a person has a seat late in the evening or late at night, and cannot do without it - in physiological and psychological terms. Scientists concluded: those people who have an ineradicable habit of emptying the refrigerator at night are seriously at risk of getting one or another mental deviation.

Symptoms of night appetite syndrome (nocturnal food).

The most common eating disorder. Syndrome of night nutrition, in which the main role is played by digestive disorders, belongs to the same group as diseases such as anorexia or bulimia. People with this disorder, as a rule, have no appetite in the morning, 50% of the calories of the main part of the food are eaten in the afternoon, often wake up at night from hunger. Due to a lack of appetite, breakfast is very late in the morning. As a rule, wake up and eat once a day for 3 nights a week. During such waking up they eat high-calorie foods rich in carbohydrates, eat sweets. The disease is accompanied by depression, which weakens in the morning and worsens in the evening and at night. People are under stress, which they themselves may not notice, they can also blame themselves and be ashamed of eating at night. It is interesting that among patients there are no worries about diet or nutrition, while most of them are obese.

People who suffer from night-eating syndrome tend to limit the amount of food they eat during the day, and then compensate for this by overeating at bedtime or waking up in the middle of the night to eat. People with this eating pattern develop insomnia or sleep disturbance. Many people with this disorder believe that they cannot fall asleep if they eat right.

Other symptoms of nighttime eating syndrome are:

• An overwhelming appetite at bedtime or constant meals at night
• Feeling guilty, anxious, or upset while eating
• Inability to fall asleep or poor sleep
• Uncontrolled desire to eat something during the night
• More than half of your daily calories occur after dinner
• Weak appetite or lack of it in the morning
• Morning sickness
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Excessive weight gain
• Loss of control over the ability to stop eating.

There are some signs, the presence of which confirms the presence of SNA.

• There is morning reluctance.
• Increased appetite in the evening.
• Episodes of uncontrolled absorption of food.
• Nocturnal awakenings associated with a sudden onset of appetite. (Awakenings can be irregular, from time to time a person may not wake up at night, but later, awakenings resume).
• Sleep disturbances (shallow, restless, anxious sleep with frequent awakenings).

Depression, serotonin, and nocturnal food syndrome.

American experts conducted a series of studies on the topic of night appetite syndrome. So, in one of them, single-photon emission computed tomography showed a significant increase in serotonin transporters in the midbrain of people suffering from night appetite syndrome.

An increase in the level of the serotonin transporter leads to a decrease in the postsynaptic transmission of serotonin and can disrupt circadian rhythms and a feeling of satiety. Due to the action of serotonin transporters on the chemical composition of the brain, a person develops depression, anxiety, hostility. These negative emotions, merged with the guilt associated with an unconventional eating style, form the ideal ground for the psychological aggravation of the problem.

What is the first: the psychological problem that causes night appetite syndrome or malnutrition during the day? Many people who have experienced this syndrome have reported that before it appeared, they had to go through a stressful period in their lives. Also, the appearance of the syndrome is associated with a high level of anxiety and a compensatory feeling of satisfaction from eating.

In order to alleviate the symptoms of depression, it is necessary to induce the synthesis of serotonin. This becomes possible by consuming a large amount of highly carbohydrate, easily digestible food, which leads to an increase in the level of glucose, and, consequently, insulin in the blood plasma. Fighting depressed mood can lead to eating disorders. For the most part, people suffering from night food syndrome are shy of their nightly gluttony, trying to hide the problem from loved ones, which ultimately provokes even more overeating. As a result, a vicious circle is closed, including a decrease in mood up to depression, eating disorders and obesity.

It is known that with depression there is also a disturbance in sleep and appetite.
  According to scientists, the gene that controls circadian rhythms and the gene associated with sleep disorders should work at the same time - thanks to this synchronism, the desire to “turn off” for the duration of sleep. Violation of this condition provokes outbreaks of hunger at night, forcing raids on the refrigerator.published

A large number of people like to make frequent snacks between the main meal during the day, not just once slamming the door of the kitchen refrigerator or cupboard in the hope of enjoying something delicious. This is a common occurrence in many families, and the attitude towards such lovers to chew between things is normal and calm. Another thing is if trips for sandwiches, gingerbread cookies and smoked sausage happen in the middle of the night, when a person should - such behavior of domestic animals causes only bewilderment and understandable indignation. Moreover, the answers to the question why people eat at night, the majority do not have, and this is even more annoying. Although in reality there are not so many reasons for night snacks, and the explanation for such behavior is quite simple.

The main reasons why people eat at night:

- irregular meals throughout the day.

It is noticed that those who regularly and correctly eat during the day, sleep peacefully at night. But those who ate little during the day or skipped lunch or dinner, at night begin to feel very hungry and raid the refrigerator. As a result - extra pounds and a bad mood in the morning.

- severe nutritional restrictions in the bright half of the day.

Many ladies are on a strict diet all day, struggling with appetite, starve themselves and limit everything. But with the onset of night, it becomes impossible to endure, and a diet breaks down with the absorption of both healthy and harmful products for the waist.

- depression and bad mood.

Another reason, not only at night, is an attempt to stifle a negative mood. If a person is sad, lonely and uncomfortable, he will seize his negative mood with sweets and smoked meats, suffering from stress or depression. And not the fact that tasty food will improve the mood of such a night eater.

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As soon as the light turns off and impenetrable darkness sets in, some people experience an uncontrollable panic. Only after drinking a couple of times over night of tea or coffee with cookies in the bright kitchen, they calm down and can sleep for a while without fear.

- insomnia.

The inability to fall asleep on an empty stomach makes these people go for a snack every night. Only after eating, they fall asleep with a happy smile and a full stomach.

Thus, only by finding out the reason, one can understand why people eat at night, and based on the analysis of such behavior, take steps to eliminate this harmful phenomenon. After all, there is no benefit from night snacks, but there is plenty of harm to the figure and well-being. Read