The Connection Between A Trauma Response and Your Binge Eating

I'm backkkk!!!! Where did the rest of that summer go? August and September were a blur. Just to catch you up on some happenings over here, I started my PhD in Somatic Psychology which has reignited my passion for writing and research. I'm excited to continue to share with you everything I will be learning and discovering over the next several years.

My husband and I took several road trips. One to go celebrate my husband's grandmother's 90th birthday and the other to Glacier National Park with one of my favorite people in the world.

With everything I've been learning and exploring the past several months, it was also time to update and revamp the Somatic Eating® Program. I'm really excited about all the additions I've included in this next class. Doors are officially reopened. We start on October 28th and we will spend 3 months together going through my new and improved Somatic Eating® system to create a safe, secure, and satiated relationship with your food and body. If you want to learn more and sign up, go to somaticeating.com or click on the link in the show notes. And as always, if you have any questions email me at support@stephaniemara.com anytime.

One thing you're going to receive in the upcoming interviews is more exploration on nutrition. When I went through my Master's Degree in Somatic Psychotherapy, I was consistently surprised that there was no class on nutrition. This feels like a missing piece in the therapeutic world. I feel therapists would benefit from being aware that a person's nutritional status can also be contributing to their symptoms.

For example, living in a trauma response keeps your body in a constant state of stress. We've explored a lot here on why your food coping mechanisms like binge eating can be a response to trauma from the dysregulation happening in your nervous system. Today, we're going to explore how binge eating isn't just a reaction to emotional or nervous system dysregulation. It can also be triggered by nutrient depletion from living in a trauma response. 

When your body is stuck in a state of chronic stress, it tries to compensate for the lost nutrients and minerals.

Binging is your body’s best strategy to get its nutritional needs met. The body's response to trauma can change your metabolism and reduce nutrient absorption. Binging can be a biological response to the body trying to correct a nutrient imbalance. The overeating can be an attempt to make up for the nutritional shortfall caused by prolonged stress. Chronic stress increases your body's requirements for certain vitamins and minerals. Nutrient depletion can occur the longer your body's cortisol levels remain elevated.

Additionally, long-term trauma responses can increase systemic inflammation. This ongoing inflammation can impair your gut lining and create dysbiosis making it difficult to absorb nutrients. This is why as you heal the trauma response in your body and decrease patterns of disordered eating, you may then find yourself on a gut healing adventure. Your body will need time to repair the inflammation that occurred from how long you were living in that trauma response.

Some of the nutrients affected by stress include magnesium, zinc, iron, B vitamins, folate, Vitamin C, and Vitamin D.

Both acute and chronic exposure to psychological and environmental stress are associated with lower blood magnesium concentrations and increased urinary excretion. Magnesium is important for muscle relaxation, nervous system function, and energy production. Low magnesium can result in increased anxiety, irritability, and insomnia.

Zinc is vital for immune function and wound healing. It is involved in the functioning of over 300 different enzymes in your body and the synthesis of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Acute stress exposure lasting up to 5 days, severe chronic stress from trauma, and endurance exercise are all associated with lower levels of zinc. Zinc deficiency can induce depressive-like behavior.

Iron deficiency can lead to fatigue, dizziness, cognitive impairments, low mood, anxiety, restlessness, palpitations, and headaches. Studies have shown that both acute and chronic stress can decrease iron concentration in the body.

B vitamins are crucial for energy production and nervous system health. Low levels of B12​, B-6​, and folate ​can be linked to depression.​ Stress increases the body's demands for these vitamins and deficiency in them can result in fatigue, mood disorders, and mental instability.

Vitamin C is essential for immune function, collagen and neurotransmitter​ production, helps absorb iron, and enhances wound healing. Lack of vitamin C can also show up as fatigue and depression.

Lastly, vitamin D plays an important role in serotonin and melatonin regulation, helps with nutrient absorption, and has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and neuroprotective properties. It has been shown that those experiencing PTSD have lower levels of ​vitamin D.

When we look at foods you may normally binge on this can include chocolate which is high in magnesium, ​nuts which contain magnesium and zinc, cereal and pizza can provide zinc and iron, burgers can provide you with iron, most highly palatable foods like breads and pastries and chips and crackers are made with fortified flours giving you B vitamins and vitamin D, and some candies and juices come with added vitamin C.

What you're binging on is not only trying to help you feel emotionally safe but could also be providing your body with some missing nutrients from living in your sympathetic nervous system and an ongoing state of high stress. This is another example that you're binge eating is not the problem yet it has been the answer. Your body is trying to do the best it can to keep you alive.

So what do you do with all of this information?

First, you can practice trusting your body that it is always working with you to create homeostasis and equilibrium. When you're healing from an eating disorder or disordered eating, it can feel scary to change up what or how you're eating. Additionally, focusing on nutrition can sometimes feel like dieting because a lot of the foods that may feel supportive to your body to eat can also remind you of times when you were restricting. 

So rather than telling you all the foods you might start to add to your daily intake, you might begin with creating an intention about your relationship with nutrition. Why would you want to add in more nutrient-dense foods to your daily intake? Why would this feel important and help you create the kind of life you want to be living that has nothing to do with your body's appearance?

Potentially not the baby step you were expecting but we have to start small. Your body may already be in a chronic fight or flight response and to think about overhauling how you're eating isn't going to be supportive. It may increase your food coping mechanisms as a response to the overwhelm you're now experiencing thinking about changing a food pattern that is providing you with momentary safety. So you can start with the pre-contemplation phase in the process of change of why you would maybe want to eat different foods and how that may facilitate some of the deeper healing you're looking for.

And, if you want to double down on offering yourself some compassion, you might look up the nutritional profile of the foods you binge on. See the wisdom in your body and why it may feel drawn to that food for a reason.

It is so wonderful to be back connecting with you all here! I want to give a shout out to my new podcast editors at the Podcast Doctors. I realized that going through my PhD, I will need a lot more support to keep this podcast going and I am incredibly grateful for the editing they now do on all of the interviews. If you'd like to support the podcast, please consider donating a few dollars by becoming a part of Satiated+. Every donation helps. You can find that link in the show notes.

I have some amazing interviews coming up in the next couple of weeks so stay tuned for more!