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Stress, Sugar Cravings, and Survival

Stress, Sugar Cravings, and Survival: A Somatic Trauma Perspective

Introduction: If You Crave Sugar When You’re Stressed, You’re Not Broken

I am going to be honest, this is the thing I struggled with all my life. When I was stressed I reached for candy. There was so much shame about “doing it again” so I am talking from experience. If you are like me and find yourself reaching for chocolate, cookies, or carbs every time stress or anxiety hits, this is not a failure of willpower.

From a somatic trauma perspective, those sugar cravings are actually a survival response.

“What we call ‘bad habits’ are often just survival responses. Your body is doing the best it can with the tools it has.”
– Dr. Aimie Apigian

Sugar has likely become one of your body’s tools:

  • To get quick energy to face stress
  • To numb the intensity of anxiety and emotional pain

In this article, you’ll learn why that happens, how it affects your body and brain, and how—gently, without shame—you can begin to create new patterns.

As a somatic trauma therapist, I approach this through:

  • The nervous system and polyvagal lens
  • Somatic experiencing principles
  • Attachment and parts work
  • Insights from EMDR and brain-based approaches
  • The biology of trauma and how the body keeps the score

How Sugar “Helps” Your Nervous System in the Moment

Sugar and the Opiate Receptors: Why It Numbs the Pain

Simple sugars do more than taste good. They bind to opiate receptors in the brain—the same types of receptors that respond to certain pain medications and substances.

When these opiate receptors are activated, they can:

  • Numb emotional and physical pain
  • Decrease the felt intensity of anxiety and stress
  • Create a brief sense of relief, comfort, or even “safe disconnection”

So when you’re overwhelmed and suddenly need something sweet, your nervous system may be saying:

“This feels like too much. I need something that helps me stop feeling it so intensely.”

That’s not you being weak.
That’s your nervous system trying to protect you from overwhelm.

The Survival Logic: Sugar as Fast Fuel for Fight, Flight, or Freeze

From a biology-of-trauma and polyvagal perspective, when you’re under stress, your body activates survival responses:

  • Fight – mobilizing energy to confront
  • Flight – mobilizing energy to escape
  • Freeze / Shutdown – conserving energy when escape doesn’t feel possible

All of these states are energy-intensive, especially fight and flight.

Sugar and refined carbohydrates give your body:

  • Immediate energy to run or fight
  • A very fast spike of blood sugar that your muscles and brain can access quickly

In the short term, sugar:

  • Helps you survive the perceived threat
  • Provides fuel for your survival responses
  • Numbs the intensity of anxiety so you can keep going

So yes, sugar is helping you survive in the moment.
And at the same time, it’s not helping your long-term health or emotional healing.

The Long-Term Cost: When Sugar Makes Anxiety and Depression Worse

Sugar Isn’t Healing Your Stress—It’s Just Turning Down the Volume

You named this clearly:

“Sugar isn’t helping your health during stress, it is just lessening the intensity of the anxiety.”

That’s exactly what’s happening.

  • Sugar doesn’t resolve the root cause of your stress or trauma.
  • It doesn’t address nervous system dysregulation, unprocessed memories, or attachment wounds.
  • It simply turns down how intensely you feel them, for a short while.

Meanwhile, underneath the numbing effect:

  • Your stress system is still activated.
  • Your unresolved experiences are still there.
  • Your nervous system remains in a pattern of survival, not safety.

Inflammation in the Body and Brain

Over time, high sugar and refined carbohydrate intake can:

  • Increase inflammation in the body
  • Create neuroinflammation in the brain
  • Contribute to blood sugar swings that leave you:
    • Wired and anxious
    • Then tired, foggy, and low

Inflammation and blood sugar instability are deeply linked to:

  • Increased anxiety
  • Low mood and depression
  • Brain fog and irritability
  • Poor sleep and difficulty regulating emotions

So while in the short run sugar helps you feel less,
in the long run it often makes anxiety and depression more intense and more frequent.

Impact on the Gut and Intestinal Lining

From a trauma-informed and body-based perspective, the gut–brain axis is crucial.

Chronic high sugar intake can:

  • Disrupt your gut microbiome (the bacteria in your intestines)
  • Drive inflammation in the gut
  • Potentially damage the intestinal lining

A stressed, inflamed, or “leaky” gut can:

  • Send more “danger” signals up the vagus nerve to your brain
  • Worsen anxiety, depression, and irritability
  • Make your system feel even less safe, even if “nothing is wrong” externally

So the very thing that numbs your anxiety in the moment may be:

  • Making your system more sensitive in the long term
  • Keeping your nervous system stuck in a pattern of survival, not safety

The Stress–Sugar Cycle: How Survival Patterns Become Traps

Here’s how this often looks in real life:

  1. Trigger or stressor
    • Conflict, criticism, loneliness, exhaustion, old trauma being activated.
  2. Nervous system shifts into survival
    • Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn (people-pleasing to stay safe).
  3. Craving for sugar or carbs
    • Your body remembers: “Sugar helped lower the intensity last time.”
  4. You eat sugar
    • Short-term: numbness, comfort, energy, maybe a slight sense of “okayness.”
  5. Crash plus inflammation
    • Blood sugar drops.
    • You feel more anxious, irritable, or low.
    • Inflammation worsens brain and body symptoms.
  6. Shame, self-blame, and more stress
    • “Why can’t I stop?”
    • This adds another layer of threat to the nervous system.
  7. The cycle repeats

From a somatic, polyvagal, and parts-work lens, this pattern is not random:

  • A protective part of you reaches for sugar to keep you from feeling overwhelmed.
  • Your body is choosing what has worked before, even if it’s costly.

A loyal survival strategy that’s trying to keep you safe with the only tools it has.

How Somatic and Trauma-Informed Work Can Help You Shift This Pattern

Working with the Nervous System (Polyvagal & Somatic Experiencing)

Rather than forcing yourself to “just stop eating sugar,” we work with the root: your nervous system state.

Using a polyvagal-informed and Somatic Experiencing–inspired approach, we gently explore:

  • How your body tells you it’s in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn
  • The sensations that precede a sugar craving (tight chest, buzzing, emptiness, numbness)
  • Small, titrated ways to:
    • Pendulate between activation and safety
    • Build capacity to feel more without becoming overwhelmed

As your nervous system starts to experience real safety in the present:

  • The urgency for sugar as a survival tool begins to soften.
  • Your body learns, “I have other ways to come down from this.”

Parts Work: Meeting the “Sugar Part” with Compassion

From a parts work (IFS-style) lens, we might meet:

  • The part of you that says, “I need sugar now or I can’t cope.”
  • The younger parts that learned food or sugar was the only source of comfort or soothing.
  • The inner critic that shames you afterwards.

Instead of trying to eliminate these parts, we get curious:

  • What is this part protecting you from feeling?
  • When did it first learn that sugar brought relief?
  • What does it fear would happen if it didn’t use sugar?

As we build a relationship with these parts, they often become more willing to try:

  • Other forms of soothing
  • Other ways to feel safe and comforted

Attachment and Safety in Relationship

Many sugar and food patterns are intertwined with attachment—how safe or unsafe it felt to:

  • Need something
  • Receive comfort
  • Have emotions in front of others

In trauma-informed, attachment-aware work, we slowly:

  • Create an experience of safe connection
  • Support you in feeling seen, not judged
  • Help your nervous system register that:
    • It’s possible to bring needs, emotions, and cravings into relationship
    • You don’t have to manage them alone with sugar

This relational safety is deeply regulating for the nervous system.

EMDR, Brainspotting, and Brain-Based Approaches

For some people, memories or sensations tied to:

  • Emotional neglect
  • Abuse or bullying
  • Medical trauma
  • Chronic stress or burnout

can be directly linked to sugar and food behaviors.

Brain-based approaches like Brainspotting and EMDR can help:

  • Reprocess distressing memories
  • Loosen the emotional charge behind triggers
  • Reduce the intensity of the body’s need to numb or escape

When the original wounds are less activated, the drive toward sugar as a numbing agent often naturally eases.

Biology of Trauma & Functional Perspectives

Honoring the biology—inspired by the work of Dr. Aimie Apigian—we also consider:

  • Supporting more stable blood sugar
  • Reducing overall inflammation
  • Supporting the gut and intestines

Because when your biology is calmer, it becomes:

  • Easier to do the emotional work
  • Easier for your nervous system to stay regulated
  • Easier to choose something other than sugar in the moment

Gentle, Practical Ways to Support Yourself Without All-or-Nothing Rules

This is not about perfection or rigid rules. It’s about giving your body more options.

1. Stabilize, Don’t Punish: More Supportive Carbohydrates

Instead of cutting out all carbs (which can shock a stressed system), you might gently shift toward:

  • Complex carbohydrates:
    • Sweet potatoes
    • Oats
    • Quinoa
    • Brown rice
    • Lentils and beans
  • Pair carbs with protein and fat:
    • Protein: eggs, chicken, fish, tofu, tempeh
    • Healthy fats: avocado, olive oil, nuts, seeds

This helps:

  • Reduce extreme sugar spikes and crashes
  • Soften mood swings and energy swings
  • Create a steadier baseline for your nervous system

2. Add Somatic Tools That Also “Turn Down the Volume”

Your body still needs ways to reduce intensity. We can gently add tools like:

  • Grounding & orienting
    • Feeling your feet on the floor
    • Noticing 5 things you see, 4 you feel, 3 you hear
    • Letting your eyes slowly look around the room to remind your body: “I am here now, and I am safe enough.”
  • Soothing sensory input
    • Warm tea, a soft blanket, a gentle hand on your chest
    • Rocking in a chair, gentle swaying
  • Regulated breathing
    • Inhale for 4, exhale for 6–8
    • The longer exhale can signal safety to your nervous system
  • Gentle movement to discharge activation
    • Light shaking of arms and legs
    • A slow walk
    • Stretching, yawning, or sighing

Even 30–60 seconds of these before reaching for sugar can:

  • Give your system another experience of regulation
  • Sometimes reduce how much sugar you need to feel “okay”

3. Curiosity Instead of Criticism

When a sugar craving arises, you might try asking:

  • “What am I feeling in my body right now?”
  • “What just happened that might have triggered this?”
  • “Is there one thing I can do for my nervous system first—even if I still eat the sugar afterwards?”

You’re not taking sugar away; you’re adding choice and adding care.

You Don’t Have to Do This Alone: A Compassionate Call to Support

If sugar has become your way to cope with anxiety, trauma, or overwhelm, there is nothing wrong with you.

Your body and nervous system:

  • Have been trying to keep you alive
  • Found a tool that works in the short term
  • Are now asking for more sustainable support

As a somatic trauma therapist, my work is to help you:

  • Understand your nervous system, not fight it
  • Gently unwind survival patterns like stress-driven sugar cravings
  • Build new ways of:
    • Feeling safe in your body
    • Soothing anxiety
    • Supporting your brain, body, and gut
  • Do this at a pace that feels respectful, not overwhelming

Gentle Invitation: Book a Free Consultation

If you’re noticing yourself in this article—
the stress, the sugar, the shame, the sense of being stuck in a loop—
you don’t have to figure this out alone.

In a free consultation call, we can:

  • Explore how stress, trauma, and sugar cravings are showing up in your life
  • Look at your patterns through a nervous-system, somatic, and trauma-informed lens
  • See whether working together feels like a good, safe fit for you
  • Take one small, compassionate step toward more regulation and less reliance on sugar for survival

You’re not “too much,” and you’re not broken.
Your body has been trying to survive.

If you’re ready to explore a gentler way forward, I invite you to book a free consultation call using the button at the top of this page.


Book Free Consultation

Healing is Possible!