Can Sugar Make Us Happy?
Most people with a sweet tooth are addicted to anything that is sweet or is even remotely related the taste of being sweet. Many of us have that sweet tooth which never fails to make us want all the sweets in the middle of the night or while working at the office. These sweet treats when consumed tend to make us feel instantly happy. Well that is true. When one consumes sugar the glucose in them causes an increase in our blood sugar and insulin levels, thus causing you to feel high whenever you eat something sweet.
Once you open a can of any fizzy drink and take a sip, the sugar travels down your throat and into your stomach and takes a short trip from your stomach to your blood. As that sugar starts to move its way through your body, it eventually makes its way to your brain.
Your brain is happy with this shot of sugar you just consumed because while it only makes up only two percent of the body weight, your brain uses one-half of all the energy in the body. Still, too much sugar too often can steer the brain into overdrive and starts to physically and psychologically effect our body by leading to weight gain and dependence.
What Sugar Does to Your Brain
When you eat something sweet your blood secretes chemicals known as opioids, which produces a feeling of pleasure inside our brain. Once our brain recognizes this feeling, our body demands to feel that pleasure again and again thus causing those mid night sweet cravings.
Research has proven that when one we crave for something sweet a specific area of the brain becomes activated thereby making us recognize the feeling. Once you consume a sweet treat, the sugar enters your bloodstream causing your pancreas to release insulin.
This insulin converts the sugar into energy. The greater the amount of sugar you consume the higher would be the amount of insulin that would be produced. Thus when you consume a lot of sugary stuff, you feel instant burst of energy. This burst of energy thus justifies the highness you feel exactly after consuming those sweets.
The laziness that you often feel after consuming those sugary treats of yours is due to the fact that when insulin is released the blood sugar rapidly decreases. Insulin has one more job to do, which is to activate the fat storage. Thus the whole process which begins right from the cravings and then the release of insulin and the instant highness that we feel pretty much explains how sugar makes us happy.
It all lies in the chemistry. But eating a lot of sugar is not healthy it not only increases our weight but also causes a lot of other cardiovascular diseases, putting you at the risk of even diabetes. Consumption of sugar can also cause anxiety and depression, thus how much craving you have and how happy sugar makes you feel you shouldn’t eat it beyond a certain limit.
You must not avoid it altogether but eating in moderation would do well to you. However, a few people realize the long term effects and cut down on the sugar consumption. The golden rule of eating in moderation must never be forgotten. We can take care of our brains much better than we do and knowing that the foods that we put into our mouths can dramatically how we think, how we feel and act, and which diseases we get means that your brain and how well it functions is in your hands.
You have a choice and what you eat and drink can make dramatic differences in how you think, feel and behave.
