Why You Need Ice Cream After a Break-Up
When your heart is broken, you park yourself on the sofa with a tub of ice cream and a blanket. There’s actually a scientific reason for that. Go ahead and grab that tub of cookie dough—here’s why you want to eat the whole thing so badly:
Food psychologist Jen Bateman tells HuffPost that if you used to get ice cream as a child when you were sad, or simply have good memories associated with ice cream, you’re much more likely to crave it. Those cravings are linked to foods from our past.
Sugar crash
There are even more reasons why ice cream is our greatest friend when we’re dealing with heartbreak. “Our brains are used to finding foods high in calories rewarding,” says Ashley Gearhardt, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. Ice cream contains fat and sugar, which gives your brain a major reward, making you feel really good for a moment as you eat the whole tub. Unfortunately, you can also experience a crash after that sugar bomb. “You get hit once the sugar wears off. You have emotional memories from the past and think you’ll feel better after eating ice cream. But ultimately, you don’t feel as good as you thought you would,” Gearhardt explains. You feel regretful, nauseous and low on energy, which makes you look for other snacks such as crisps or even alcohol.
The more you eat, the worse it gets
The first spoonful of ice cream always tastes best and makes you feel better, according to research by Unilever. Gearhardt explains that the more ice cream you eat, the less you taste it. At some point, you’re simply mindlessly shovelling ice cream into your mouth without registering the flavour anymore. That doesn’t change the fact that the tub of ice cream always reminds us of the ice cream we used to get as children, so you might as well bring one home.
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