Stress Eating

Eating is a survival-related behavior, so our biological systems do what they can to encourage it.

One of the ways our bodies nudge us toward eating when we need nutrition is to make the experience pleasurable: our brains release a hit of dopamine into our systems when we eat, and the gut-brain axis further rewards us when we consume energy-stores like fat and sugar.

There's a point at which our neurological systems dampen, and eventually turn off this reward trigger, though, which is what gives us the sense of being full or otherwise done with eating for the moment; the consumption of food reverts to being a neutral activity, and other things start to look more interesting in comparison, again.

That combines with a general feeling of satiety regulated by the hypothalamus which further nudges us away from consuming food once we've had our fill.