Our desire to let down, to receive and to be cared for – rather than caring for others – is often what’s underneath end of the day and nighttime overeating. 

Yesterday we had a Q&A webinar for a group class where the topic of ‘I deserve a treat’ came up. Many people tell me how they crave sugar at night – a reward of pleasure after a long day.

The cravings for sugar are so strong and it feels like nothing else will do.

It’s so easy to get frustrated by these cravings – especially if we find ourselves overdoing sugar or overeating. But these cravings are communicating really helpful and important information.

If we can pause, slow way down, and look within to better understand what’s underneath this drive for a food treat, we can become a helpful ally to our cravings rather than their enemy.

When we slow things down, we often find that the desire for ice cream or a brownie is a desire for safety, for pleasure, for relaxation, or for rest from responsibility.

Attachment = survival

To better understand this need for rest, it helps to learn a bit about our need for contact and closeness, what’s called attachment in developmental psychology.

As mammals, we’re born helpless and dependent on the adults around us, and dependent on these adults for many years. Because of this design, our attachment instincts are our survival instincts. For human beings, attachment/connection is our greatest need, and separation is our greatest threat.

Stephen Porges, the founder of polyvagal theory says it like this – “connection is a biological necessity.” And my mentor in developmental psychology, Dr. Gordon Neufeld, says it like this: “attachment is our preeminent need.”

The balance of providing and seeking

In attachment, there are two modes of attachment: the provider and the seeker. In adult/child relationships, the adult is the provider and the child is the seeker, the one seeking contact and closeness and care.

In an ideal scenario, a parent lovingly provides the contact, closeness and care a child needs to feel safe, to grow, and to develop and thrive.

As adults, these roles go back and forth. When you listen to a friend tell you about their heartache over a stubborn illness, you’re in the provider role – you’re providing warmth, listening and care – and they’re in the receiving role – they’re hopefully able to let down and feel held by your support.

At another time, you’re in the receiving role when they listen to you after a painful disagreement with your beloved, and they’re in the providing role.

When we’re in the receiving role, and we receive support, our whole nervous system relaxes. We feel cared for, stronger, more resilient. We may cry our tears or release our anxiety. We may pour out our fears. We may feel that sigh of let down — aah.

Here’s another example. Think of how cared for you feel when you show up for a yoga class after a hard day at work or a long day of caretaking – how nice it feels as the teacher leads you through a sequence.

You may not like the poses, but there’s rest in being in ‘good hands,’ in not having to think up the sequence yourself and in following their lead. You feel less stressed not just from the yoga itself but from their guidance and leadership.

The providing role also offers satiation.

It can be so satisfying to give to another and for it to be received – think of how you feel when you’re able to support your students or co-workers and they shine from your care, when you get someone a present that hits just the right spot and they beam with delight, or when you’re able to really be there for a loved one and they rest in your arms.

When we give but aren’t resting in the receiving mode

These roles of offering care/receiving care are meant to go back and forth. And for so many of us, we’re overwhelmed and overloaded from too much time in the giving/providing role and not enough support or time in the receiving mode.

There are many reasons why this is so, but for now, it’s helpful to name this dynamic.

It’s this desire to ‘come down’ and be in the receiving – rather than the responsible – mode that so often sends people into sugar at the end of the day, or at the end of the week.

And I suspect it’s this need that strikes people so fervently at night where it feels like nothing but the sugar will do – especially teachers, managers, bosses, doctors, nurses, parents, caretakers, or other helpers who’ve been ‘on’ in a ‘providing’ or leading role all day.

Letting down into sugar

When I’ve been carrying too much responsibility for too long, thinking about a decision as seemingly small as ‘what to cook for dinner’ can send me into tears.

And if the responsibility continues without any rest in the receiving mode, I feel grumpy, alarmed, and panicky.

At this point, if I don’t have support from a loved one or another way to come down, this panic and stress can easily send me into the arms of food, a kombucha, or one too many Netflix shows.

For others these feelings send them into marijuana or edibles, a bottle of wine, several beers, an online shopping cart full of things they don’t need (but feel like they do in that moment), or social media scrolling.

Bringing in places of rest

You might check in to see if this resonates with you, and begin to wonder about how much of your time is spent in a giving mode and how much is spent in a receiving mode. As adults, we give so much to care for the vulnerable ones in our charge, and rightly so.

But we also need a lot of support and places where we can receive so we can take care of those things that are dear to us.

You might experiment with adding in spaces of receiving into your day and see how this impacts your cravings for sugar or food. Here are a couple of suggestions:

• You could sign up for an exercise class, dance class or yoga class where someone else takes the lead and you receive care.
• Give yourself spaces and times where you’re not in charge of anything or anyone.
• You can trade listening time with a listening partner or friend.
• Even someone cooking a meal for you – where you don’t have to plan it, cook it, clean up after it, or think about it – can be nourishing way above and beyond the meal itself.

If you have a partner, you can be intentional about trading off giving and receiving, where you both feel nurtured and supported by the other. (When my partner and I are both overwhelmed by responsibility, we can struggle in that we both want to be in the receiving mode and not the offering mode.)

Spiritual practices – where you’re resting in and depending on something greater than yourself – can also be a way of bringing in more rest. In my own life, the Christian meditation practice of Centering Prayer, my Sufi Remembrance practice, and RAIN meditation are ways I rest on a daily basis.

I’ll close with my favorite poem about being in a state of rest. It’s by poet Phillip Booth, about teaching his young daughter how to swim. May we all have spaces where we can lie back, rest and be held.
First Lesson by Philip Booth

Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man’s float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.