We’ve all experienced that time in the late evening of the late afternoon, we’ve just had a meal a few hours ago, but we aren’t due to eat for another few hours either. We’re stuck in a period of time where eating might just mean gaining a few pounds – or so we think. If you don’t have extremely high metabolism, you know what we’re talking about. I used to have a girlfriend who was on the cheerleading team, and boy did she have high metabolism. Now I used to be fat, but since then have created a pretty nice body for myself. However, that body needs constant time dedicated in the gym for upkeep. Needless to say, she loved to eat, and in 3 months, I was packing a gut. Cravings suck.
That said, searching through the internet on how to stop food cravings will yield you a massive ocean of results. One of them is quite interesting, though, to say the least.
A psychology professor at Plymouth University suggests that playing Tetris might just lessen your urge for not only food, but also cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, or even sex. Cravings, long associated with drug-use creates a form of addiction in the brain involving dopamine and the pleasure and motivation centers, continually putting us in a cycle that ends up in an addict’s behavior.
It isn’t exactly pleasant. However, the study suggests that another type of activity, that’s equally addictive might just force us to forgo the need of another type of addictive activity as well. Meaning, that playing an addictive game of Tetris when hungry might actually cause us to lose our cravings to food due to the pleasure and motivation centers in our brain also being engaged – just by a different activity.
This isn’t just limited to Tetris, though. Any type of game that keeps you constantly engaged, yet allows you incremental, gradual progress should be able to perform similarly as well. A very recently popular Flappy Bird might come to mind.
However, as far as preventing cravings go, it might just be as simple as distracting yourself with an equally engaging, yet fulfilling activity, that keeps you motivated and feeling like an addict.
