Eating spicy food can relieve stress at work

Nowadays, Sichuan restaurants, Hunan restaurants and other spicy-themed restaurants are everywhere, and are becoming more and more popular. Some people even have chili in every meal, and feel that the meal is tasteless without chili. These spicy food lovers have different reasons for eating spicy food, and many of them eat spicy food to relieve stress at work. There is even a girl who sighed: "To me, pepper is like spinach to Popeye. The more pressure I feel, the spicier I eat. Once I feel spicy, all the pressure is gone!"

This girl is 30 years old this year, and has been eating spicy food for ten years. Although her level of eating spicy food is not as high as that of "Nun Miejue", she is still considered a skilled eater after all.

"My family cooks authentic Hangzhou cuisine. I never ate spicy food when I was a child. Later, when I went to university, I went out with my roommates for a feast and started to eat spicy food. The food got spicier and spicier, and I later ate it with chopped pepper sauce. Except that I eat spicy food less frequently and not every day, I guess my appetite for spicy food is not much different from that of Hunanese people."

The person who first discovered that MM liked spicy food more when she was under stress was her mother.

"One day, my mother saw me holding a bowl and eating rice with chili peppers, and asked me if I was in a bad mood recently or if I was busy with work. At that time, I was writing a year-end summary and a plan for the next year, and I was under a lot of pressure." After this reminder, MM thought about it and really found that she inadvertently relied on eating spicy food to relieve stress.

So, it gradually developed into a situation where whenever she was under a lot of pressure, she would go for something spicy.

"I have been to almost all the places that serve spicy food in Hangzhou," said MM. From the spiciest spicy crayfish in the spicy restaurant, to the Japanese sashimi dipped in mustard, from the spicy fish in the boiling fish village, to the chopped pepper fish head in various stores, she has challenged them all.

"My favorite state is in the hot summer, drinking an iced drink in the air-conditioned room, having a super spicy snack, sweating in the air-conditioned room, and finally having a dessert. At this time, let alone work pressure, even if it's a mountain pressing down on me, I think it's completely fine."

"My husband and I have also tried Wushan's perverted spicy wings." At that time, she had just changed her job and was a little uncomfortable at once, so she dragged her husband to accompany her to relieve stress. "We started from the least spicy one, and moved up layer by layer until we got to the second to last layer of the spicy wings. We couldn't take it anymore because our mouths were swollen after each bite. It was so painful that I broke out in a sweat and my clothes were almost soaked. But after the sweating, I felt better."

MM described it as Popeye becoming extremely strong after eating spinach, so she would feel much better as long as she had enough chili. "Girls usually ask people to bring cosmetics from Hong Kong. I also ask people to bring things, but it's the spicy yellow chili sauce from Hainan. Recently, I asked someone to bring two kilograms of it to keep at home."

MM’s homemade fish head with chopped pepper is also a must-try. "At the end of the year, the work pressure in our office was quite high, so I shared my 'chili stress relief method' and invited my colleagues to my home to eat a meal of chopped pepper fish head. Everyone said that after their stomachs burned, their little universes also burned."

Eating spicy food is also considered a therapeutic diet

Is there any real connection between eating spicy food and reducing stress? Searching on the Internet, the more common saying is: when eating spicy food, the body thinks it is injured, and the brain releases endorphins, a natural painkiller that makes people feel relaxed and excited.

A doctor said that this was the first time he had heard of this statement. Regarding MM's situation, the doctor, who is from Hunan, feels that it is a bit like what Chairman Mao said: If you don't eat spicy food, you can't be revolutionary.

In his opinion, the reason why spicy food can relieve stress is that stress can cause problems such as slow gastrointestinal motility, poor appetite, and constipation. The capsaicin in chili peppers can promote gastrointestinal motility, have an appetite-stimulating effect, and can speed up human metabolism, expel some toxins from the body, and make people feel light-hearted.

"From the perspective of regulating depression, it is true that you can adjust your mood by eating certain foods, which is what we call diet therapy. Eating what you like is also diet therapy. From this perspective, doing what you like can also regulate your mood."

Doctors say that when using diet to regulate emotions, you must control the amount, otherwise it can easily backfire, especially eating too much spicy food, which is definitely not a good habit for people with gastric ulcers, intestinal ulcers, and asthma. He suggested that instead of having a big meal to relieve stress, it would be more effective to eat small meals, then run a few laps to sweat, and then take a hot shower.

Eating spicy food can indeed help relieve emotions and relieve work stress, but it should be eaten in moderation, especially for friends in the north. Due to the dry climate and other climatic reasons, spicy food is not very suitable for people in the north. It should be eaten in moderation.