Food
“Consuming something pleasurable while distracted can lead to excess,” says Lotte. van Dillen, who published his study in May in the journal Appetite. Some of the 400 participants ate their lunch without doing anything else. A second group watched videos while eating, and the last while playing Tetris. Important detail: the lunch they were offered was a meal they had chosen, one of their favorite foods, and they were served a large portion. The study by Lotte van Dillen, a psychologist at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, may seem strange. But her results are clear: the greater the distraction, the higher the number of calories ingested, because we need more stimuli to feel the same pleasure.
PHOTO FROM THE LEYDEN UNIVERSITY WEBSITE
Lotte van Dillen, a psychologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands
Memory
Another piece of evidence for the connection between distraction and hedonistic excess is based on memory. “Some of our studies have shown that we remember the taste of food less well if something distracts us,” says Lotte. van Dillen. One of these studies, published in 2018 in the journal Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neurosciencemeasured the area of the brain linked to memory in guinea pigs who were shown pictures of chocolate and salad. At the same time, they were asked to memorize one or six numbers. The memory area was more activated for chocolate when the distraction was low (memorizing one number), but not when the distraction was high (six numbers).
Mental load
Another area of research for the Dutch psychologist is the impact of mental load on emotions. “There is a direct link with the negative effect of distraction on the appreciation of a stimulus, and the mental load that consists of having several types of responsibilities. We can consider that the responsibilities that we keep in the background all the time are multiple distractions that prevent us from feeling the emotions related to what we are currently doing.” In other words, if we worry about dinner or the children’s homework during stimulating meetings at the office, we cannot fully benefit from an interesting career.
Mindfulness
A psychological technique that has been in vogue for about ten years, “mindfulness,” has similarities with the phenomenon described by Lotte van Dillen. She also published ten years ago in the book Handbook of Biobehavioral Approaches to Self-Regulation a literature review on the techniques, benefits, and limitations of mindfulness. “Mindfulness can sometimes help you enjoy a meal more by paying more attention to its various details. There is a connection with my current work, but I would say that I am interested in the effect of distractions, rather than simply recommending avoiding them.” Inspired by Buddhism, mindfulness consists of taking note of what surrounds us and our internal emotions.
Odors
What are the next steps in Lotte’s work? van Dillen? Metabolism and odors are on the menu. “I’m starting a project where participants will make a list of what they eat [food diary]. We will measure fluctuations in their blood glucose levels. The hypothesis is that distracted eating interferes with metabolic reinforcement loops [feedback loop]. The taste and smell of food may have an impact, for example, on insulin production, which changes the body’s management of food.” So, is it that by eating while reading, we metabolize our meal less well because our sense of taste and smell are distracted?