In a perspective piece written for the Health and Wellness section of the Washington Post, one woman described her struggle with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and the positive, therapeutic effect that cooking provided her (Friedlander, 2020). She explained how she used cooking as a coping strategy to ease her anxiety during extremely stressful times in her life, such as her parent’s divorce, her father-in-law’s hospitalization and the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. But why is this the case?
Figure 1: A depiction of GAD including various symptoms and feelings associated with the disorder (Living Resiliently Blog, 2018).
GAD is outlined in the DSM-5 (Diagnosis of Medical Disorders, 5th edition) as a syndrome of ongoing anxiety and worry in an excessive manner (Figure 1) (Gale & Davidson, 2007). Globally, it is estimated that 1-5% of the population has some form of GAD and another 5% have depression, amounting to millions of individuals globally (World Health Organization, 2021; Gale & Davidson, 2007). In the past, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) has been used as the main and most effective treatment method of GAD (Gale & Davidson, 2007). CBT is a psycho-social intervention that focuses on challenging cognitive behaviors, as well as improving emotional regulation and personal coping strategies. However, anxiety management treatments are also extremely useful in GAD rehabilitation, hence why cooking therapy (CT) is now being introduced as an effective method of treatment and management (Figure 2).
Figure 2: A flow chart of how CT can help reduce GAD and diminished mental health. By introducing a distraction task, like CT, anxiety is reduced leading to long-term growth and development.
Michael Kocet, a mental health councilor and professor, is credited with the emergence of CT in practice and defines CT as “the therapeutic technique that uses arts, cooking, gastronomy, and an individual’s personal, cultural, and familial relationship with food to address emotional and psychological problems[…]. [CT] involves an exploration of an individual’s relationship with food and how food impacts relationships, as well as psychological well-being and functioning” (Vaughn, 2017). Studies find that because CT requires both mental and physical coordination, individuals are unable to focus on their prior anxieties (Cerasa et al., 2019). In support, various attention-based studies conclude that multi-tasking is an ineffective method of task completion and instead focus is flipped from one task to another (Friedrich, 2021; Simons, 2021). Since CT requires individuals to focus solely on cooking, anxiety levels are decreased during CT sessions. Moreover, CT allows individuals to feel a sense of accomplishment and control, feelings that individuals with diminished mental health may not experience frequently (Levy, 2020). Plus, CT allows individuals to cook for themselves and have control over both their mental and physical wellbeing, two factors that are innately intertwined.
CT can also be used to treat the stress associated with medical conditions and treatments. In one study done, burn-unit patients with severe trauma ties to their injuries were introduced to CT (Farmer et al., 2018). While at first, many of the individuals were further stressed by the kitchen environment, as many received kitchen-related injuries, 38% of subjects said that group CT assisted in mitigating their stresses and 78% said that CT distracted them from thinking about their injuries. A separate community-based study done in 2016 introduced 190 cancer patients to CT which resulted in significant improvements in their respective physical and emotional wellbeing (Barak-Nahum et al., 2016). These two studies are perfect examples of how CT could be used in a clinical setting to help mitigate the fear and stress associated with hospitals and treatments. Along with individuals with GAD, depression, stress, traumatic injuries, and cancer, CT has also been used to help improve behaviors of dementia patients.
While research and development of CT programs are still in their infancy stages, CT is beginning to join other creative-based therapies like music, drama, dance and art, at the forefront of creative-based treatment practices. Moreover, with the exponential increase in mental health crises during the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions on physical, in-person therapy, CT has become a more apparent and realistic option for many people (Xiong et al., 2020). So, whether you are following a cooking-related TikTok trend like tomato-feta pasta, just playing around in the kitchen, or following a generation spanning family recipe, cooking is a perfect way to calm your anxieties, take a mental break, and have some fun!
Now if you want to take a break, destress and eat some cookies, I I have attached one of my favourite recopies below. Hope you enjoy!
Sarah’s Stress (and mess) Free Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Preheat oven to 350oc. In a microwave-safe bowl melt ½ cup butter. Once fully melted, mix in ¾ cup brown sugar and 1tbs. Honey until dissolved. Add vanilla (measure this with your heart!), one egg, and stir. Once well combined add 1tsp. Baking soda and 1½ cups all-purpose flour, mix until combined. Add ¾ cup of chocolate chips (or just keep pouring the bag until emptied…we’re trying to combat stress here not heart disease!). Spoon the dough into a parchment lined baking sheet about 4cm apart and bake for 12 minutes. Let cool (or don’t) and enjoy!
Citations
Barak-Nahum, A., Haim, L.B. and Ginzburg, K., 2016. When life gives you lemons: The effectiveness of culinary group intervention among cancer patients. Social Science & Medicine (1982), 166, pp.1–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.07.046.
Cerasa, A., Arcuri, F., Pignataro, L.M., Serra, S., Messina, D., Carozzo, S., Biafora, A., Ceraudo, C., Abbruzzino, L., Pignolo, L., Basta, G. and Tonin, P., 2019. The cooking therapy for cognitive rehabilitation of cerebellar damage: A case report and a review of the literature. Journal of Clinical Neuroscience: Official Journal of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia, 59, pp.357–361. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocn.2018.09.026.
Farmer, N., Touchton-Leonard, K. and Ross, A., 2018. Psychosocial Benefits of Cooking Interventions: A Systematic Review. Health education & behavior : the official publication of the Society for Public Health Education, 45(2), pp.167–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198117736352.
Friedlander, J., 2020. Perspective | How cooking became the perfect recipe for my spiraling anxiety. Washington Post. [online] Available at: <https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/how-cooking-became-the-perfect-recipe-for-my-spiralling-anxiety/2020/03/20/a56d068a-4832-11ea-ab15-b5df3261b710_story.html> [Accessed 23 Sep. 2021].
Friedrich, F., 2021. Attention. [online] Noba. Available at: <https://nobaproject.com/modules/attention> [Accessed 23 Sep. 2021].
Gale, C., & Davidson, O., 2007. Generalised anxiety disorder. [online] Available at: <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1828319/> [Accessed 6 Nov. 2021].
Levy, J., 2020. Cooking Therapy Benefits for Stress, Mental Health and More – Dr. Axe. [online] Available at: <https://draxe.com/health/cooking-therapy/> [Accessed 6 Nov. 2021].
Living Resiliently Blog, 2018. Symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder – Living Resiliently Blog. [image online] Available at: <https://livingresilientlyblog.wordpress.com/2019/02/22/symptoms-of-generalized-anxiety-disorder/> [Accessed 6 Nov. 2021].
Simons, D., 2021. Failures of Awareness: The Case of Inattentional Blindness. [online] Noba. Available at: <https://nobaproject.com/modules/failures-of-awareness-the-case-of-inattentional-blindness> [Accessed 23 Sep. 2021].
Vaughn, S., 2017. Dr. Michael M. Kocet, new TCSPP faculty, explores culinary therapy. [online] Available at: <https://www.thechicagoschool.edu/insight/from-the-magazine/michael-kocet-culinary-therapy/> [Accessed 7 Nov. 2021].
World Health Organization, 2021. Depression. [online] Available at: <https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression> [Accessed 6 Nov. 2021].
Xiong, J., Lipsitz, O., Nasri, F., Lui, L.M.W., Gill, H., Phan, L., Chen-Li, D., Iacobucci, M., Ho, R., Majeed, A. and McIntyre, R.S., 2020. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in the general population: A systematic review. Journal of Affective Disorders, 277, pp.55–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.08.001.
Comments
11 Responses to “Cooking Therapy”
Hi iSci
I chose to do my blog post on cooking therapy because I felt like it bridged a lot of my interests and passions. When I am not focused on school (and sometimes even when I should be), or hanging out with my family and friends, you can find me in the kitchen. I am somebody who loves to cook, bake, explore different recipes or just throw things together and see what happens. Because of this, I have noticed that when I am stressed or anxious about something, I tend to end up making cookies at midnight. Thus, I wanted to explore this idea and why it occurs. In one of my PNB electives we’re currently discussing attention and combined with aspects of our ongoing Neuro RP, I decided to write this blog post.
I hope you enjoy and I can’t wait to see your feedback,
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
I loved your post and I think you did a great job tying together the fun activity of cooking to the science behind what makes it an effective anxiety treatment. I can offer you a few thoughts that I hope will be helpful during your editing process!
-In your first paragraph, where you talk about the woman’s experience from the perspective piece, you use multiple verb tenses through the paragraph (for example. “described” vs “explains”). I would recommend that you choose either past tense or present tense to use when referring to the article and maintain consistency.
– The following sentence in your first paragraph is very wordy: “She explains how throughout various stressful times in her life, like her parent’s divorce, her father-in-law’s hospitalization and the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, she turned to cooking as a coping mechanism and attributes it to easing her anxiety.” I would recommend you break this sentence into two shorter sentences, or change it to something like: “She explains how she has used cooking as a coping mechanism during stressful points in her life, such her parent’s divorce, her father-in-law’s hospitalization and the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and attributes cooking to easing her anxiety.”
-In your second paragraph, you introduce cooking therapy by saying: “However, anxiety management treatments are also extremely useful in GAD rehabilitation, hence why cooking therapy (CT) is now being introduced as an effective method of treatment and management (Figure 2)”. I think it might be interesting here to explain a bit more about what cooking therapy entails, and perhaps explain what it means that cooking therapy is considered an anxiety management treatment.
-In your fourth paragraph, you describe situations where cooking therapy has been effective, including for burn-unit patients. I think it would be beneficial to clarify the connection between burn-unit patients, cancer patients and generalized anxiety disorder, since you previously only mentioned cooking therapy for treating GAD. Do the burn-unit patients and cancer patients also have GAD or is this a tangential example showing the general benefits of cooking therapy? Maybe it would be good to move your sentence: “These two studies are perfect examples of how CT could be used in a clinical setting to help patients” to the beginning of the paragraph, and modify it to say “The following two studies are….”
-In your fifth paragraph, you write: “So, whether you are following a cooking-related TikTok trend like tomato-feta pasta, or whipped coffee, just playing around with ingredients in the kitchen or following a generation spanning family recipe, cooking is a perfect way to calm your anxieties, take a mental break and have some fun!” This is mostly a matter of preference, but I would personally change the comma placement slightly and modify one part so that it reads: “So, whether you are following a cooking-related TikTok trend like tomato-feta pasta or whipped coffee, just playing around with ingredients in the kitchen, or following a beloved family recipe, cooking is a perfect way to calm your anxieties, take a mental break and have some fun!”
Overall, it was a really interesting post and yet another justification for why cooking and baking are amazing! Sometime I will have to give your cookie recipe a try 🙂
Happy editing!
Jessica
Hi Jessica,
Thanks for your comments. I did take some of your notes (thanks for catching those verb tenses!) and attempted to clarify some of the details you mentioned (clarifying CT, etc.) but my wordcount is limited so not all my changes are as detailed or lengthy as you mentioned but I hope the changes I did make helped.
Thanks,
Sarah
Hello Sarah,
Thank you for the interesting post! I thought this was a very well-written and well-researched piece that I was easily able to relate to and thoroughly enjoyed. Cooking truly is a marvel! Here are a few small suggestions I think will make your post even better:
– looks like you’ve got an extra space in your in-text citation in the first figure caption: “( Living Resiliently Blog, 2018).”
– in your second paragraph I would recommend changing to “CBT is a psycho-social intervention that focuses on” to better match the second half of the sentence
– in the second sentence of your third paragraph it is unclear what multi-tasking is ineffective for. Is it ineffective as a method of stress relief?
– your living resiliently blog citation should have [image online] non-italicized as per AR-Harvard style, instead of “[image]. [online]”
– you talk a lot about the psychology of anxiety and cooking therapy, and I think if your word count allows for it I would recommend including something about the chemical/biological mechanism in the brain that may be associated with stress relief
Overall, this post was very well done, and I wish you the best of luck in your editing process.
Cheers,
Katherine G
Hi Katherine,
Thanks for your helpful comments. Thanks for catching those citation and formatting errors, and I attempted to clarify what multi-tasking is effective for so hopefully it is a bit clearer now. While I would love to have added a section about the chemical/biological mechanism associated with stress relief (although it was in one of the first drafts) I don’t have the wordcount to do so.
Thanks again and glad you enjoyed it!
-Sarah
Hiya Sarah,
I loved this blog post! What a cool application of cooking!
Here are a few suggestions:
– I found your final sentence a little long. Maybe cut one of the examples out and shorten some of the examples. This could change to ” So, whether you are following a cooking-related TikTok trend like tomato-feta pasta, playing around with some ingredients in the kitchen, or following a historic family recipe, cooking is a perfect way to calm your anxieties, take a mental break, and have some fun!”
– I agree with Jessica, I think there’s a bit of a disconnect between GAD and the other applications of CT. If possible, shift the focus of your opening paragraphs from predominately GAD to allow for the introduction of your other applications. With this, consider removing “Globally, it is estimated that 1-5% of the population has some form of GAD and another 5% have depression, amounting to millions of individuals globally (World Health Organization, 2021; Gale & Davidson, 2007).” Then, add a transitional sentence before the “In one study…” regarding CT as a treatment that can aid other stressors. This could look like, “CT can also act as a treatment for other stressors and medical conditions. In one study, …”
– Your figure 2 caption is bunched up to fir vertically underneath your figure, so is there any way you can span the figure cation horizontally underneath your figure.
I will be baking your cookies tonight, thanks for the recipe!!!
Enjoy editing!
– Clara
Hi Clara
Thanks for your comments! I took your suggestion about that transition sentence and was able to shorten up the ending, thanks for the ideas! I would love to fix the figure caption (it bugs me too; trust me I tried to fix it) but to lengthen it would mean putting it as normal text instead of in the caption.
Thanks for all the help and I hope you enjoy the cookies 🙂
-Sarah
Hi,
I enjoyed your post and found it informative, just a few suggestions to improve it:
1. In the last paragraph maybe change “in-person therapies” to “in-person therapy”
2. Double check your citation after the Michael Kocet quote
3. Can’t wait to try that recipe, what a fun addition to your post!
Hope this helps,
Nyah D.
Hi Nyah,
Thanks for the comments and I’m glad you liked the post! I changed therapies to therapy like you suggested, thanks. I’m not super sure what you are referring to regarding the Michael Kocet quote, that quote was one taken directly from a (Vaughn, 2017) article, as quoted. Is it the formatting of the citation itself or the actual reference?
Thanks again and I hope you enjoy the recipie!
-Sarah
Hi Sarah,
I really enjoyed reading your blog post as I also share your passion for cooking/baking! It was nice to learn that this is starting to be used as a GAD treatment as I’ve personally experienced a lot of its benefits and think that it’s a great way to de-stress. I thought the flow and writing style of your article was perfect and easy to read. Here are just a few suggestions for editing:
1. Your figure captions are formatted kind of weirdly, which is probably due to the synopsis template (I’ve had problems with it too). I would suggest creating a new text box under your pictures (just as you would for a paragraph) and adding your figure captions there, then italicizing and centering the text. This should improve the aesthetic of the article.
2. In the first sentence of your third paragraph, you’re missing a space between [CT] and involves. Also there shouldn’t be a period at the end of the second sentence in the quotation, as you’re ending the sentence after the quotation and citation.
3. You should make your recipe title and “Citations” into proper headings by formatting them differently from the normal text. For example, you could bold them or increase the text size.
I also loved that you included your own recipe, and I hope to try it soon!
All the best,
Shania RM.
Hi Shania,
Thanks for your comments, I’ll definitely put them to use, and I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Hope you enjoy the recipie!
-Sarah