Addicted to salt: What to do?

Many people are familiar with sugar addiction. What’s less well known is that you can also be addicted to salt. This is an addiction that goes unnoticed by most people until their doctor tells them to cut back on salt due to high blood pressure. Cutting back on salt can then suddenly become a bigger problem than you initially thought. Before you know it, you’ve added a little extra salt to your soup or opened a bag of chips.

Do you find it difficult to stop or reduce eating salt? Then this is a blog to take a moment to read through.

Effect of salt on the body

Salt also known as the mineral sodium is important for the body. It keeps you from dehydrating.

In addition, it is an electrolyte which is important for the electrical signals in the body. Therefore, it is also important for the functioning of your muscles and nerves.

Sodium is mainly in your blood and lymphatic system (85% of the sodium in your body).

The hormone androsterone regulates the amount of sodium in your body and tells your kidneys when to discharge some and when not to.

Effect of too much salt on the body

If you have excessive salt levels in your body, there may be several causes. For example, you don't drink enough and therefore have the wrong ratio of salt to water in your body.

Also, if you are vomiting or suffering from diarrhea, you may have excessive sodium levels in your body.

High levels of sodium in your blood can also be caused by high levels of the hormone androsterone in your blood or by some medications and conditions.

Another consequence of eating too much salt is that you retain too much fluid. This leads to a higher-than-normal blood volume, which in turn causes high blood pressure. That is why doctors often advise people with high blood pressure to eat less salt.

However, this is often easier said than done.

The origins of salt addiction

There are actually two nutrients that block the stomach’s “I’m full” signal, and those are sugar and salt. It’s common knowledge that you can become addicted to sugar. It’s less well known that you can become just as addicted to salt.

In addition, salty foods stimulate the production of dopamine in the brain. You can recognize this, for example, by those thoughts that the food is truly “delicious.” Furthermore, just as with a drug addiction, you can have a strong craving for salty foods, just as a drug addict has a strong craving for drugs.

For example, that nice thick greasy hamburger that really has a whole load of salt on it is one of those salty foods that is quite addictive.

A salt addiction can start quite innocently. For example, you eat a little potato chips twice a week.

Salt with a boiled egg is also delicious, and some salt can actually be added to the meat you prepare.

This is actually a real shame because you already eat enough salt in a normal diet. Adding salt to food is really not necessary for your body to function optimally. Rather, you are doing your body harm by retaining too much fluids, eating more than without that amount of salt, and can suffer from obesity and high blood pressure as a result.

How do you get rid of a salt addiction?

First, you can just leave that jar of salt at the supermarket, so you can stop adding salt to your meat, soup or boiled egg.

Then eat only the salt that is naturally in your diet.

Please note, however, that if you have a salt addiction, you may experience withdrawal symptoms when you change your diet. For example, food without added salt may make you feel a little nauseous. Some people even stop eating altogether and end up developing anorexia.

If you find it difficult to stop eating (extra) salty foods, there are a number of steps you can take.

Step 1: Is there a psychological reason behind eating salt?

If you think of salt addiction as a drug addiction, you have to wonder why someone can't stop eating salty foods.

Drug addiction is often a way to escape reality. People often need to escape a problem —there is something they need to distract themselves from.

This could be anything. A trauma you’re not thinking about right now because that delicious salty pizza tastes so good.

Uncertainty momentarily dissipated by the distraction of food.

Finding it difficult to figure out why you can't stop eating salt? Then a hypnotherapist can help you figure out the cause.

Why do you have beliefs that make you feel you have to eat salt?

This can be done with multiple techniques, such as regression and socratic conversation.

Step 2: Gradually reduce eating salt

The second step you can take is instead of stopping eating salt in 1 sitting, gradually eat less salt.

Initially, then, it is important to identify how much salty food you eat. To do this, you can first keep a diary for a week in which you do not yet adjust your diet.

Then you can mark clear steps in your journal with which foods you eat less salt each week.

For example, do you eat a boiled egg with salt every day?

• Then change this in the first week by eating a boiled egg without salt.
• In the second week, don't put extra salt on your dinner.
• In the third week, eat one less bag of chips.

By gradually eating less salt, you also make the steps tangible. Then also, if you manage to stick to that change for a week, you can reward yourself, for example with a fun game you've been meaning to buy or clothes.

Step 3: Replace salt with other spices

One way to reduce salt or stop using it altogether is to replace the salt with something else, not sugar!

There are an awful lot of herbs that make food delicious.

Therefore, consider:

• Pepper
• Parsley
• Turmeric
• Cinnamon
• Chives
• Basil
• Rosemary
• Thyme
• Garlic

These are herbs that can make food as flavorful as salt, but are much healthier than salt.

Here are a few examples:

1. Pepper, for example, is deliciously spicy and often causes you to eat less instead of more.
2. Basil has a lot of potassium which even lowers blood pressure.
3. Garlic has anti-inflammatory properties, which are beneficial for blood vessel flexibility.

Step 4: Repeating hypnotic suggestions about salt

A fourth step you can take is to visit the hypnotherapist again, but this time with the goal of stopping eating extra salt.

The hypnotherapist can help you with this in multiple ways, such as making foods that have extra salt added to them unappealing (think of that hamburger).

For example, this can be done with post-hypnotic suggestions, such as:

"You go home later and when you get a craving for something grab something healthy. Do you still grab something you want to add extra salt to? Then you suddenly notice that the food is too salty and not tasty at all. You then stop the food and throw it away. Then you grab something else and add exactly no salt to it."

Another technique is through hypnotic suggestions about salt that you can repeat at home with self-hypnosis, such as:

"There is plenty of salt in everyday foods."

"I don't need to add salt to my food."

"My body is a temple that needs no salt."

These are just examples of hypnotic suggestions. Depending on your beliefs that cause you to be addicted to salt, you may be given other suggestions to repeat during self-hypnosis.

In many cases, you get an mp3 file to use so you don't have to memorize the suggestions.

You first sit or lie down on a couch or other comfortable place in a relaxed way and focus on your breathing. Then when you are living well in the here and now turn on the mp3 and listen to the suggestions.

The last example I give here is guided visualization. A hypnotherapist can use a guided visualization to show you what your life can look like without adding salt to everything and how positive this can turn out to be for you.

Through such a guided visualization, you can better imagine that you can really live without salt, which also makes it more likely that you will stop adding salt to your food.

Would you like to learn more about hypnotherapy? Then come to a workshop and check out the courses offered by the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands.

Sources:

https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/sodium-na-in-blood

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987706003100

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987709004848

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031938408001054