Her patients are gathered for a group therapy session. They’re here to learn mindfulness techniques, stress mitigation and coping strategies for anxiety.
When Dr. Ayanna Abrams, Psy.D., founder of Ascension Behavioral Health, starts handing out candy, they’ll soon realize certain coping tools are tastier than others.
The latest social media craze is encouraging people to turn to sour candy when they’re feeling anxious. According to experts, the suggestion has merit. In fact, some have long been using it in their practices.
“When I was leading dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) groups and I’m working with individual clients and we’re doing some DBT, I usually would use mints,” Abrams tells TODAY.com. “I was using mints, I was using chocolates and then sometimes I would use sour candy.”
In a therapeutic context, the candy serves as less of a treat and more of a “healthy distraction,” Abrams explains. While it’s not a treatment for anxiety, she considers strong-flavored candy, which forces the mind to abandon stressful thoughts and instead focus on its sharp taste, a short-term tool to be used as part of the range of clinically backed anxiety treatments.
Does Eating Sour Candy Help With Anxiety?
It can, yes.
“Anxiety often focuses on the future and may involve unhelpful thoughts such as those that jump to conclusions or assume worst-case scenarios,” Jacqueline Sperling, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, assistant professor in psychology at Harvard Medical School and the co-founder and co-program director of the McLean Anxiety Mastery Program, tells TODAY.com.
“Practicing mindfulness, which involves paying attention to the present moment on purpose, and non-judgmentally, can help redirect one’s focus to the present,” she adds. That’s precisely what sour candy can do.
Sour candy is a resource used in grounding techniques that encourage us to concentrate on the here and now, the experts explain. Sour candy demands the attention of the senses, which serves to bring the mind to the present instead of ruminating on an uncertain future. “(Candy) can be something to then redirect your focus,” adds Sperling, author of “Find Your Fierce: How to Put Social Anxiety in Its Place.”
How Do You Eat Sour Candy To Soothe Anxiety?
Grounding starts before you’ve even eaten the candy, Abrams says. Turn your focus to the physiological sensations the candy brings about before you’ve opened the wrapper. She encourages her patients to notice the sensation in the back of their throat as they anticipate eating the candy, notice the rush of a saliva in their mouths, tune in to the crackle of the wrapper, relish in the nostalgia of first eating this candy as a child.
Once it’s time to eat it, letting the candy dissolve is key. “You place the candy on your tongue, close your mouth and use your senses to notice the taste, texture and shape of the candy over time,” Sperling explains.
Though your mind might wander, she says, gently bring your attention back to the candy and the sensations it brings up.
“After the candy has dissolved fully, reassess how strong the (anxious) urges are and if you’re more able and willing to resist acting on them,” Sperling says.
“Also notice the intensity of the emotion,” she adds. She compares emotions to an ocean wave. “The aim is to ride the emotion and urge waves to shore as no one can experience a feeling forever,” Sperling explains. Once the candy is gone and your emotions felt, for better or worse, you’ll have come out on the other side.
Which Anxiety Treatments Have Been Proven To Be Effective?
“Typically, when we’re thinking about treatment for anxiety, we’re thinking about something that is a bit more transformative and maybe kind of longer term (than candy),” Abrams explains.
For anyone experiencing anxiety, Abrams recommends psychotherapy, whether that’s cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy or interpersonal therapy. “Those are all kind of the gold standard,” she says. To that list, Sperling adds exposure and response prevention therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy. Medication is also an evidence-based treatment and, combined with behavioral treatment, can result in enhanced outcomes, Sperling adds.
Sour candy, mints, chocolates and gummy candies are all tools that can be used in mindfulness and grounding, two research-backed therapeutic techniques. Mindfulness is a “practice of presence,” says Abrams. “It’s really about being present with what is and not trying to change things.” Grounding, she says, is a form of mindfulness that calls on us to focus on the present as a healthy distraction from the difficult thoughts we might be having. “Your agency is in the present,” she says.
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What Are the Downsides to Eating Sour Candy for Anxiety?
While candy, says Abrams, can be a tool for one patient, it can be a trigger for another.
For example, Abrams tends to avoid incorporating candy into her practice when working with patients who have concerns about sugar and body image.
If you find candy to be an effective grounding tool, but you rely on it too often, you might become dependent on it, adds Abrams, which can be harmful to your physical and mental health.
Sperling and Abrams both insist that candy is not a treatment. Candy is “a tool in your toolkit, not your toolkit,” says Abrams. By relying exclusively on candy to avoid your anxiety, Sperling says, you might end up reinforcing or strengthening that anxiety. “The tool is used once to resist temporary unhelpful urges and to ride strong emotional waves to shore,” she adds.
Consider candy one small part of a multi-pronged approach to tackling anxiety, says Sperling. In addition to mindfulness techniques and working with a mental health professional, “there are mental health hygiene behaviors that are important to do on a regular basis,” she says. “These are analogous to brushing one’s teeth twice a day to keep teeth healthy instead of just taking care of teeth when they have cavities, for example.”
To maintain mental health hygiene, keep a consistent sleep schedule, eat regular meals and snacks made from nutritious foods and participate in regular physical activity.
If you’re pressed for time, some of these activities can be combined, Sperling notes. “For example, one might enjoy going for a walk with a friend. That combines exercise, physical activity, and social experiences.”