Stress baking seems to have become an integral part of our lives these days. In the depths of the 2020 lockdown, some of the first things missing from shop shelves were flour and yeast. Baking became the panacea for pandemic-induced stress and bread was central to this movement – and one kind in particular rose to prominence: sourdough bread.
The oldest sourdough bread ever found by scientists was excavated in Switzerland and dated back to 3700 BC, but it’s very likely sourdough fermentation originated thousands of years earlier. These days, sourdough is often seen as a luxury when compared to bread made with commercial yeast, but before packet yeast was developed, all leavened bread was sourdough – made with naturally occurring yeasts. A sourdough starter is essentially fermented flour and water that contains wild yeast and lactobacilli (the same stuff that makes yoghurt and gives it a sour taste). There’s something almost magical about mixing just flour, water and salt, and ending up with a loaf of bread. But why does it help calm us down, and why was bread the central focus of this baking spike?
There are many psychological benefits to baking. It’s an outlet for stress through creative expression. It can provide a sense of control, something that’s been lacking in our lives recently. And eating the finished product, whether it contains sugar or carbs, or both, releases ‘happy hormones’ like dopamine and serotonin.
Self-care in the form of baking can help stop cycles of anxiety and depression by changing how our brains regulate themselves. Our amygdala is the part of our brain that becomes more active when we’re threatened or stressed, and it leads to our prefrontal cortex, which normally regulates emotions, to become less active. This response to stress is useful in some cases, it’s what kept our ancestors alive when we had to run away from predators. But when you’re stuck in quarantine with social media spoon feeding you the next round of Covid related stats, it can become damaging. The human stress ‘fight-or-flight’ response was developed for use in short bursts to get out of life-or-death situations. However, in our modern society, though we face fewer vicious beasts, our hormones still strike when we feel threatened or scared and thanks to the world we’re living in right now, this is ever more frequently and for fairly long periods of time.
It’s the persistent underlying hormonal spikes that lead to the effects of prolonged stress, and what affected us so negatively when surrounded by doomsday broadcasts during the peak of the pandemic. Some people can process these stressors, but other people’s minds become fixated on the worrying thoughts. When this happens, the brain needs a way to reset itself. Meditation is one way to do this, but mindful activities like baking and cleaning can have the same effects. Basically, baking forces you to think about something else.
While stress-baked biscuits and cakes were made over quarantine, there’s a limit to the number of sweet things you can eat in a yearlong lockdown, no matter your sweet tooth. But bread has been part of our diets ever since human agricultural activity began and it holds a special place in many cultures and religions. It’s a staple food, which makes it a much better candidate for making multiple times a week
Sourdough specifically, likely saw a rise in popularity due to the lack of commercial yeast, but also because people now had time. Sourdough is a time-consuming thing to make, and the process takes days from start to finish. When we had commitments like school or work that kept us busy and out of the house, we didn’t have much time to fill up. But when that was gone, our routine and structure went with it, and many of us realised that a day is actually really long. Finding an activity that could keep minds and hands busy was something which got many people through quarantine, myself included. There’s also something incredibly satisfying about making something you can physically hold and eat, when much of our lives have become virtual and abstract. Plus, it’s pretty hard to scroll through social media when your hands are covered in bread dough.
