Do you turn to food and emotional eating when you are stressed?

You are not alone. Food can be one of the most accessible and easy coping tools for comfort, helping us escape uncomfortable feelings.

Why do we use food to soothe ourselves?

First of all, there is nothing wrong with using food to cope with difficult situations or emotions. When we were babies, our tears were soothed by milk. Eating is an inherently satisfying behaviour. It activates our brain’s reward system. Food hasn’t just been a fuel for a long time – sharing meals together as a family or a community is an important part of our social lives. The emotional eating habit becomes problematic when we always eat whenever we feel stressed or experience uncomfortable emotions. This could be a way to avoid dealing with those emotions, instead distracting ourselves with food.

Does emotional eating work long-term?

Using food to cope with life is a short-term strategy. Eating may provide a temporary relief, but the root of the urge won’t go away. Unexpressed emotions will keep coming back until you face and address them. Our emotions are messages that will keep coming back until you finally “open the envelope” and read what they want to tell you!

How do I address emotional eating?

Emotional eating has two parts: emotions (the root) and eating (the habit). The key is to address the root cause first – dealing with emotions – followed by addressing the eating habit. Trying to change the habit without understanding its causes rarely leads to long-term results.

How we cope with stress is one of the biggest causes of emotional and compulsive eating. It comes down to emotional resilience and our ability to regulate our emotional state. The habit of using food to self-regulate develops over time, but learning new, healthier coping skill is possible. The key is to recognise our emotions and how we respond to them.

Riding the urge to emotionally eat

If you feel the urge to eat, it’s often a sign of strong feelings.

  • The first step is to determine whether you are experiencing physical or emotional hunger. Physical hunger usually builds gradually, while emotional hunger tends to come suddenly and manifests as a craving for specific comfort foods.
  • If you identify that it’s emotional hunger, the second step is to check in with your emotions and thoughts. What are you feeling right now? What thoughts are running through your mind? What is the root cause of these feelings and thoughts?

 

Once you’ve brought these feelings and thoughts to consciousness, the next step is learning to sit with them.

Building a new habit of doing something other than eating will take time. Here are a few alternatives to emotional eating:

  • Journaling or writing a letter (without sending it) to openly express your feelings
  • Talking to a trusted friend
  • Giving yourself permission to feel all emotions and having a good cry
  • Expressing emotions physically, through exercise
  • Distracting yourself with activities you enjoy — create a list of things to do when facing stressful situations to help you process emotions
  • Seeking professional help from a therapist, coach, or mental health practitioner.

 

If you are ready to go deeper, explore the roots of your habits and find effective strategies to change them, contact Olga directly at https://opentochange.uk/.

Olga is behaviour change coach, who helps her clients break unwanted habits and gain freedom from self-destructive patterns, especially around emotional and binge eating.

View her profile here.

September 23, 2024