Do you do emotional eating more often?
Emotional eating is the synonym for stress eating, generally, people are not so aware of this emotional eating health problem. People many times not only eat to satisfy their hunger but there are ample other reasons which are the part of emotional eating. Human beings are filled with so many emotions, they feel things differently, so feelings sometimes result in emotional eating. Eating food apart from physical hunger can be a bane for health, eating food for comfort or stress relief or from any other anxiety. These are common situations where people start emotional eating, whenever they feel overwhelmed, just simply eat junk to get that instant relief from stress full situation.
People used to do this to satisfy their emotional needs but unfortunately emotional eating won’t help in this It doesn’t fix any problem whereas it creates many, as per the research emotional eating can create health problems that hurt the body. Eating again and again beside your physical hunger can only make you feel guilty and disguise.
So are you an emotional eater
- Do you eat often when you are stressed?
- Do you do overeating when you are not so hungry?
- Do to eat to comfort your emotions?
- Do eat to reward yourself?
- Do you have food cravings often?
Emotional hunger is something that cannot be filled with food, so it is required to address the emotional eating issue. As emotional eating doesn’t resolve the problem even creates more. Eating more can mess up health and body weight. Along with it, your healthier habits can also start deteriorating.
COMMON CAUSES OF EMOTIONAL EATING
STRESS
Stress is one of the causes of emotional eating. Have you ever noticed that when you are under stress you tend to eat more? Stress makes you more hungry, and then you crave foods such as junk, fried, sweet, or salty which can give you instant pleasure. So that you get relief from stress. Also, cortisol triggers a craving for these foods. Uncontrolled stress can result in chronic and also hinder overcoming emotional eating.
STUFFING EMOTIONS
You feel Emotional hunger when you are avoiding or trying to hide any stuffed emotions, It can be any emotion anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, loneliness, resentment, shame, or any other emotions. These stuffed emotions pressure to eat more and more and avoid the present emotion is creating the problem. Always try to address and analyze emotions rather than emotional eating.
BOREDOM OR FEELING OF EMPTINESS
If you are finding an emotional eating solution then stop eating whenever you have feelings of boredom or emptiness. This is one of the main causes of emotional eating. When you feel you have nothing to do and feel empty and want to fill that void you start eating. Generally, people start eating to as not to feel bored or will have something to do. Also, this happens because of the purposelessness and dissatisfaction with life.
CHILDHOOD HABITS
Habits are not always good, especially the habits that are bad for health, and one such habit is emotional eating. Sometimes in childhood parents reward children with some good food or anything they like. Even when they are sad or upset about something for pleasing them they give food as a reward. This habit sometimes carries over to adulthood. This creates emotional eating or eating driven by nostalgia.
SOCIAL INFLUENCES
Social influencing these days are the common cause of emotional eating. In public gatherings sometimes we used to do overeating because `everyone is eating and insisting on the same. We don’t realize how lousy it can be for health. We just simply get indulge in comfort eating because of the social situation which is out there.
KEEP AN EMOTIONAL EATING DIARY WITH YOU
It’s important to journalize your eating pattern, whenever you feel overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, or any other emotions. This helps you to identify the eating disorder which you have because of the varied emotions. This food and mood diary will let know how often you are eating without being hungry. One thing you should take care of is that you should be consistent in journalizing the eating pattern at least for a month. Briefly write what makes you eat, what are the reasons, or what is the triggered urge. Write everything related to the eating cycle, what you feel before eating the food, and how you feel after eating the food. By doing this you can recognize a similar pattern of emotional eating, and it may be caused by the reason mentioned above. All you have to do next is find the alternatives for these problems.
ALTERNATIVES TO EMOTIONAL EATING
IF, you are depressed or lonely
To overcome emotional eating in this situation, you call your friend or anyone from your family. And you can express your emotion and thought, or you can play with your pet animal because they will make the mood lighter and more cherished. So you can do all other things to get yourself distracted from this emotion rather than eating any unhealthy or junk food.
IF, you are anxious
Being anxious and emotional eating will simultaneously affect your physical as well as mental health. To avoid or to be distracted from this emotion you have to put expend your nervous energy. You can simply put on some music and can dance for a while until you become normal. Apart from this you can even go out for a walk or can even try squeezing a stress ball.
IF, you are exhausted
Rather than emotionally eating something unhealthy you can try to drink a hot cup of tea or coffee. Apart from this, you can relax your self by taking a hot water bath, or a good nap for a time. This will help you to regain your energy and power, which you will not get after eating. So try this beguile hack whenever you feel exhausted.
IF, you are bored
The best way to overcome boredom is to read books, books are always a good companion and also enrich you with lots of information. Apart from this you can watch a comedy show or can take part in any other activity which excites you. Also do consider enjoying playing some instrument such as guitar.
PRACTICE MINDFUL EATING
Practice mindful eating, it is most crucial to overcome emotional eating . So add this mindful eating in your habit. When you are eating try to resist doing any other activity such as watching television, driving, or playing with your phone. Concentrate and focus on what you are eating and how much your body requires food. This mindful eating practice helps you in long run and prevents you from overeating
BOTTOM LINE
A healthy lifestyle is all needed to overcome emotional or stress eating, when your body is physical and mentally strong any emotions won’t affect you that much. Make sure you are following a healthy lifestyle such as sleeping on time and getting up early along with some exercise or cardio. When all these healthy habits are summed up together you will not feel overwhelmed or exhausted often.
Do follow the following tips
- Make daily exercise a priority. Exercise will help you to balance your emotions along with emotional eating. Physical wellbeing is crucial and pivots for daily functioning. So do make daily exercise your ultimate priority. Adding to this making exercise a habit is not that difficult. It’s a powerful stress reducer also.
- 8 hours of sleep every night. Your body craves sugary food items if you don’t get an adequate amount of sleep. Especially the 8 hours of night sleep is important to control or reduce food cravings.
- Make time for relaxation.30 minutes break is required in a day to regain energy yourself if you feel exhausted or tired.
- Connect with others. Social connection is also very important to having a healthy lifestyle, it reduces stress. Taking part in social activities will eventually distract you from emotional eating
